This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox.

By many accounts, Michele Morrow is the least likely candidate to lead North Carolina’s education system. 

She’s been homeschooling her children for over a decade, participated in the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and has used choice words like “indoctrination centers” to describe public schools. And then there’s the 2020 tweet she said the media won’t let her forget — the one in which she called for a televised execution of former President Barack Obama. 

In an interview with The 74, Morrow, who has previously avoided questions about her past tweets, downplayed the comments. “Did I say things in jest? Absolutely,” she said. The former nurse unexpectedly ousted Republican incumbent Catherine Truitt in the primary and now faces Maurice “Mo” Green, a former district superintendent, in the general election. She brushes off her inflammatory tweets as just “a political thing.” 

“That’s between adults,” she said. “That’s not what I think should be happening in our classrooms.”

Morrow isn’t the only Jan. 6 participant vying for office this November. One is in a primary for a Congressional seat, and an organizer of the rally is running for the Texas House. But if elected, Morrow would become the only protester responsible for more than 2,700 schools and a $13 billion education budget.

She counts her nine years teaching science and Spanish for a homeschool co-op as her primary qualification for the job and said that after six years talking to parents and educators, she has a “clear understanding” of what voters are looking for in a state schools chief, starting with a strong focus on academics and character development. Green, meanwhile, is trumpeting his experience leading an education agency and advocating for increased education funding at a time when Republican lawmakers are expanding vouchers. 

In interviews, Morrow espouses policies — like a scientific approach to reading instruction and high-dosage tutoring in math — that could bridge the partisan divide in a state with a Democratic governor and Republican-controlled House and Senate. But her past actions and occasionally extreme language are alienating would-be allies.

“I’m fearful of the rhetoric,” said Marcus Brandon, who leads CarolinaCAN, part of a network of policy and advocacy groups that support school choice. He pushed for expansion of the state’s voucher program, and said while Morrow is “good for my issue on paper,” he thinks Green is more qualified. A former lawyer, Green led the Guilford County Schools, which includes Greensboro, for seven years.

“We need a strong public school system,” Brandon said. “Seventy-five percent of our kids are going to go there.” 

Following her surprise victory in the March primary, Morrow’s campaign attracted a big influx of cash from North Carolina’s business community. But she lags behind Green in fundraising. At the end of June, Green had over $578,000 on hand to Morrow’s $50,600. 

Whoever wins faces a system with critical challenges, like record-setting teacher turnover and flat funding. According to the Education Law Center’s most recent school finance report, North Carolina ranks 48th in per-student funding, almost $5,000 below the national average of $16,131. Morrow argues there’s already plenty of money for education and districts just need to “triage.” 

“We need someone who can lead us in a way that prioritizes students,” said Lauren Fox, senior director of policy and research at the Public School Forum of North Carolina, a think tank that supports public schools. She hopes the next superintendent will continue Truitt’s practice of appointing a teacher adviser at a time when teachers currently feel “demonized and that their voices aren’t being heard.” 

Green agrees and often reminds the public that Morrow, during some of her Facebook live posts early in the pandemic, used words like “cesspool of evil and lies” to describe public schools. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor, has made similar disparaging remarks, calling teachers “wicked people” in a speech last year. 

“Our educators are being disrespected,” Green told The 74. The state ranks 42nd in starting teacher pay, according to the latest National Education Association salary report. “It’s especially challenging to bring folks into this really important profession when you’re not paying them well enough.” 

During his tenure, from 2008 to 2015, Guilford saw graduation rates climb nearly 10 percentage points to over 89% and rising scores on the ACT college entrance exam. 

Recruited to run by outgoing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, Green said he’s better positioned to press for state spending increases while helping districts adjust to tighter budgets as federal relief funds dry up. He took over the Guilford district at the start of the Great Recession and said one of his first tasks was to return money to the state so officials could balance the budget.

After leaving Guilford, Green led the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, a philanthropy that funds a range of education, social and environmental causes. In Guilford, he supported charter schools and encouraged choice within the district. But he said, “We can’t have great choices in our public schools when you don’t provide even close to adequate resources for them.”

His point resonates with many in a state where a group of poor districts sued in 1994 to get enough funding to provide students with a basic education. The foundation he led funded efforts to determine how much the state should provide for programs like pre-K and teacher preparation. The conservative state Supreme Court, however, is now deciding whether to overturn a 2022 opinion directing North Carolina to spend $800 million to improve education in the poorest parts of the state.

Green called the foundation “an organization that certainly tries to lift up marginalized communities.” 

But Morrow has seized on Green’s ties to the association to label him a progressive and extremist. She points to the organization’s financing of groups who push for reducing the presence of school resource officers to curb the school-to-prison pipeline.

She said she’s watching out for teachers by making student discipline the centerpiece of her platform. She cited state data showing almost 1,500 assaults by students on public school employees during the 2022-23 school year and attended a recent sheriff’s convention in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to address school safety. 

Morrow thinks she’s been unfairly judged by educators in the public system and insists she only decided to homeschool when her oldest daughter, who had learning disabilities, wasn’t making progress. 

“She was having math tutoring every day, and she still wasn’t learning math facts,” she said. 

She eventually homeschooled her other four children, but stressed that she doesn’t think all public schools are bad. As an example, she pointed to her local Wake County district’s standout STEM programs. 

“This whole idea that because your children are not in public school, that means you hate public school — nothing could be further from the truth,” she said.

Morrow described any past online vitriol as “rhetorical hyperbole” that wasn’t “bothering anybody” until the media focused on it.

But at a June conservative gathering called America Day, south of Greensboro, some of her comments had a familiar ring. 

“The greatest threat to the constitutional Republic that we call home is the indoctrination happening in our public school system today,” she said. In other interviews, she has voiced opposition to discussions of race and gender in the classroom.

Morrow said she holds a monthly Zoom meeting with teachers, but has twice turned down invitations to share the stage with her Democratic opponent. 

“She is running for office by running against the current system,” said Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. If Green wants to draw the spotlight away from her, Cooper said he must “raise the salience” of the office.

“The superintendent of public instruction is not, in normal circumstances, an office that voters know a lot about,” he said. And most statewide races “do not draw attention outside of the borders of North Carolina,” making this chief’s race unique. 

But ultimately, the outcome in a purple state will likely rest not on either candidate’s platform, he said, but on whether Robinson, the GOP candidate for governor, and former President Donald Trump prevail on election night.

“If Morrow does win,” he said, “it will likely be on the backs of a larger number of Republican wins in North Carolina.”