The race for North Carolina’s House District 88 is a hotly contested showdown between two-term Republican Rep. Rob Bryan and Democratic newcomer Mary Belk, a Charlotte native who says Bryan’s policy decisions are disconnected from the district’s needs.
Bryan is a commercial real estate attorney and former Teach for America participant during his undergraduate years at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He said day-to-day experiences with regulatory policy and education make him the most qualified candidate for another term in the state legislature.
The Democrat Belk said her grass-roots involvement has better prepared her to understand and represent constituents. She’s a graduate of UNC-Charlotte, a community activist, and a former Charlotte Catholic Foundation board member and parent leader at Saint Patrick Elementary School.
House District 88 covers Mecklenburg County, includes some southern parts of Charlotte, and reaches from Dilworth to Cotswold and Eastover. According to the North Carolina FreeEnterprise Foundation, which tracks state elections, the district is solidly Republican. Nearly 37 percent of the population is Republican, 30 percent is Democrat, and 32.8 percent is unaffiliated.
Bryan defeated incumbent Democrat Martha Alexander in 2012 to win his first term by margin of 55 percent to 45 percent. He won re-election in 2014, getting 55 percent of the vote against Democrat Margie Storch.
The candidates agree education is a top priority for constituents, but they have contrasting ideas about policy.
Bryan has been a strong supporter of charter schools, private school vouchers, and other options allowing families more educational freedom. He wants to continue building on school choice options — such as the state’s Opportunity Scholarship Program.
“Opportunity Scholarships do three great things,” Bryan said.
“They save the state money, they actually improve the public schools, and they create an environment of competition,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, education is a public good, and it’s not competition in the negative sense. This is healthy competition. It creates an [environment] where, if you’re not able to meet the child’s needs, those parents deserve a chance to make another choice.”
Belk, who opposes the use of taxpayer money to fund scholarships for K-12 students to attend private schools, said it would be more productive to channel those resources back into public schools to make further improvements and to raise teacher pay.
“We have several private schools in our district, and they give quality education,” Belk said. “And anyone who knows that understands that the small amount that vouchers do give does not cover quality private education, and it doesn’t make a difference to the people who are supposedly getting these.
“That doesn’t mean that we don’t support choice, because parents have to choose what education they feel is best for their children. But the majority of our children are going to be educated in the public school system,” she said.
Vouchers award low-income families $4,200 per year to help fund a child’s private school education. That amount is roughly half the average cost to fund each student enrolled in a traditional public school, Bryan said. Since children who receive Opportunity Scholarships otherwise would be part of that public system, the state is saving money, rather than diverting it, when children take the scholarships to attend private schools, he said.
Belk and Bryan also disagree on the role of public charter schools in the state’s education system, with Belk pointing to what she believes is a lack of accountability and transparency for charter schools.
“Voters don’t have a say over [charter schools], and there are different rules,” Belk said. “When we have choice, it has to have parity. It can’t be at the expense of public schools.”
Bryan pushed back on Belk’s position, stating that charters are already held to strict performance standards, especially with the formal process that requires failing charter schools to close. No such standard is in place for traditional public schools.
“There’s nothing wrong with a rigorous process to get good schools,” he said, “but when you look at the loads of traditional public schools we have that are not benefiting kids, I think, ‘Well, where’s our process to shut down those schools?’”
In addition to education issues, the two candidates hold opposing views on Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.
Bryan, who said he’s willing to look at privatizing some Medicaid costs in hopes of finding a compromise on expansion, is skeptical of any program that potentially gives the federal government more power over the state.
“The government has put a carrot out there to say, ‘We’ll pay for this portion [of Medicaid] for the first few years.’ It’s like you get a really sweet deal for the first three years, but you don’t know what the deal is after that,” Bryan said.
“I think the Left has tried to act like, ‘You’ve turned down free money and free jobs,’ and I think that whole notion is part of why our country’s in trouble,” he said.
Belk disagrees with Bryan’s position, pointing to a lack of publicly funded mental health programs as a reason to expand Medicaid in North Carolina.
“I think it’s important to go into the field and deal with folks that have mental health issues, so I think it’s a really important aspect of health care,” Belk said.
“I’m also talking about treatment programs. I think that helps keep people away from the criminal justice system,” Belk said. “We should go ahead and readdress the fact that we did not accept a fully funded expansion in Medicaid. I think that would help us, too.”