CPAC North Carolina- Catherine Truitt

I'm rushing up to this podium because there's not a minute to lose when it talks about fixing education now. My name is Katherine Truitt and I am your Republican nominee for superintendent of public instruction. This is such an important issue, education, however a lot of people don't know that we have a state superintendent of public instruction. They don't know what the role is. They don't know that it's elected. It's actually not elected in most states. It's actually appointed, but I'm here today to share some very important information with you about my platform and about why you should be very concerned about who gets elected to this role. Everyone in this space out here, this beautiful space, knows that when it comes to education, money does correlate to outcomes. If you doubt what I'm saying, consider that during Governor Hunt's 16 years of tax and spend policies throughout the 80s and 90s, 67% of 8th graders when he exited office could not read nor do math proficiently headed into high school. 67%. And guess what that statistic is today? It's still 67%. Take three schools in three counties, one in Guilford County, one in Halifax, one in Northampton. These three schools represent the highest per pupil expenditure in the state and only half of kids in those three schools read on grade level. What the left cannot get their heads around is that it's not just about how much money we spend, it's how we spend the money. We cannot afford to continue to look at only inputs and not look at outputs because the consequences of a failing public education that does not serve all students is this. Right now in North Carolina, only half, only half of 25 to 44 year olds hold a credential of workplace value. Our economy cannot afford this. So let's talk about those students who are not being served. Less than a third of Hispanic 8th graders read math and read and do math proficiently. Only 14% of African-American 8th graders do. The left claims that school choice is starving public education of much needed funding and refuses to acknowledge the need for parental choice. And every time they do this, they prioritize the system over the people who participate in public education. Schools exist to serve students, not to provide jobs for teachers. Thank you. And I stand with President Trump and Secretary DeVos in support of charter schools and opportunity scholarships because no student should be trapped in a failing school without a choice or a way out. Governor Cooper and my opponent want to defund the opportunity scholarship. His last budget did defund that scholarship, which is very interesting considering that his own children went to private school in Raleigh. And they want to move charter schools under district control. And who is my opponent anyway? Let me tell you. Like me, she is the endorsed candidate. Sorry, not like me. She is the endorsed candidate of the Teachers Union. She is a former classroom teacher like me. However, she has spent most of her career in academia as a professor of education. I spent 13 years in the classroom, three years as a turnaround coach in failing schools. I was Governor McCrory's senior education advisor. I worked in the UNC system under President Spellings. And now I lead WGU North Carolina, a 100% online nonprofit university. Our commercials have the owls. You may have seen them. And we are the most disruptive thing to happen to higher education ever. So my opponent moves in lockstep with the NCAE, who is funding her campaign with big union money from out of state. You've heard about this app that the Dems have, Act Blue, where they funnel in money from all over the country into whichever race they want. I can account for every single dollar. I know where every single dollar of my donations have come from. She cannot say the same. She wants to defund the police. She wants to eliminate school choice and remove accountability from schools. And worst of all right now, she wants to keep schools closed. She has outspent me three to one. But guess what? We're tied. And you know why we're tied? We're tied because voters from both sides of the aisle want to support school choice, they want their children back in school, and they don't want to defund the police. So every day that children are not in school is a lost opportunity. And thanks to the governor's one-fits-none-size approach from Raleigh, we have some students in class and others not at all in class still stuck at home with technology that doesn't work for them. I promise to advocate for local control because local control is what's best for students. You know, until recently, the Democrats have been in charge of education in North Carolina for 140 years. In fact, it was Democratic governor in 1898 who created the literacy test to suppress black voters. But they still claim to be the party of education. The truth is that no matter how much money we've spent on education over the last 40 years, and no matter which party has been in charge, quite frankly, we have not moved the needle on achievement for all kids in North Carolina. Gaps still exist between low-income students and their wealthier counterparts that existed back in 1992. We cannot continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. The system must adjust to the student, not the other way around. My vision for North Carolina public schools starts with calling out what doesn't work and building a coalition of the willing to find innovative solutions to decades-old problems. The teachers union and the far left, they're scared to death of a confident, conservative woman winning this election. But with your help, that's what I intend to do. A vote for me is a vote for parent choice instead of state directives. A vote for me is about innovation, not bureaucracy. And a vote for me is for students, not the system. Thank you all so much and God bless you.