Source: WRAL
Right-wing extremist candidates Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Michele Morrow, who are running for governor and state superintendent respectively, are taking heat for their misguided and nonsensical comments regarding federal education funding.
WRAL recently obtained a video of a July 10 Robinson speech that he made at a private event near Asheville where he told attendees he would like to abolish the U.S. Department of Education and wouldn’t accept federal education funding.
Responding to an audience question about “what he could do to fight school bureaucracy at the federal level,” Robinson said he would like to see the state opt out of receiving those education funds, according to WRAL.
“If I had my way about it, they’d send the check and I’d say, ‘Oh, no, you can have it. I don’t want your money,” he said. “Your money comes with too many rotten obligations. We don’t want it.”
“Honestly, come on. There should be no federal department of education,” Robinson said.
Getting rid of the U.S. Department of Education is an extreme position, but it’s now a relatively common one in Republican circles. In fact, it’s being pushed by some of the most right-wing and influential conservatives in the country today. It’s one of the plans highlighted in the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” blueprint for a second Trump term in Washington.
“They have no business telling a state how to operate the education system, but they do,” Robinson told his supporters at the event. “That’s why we need to cut their money off. That’s why it’s important for us to be fiscally responsible with our education dollars, cut the waste and cut the bureaucracy so that we can do what we need to do without their help.”
MAGA extremist, conspiracy theorist and insurrectionist Michele Morrow told WRAL in a recent interview that she would also support getting the federal government out of North Carolina schools. She told WRAL that teachers have complained to her about being “forced to do things” because of regulations that come along with the federal dollars.
“People need to recognize that the federal government, along with every dollar that they give us, there is an expectation that we are going to push an agenda that comes from them, and that comes with strings,” Morrow said.
Morrow said that if she’s elected, one of her first moves will be to “audit” the NC Department of Public Instruction’s (NCDPI) federally funded programs to see if they contribute to student achievement. If she determines that they don’t, she said she’ll tell the federal government to “Back off” because “we don’t need your money, and we’re going to do it just as a state.”
North Carolina, a state in which the Republican-led legislature continuously and intentionally fails to properly fund public schools, would be the first to actually turn down federal education funds.
According to WRAL, Utah, Oklahoma and Tennessee have threatened to turn down the funds but haven’t gone through with it.
According to NCDPI, in the most recent completed school year, the state received around $1.67 billion in federal education money.
A breakdown:
- $688 million supported lower-income students and the schools that serve them.
- $531 million went to school nutrition programs.
- $380 million served students with special needs.
- $43 million supported career and technical education.
- $33 million funded other programs, including substance abuse and mental health care.
NCDPI spokesperson Blair Rhoades told WRAL that the state’s nutrition funding comes from the USDA and isn’t necessarily tied to education funding, meaning that in the Robinson/Morrow scenario, the state may be able to keep that funding and reject the rest. If that were to happen, North Carolina would have a $1.1 billion hole in education spending.
WRAL contacted both campaigns to ask how they would fill in the $1.1 billion gap and neither had an answer.
Attorney General Josh Stein, Robinson’s Democratic gubernatorial opponent, called him “the anti-public education candidate.”
Robinson “has already declared that he would ‘slash’ public education funding in North Carolina, and now he is pledging to forfeit billions of dollars of our own tax money that is used to educate our kids,” Stein said in a statement to WRAL. “I’m in this race to defend public schools; my opponent just wants to defund them.”
Mo Green, Morrow’s Democratic rival in the superintendent race, also criticized the idea, saying the state’s public schools need more funding for services, not less, especially for lower-income students who currently benefit from the federal funding.
“Robinson and my opponent would support taking millions more of our taxpayer funds and funnel them into private and religious schools for the wealthy,” Green said. “Their goal is to defund public education, and I will never support that.”
The North Carolina Association of Educators responded to Robinson’s plan, saying, “It is a callous and irresponsible idea that directly harms students in need. North Carolina must reject this harmful idea that candidates like Robinson are suggesting. Nothing is more important than our children’s future and we need all the help we can get to invest in their success.”
