To Republican gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory, one word threatens students’ educational future the most: control. The solution, he said in Durham last week, is choice.
“Choice has got to be an alternative, because the status quo is no longer acceptable,” McCrory told a crowd of several hundred parents, children, and educators at a rally Oct. 28 at King’s Park International Church in south Durham. McCrory talked up private, charter, and homeschools as an option to traditional public schools, and said that as governor he would “break up” bureaucratic control and expand choice in education.
“They want to control your curriculum and what to teach your children,” he said. “They want to control how to build your schools, because they think they know the design that fits every need of every student. They even want to design how you build your cafeteria, how to design your classroom, how to design your gym, because it’s all about control.”
The seven-term Charlotte mayor was the focal point of the event, sponsored by Partners for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, a nonprofit school choice advocacy group. His speech, and the question-and-answer session that followed, underscored what has been a heated debate about school choice in the gubernatorial race.
McCrory’s opponent, Democrat Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, has criticized the Charlotte mayor on school vouchers. One ad sponsored by Perdue says that vouchers would take $900 million away from public schools, and that McCrory would have to “slash public education or raise taxes” to pay the tab.
“You don’t [support education] with vouchers, the way the mayor of Charlotte proposes,” Perdue said in a debate Sept. 9. “You don’t tear down and take out nearly a billion dollars from the public school system to support private tuition credits for some other folks.”
McCrory addressed the criticism at the event, which Perdue declined to attend. “I would like to experiment with some sort of limited scholarships for special needs children so parents can have a choice, especially if the school is failing them … I’m not going to offer it to everybody, but right now let’s try a selective approach,” he said.
McCrory advocated opening public school facilities to homeschool students, providing a two-tiered curriculum track for traditional colleges and vocational schools, and lifting the 100-school cap on charter schools.
“We ought to lift that cap immediately,” McCrory said, dismissing Perdue’s position that some charter schools have failed. “What are we afraid of? We have a 30 to 50 percent dropout rate. Could it get much worse?”
The event featured several other speakers, including Osco Gardin Jr., a pastor from Monroe. “I want our next governor to support school choice. That’s my purpose for being here tonight,” he said.
Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina president Darrell Allison also emphasized the importance of the gubernatorial race. “When we look at this state and the nation, 14 states have parental school choice and equal opportunities in education,” he said. “In 13 of those states, it was because of a governor who wanted it.”
The rally was the second that PEFNC has participated in since the group incorporated in 2005. More than 1,000 people attended the first event, held in March 2007 at Upper Room Christian Academy in Raleigh.
The group’s mission, to bring educational choice to poor families, was illustrated at the rally last week when Allison awarded scholarships to two needy North Carolina mothers. One of them, Susie Johnson of Youngsville, is a stay-at-home mom on a limited income. Two of her four boys have serious medical conditions. The scholarship will allow her sons to keep attending a private Christian school in Raleigh.
“This is what we mean by school choice,” Allison said. “This notion, this idea, that it’s just for the wealthy and that it will actually be a danger to the working poor and working middle class family is nonsense.”
David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.