NC’s Morrow wants Trump to put her in charge of US education policy

North Carolina voters may have rejected her at the ballot box Tuesday, but Michele Morrow is hoping President-elect Donald Trump won’t when he takes office in January.

Morrow, a Republican homeschooling advocate who lost to Democrat Mo Green in the race to become North Carolina’s superintendent of public schools, is now asking Trump to name her as the new U.S. Secretary of Education.

Most education policy and funding in the U.S. is carried out by state and local governments, not the federal government. The federal education department’s priorities include administering a program focused on boosting funding to schools in low-income areas, administering student loans and policing schools and colleges for allegations of racial or gender-based discrimination.

Morrow said she’d look to slash the department’s work on racial equity and withhold funding from states that disagree, saying it goes against a “pro-America” approach to schooling.

“They have been literally been tying the hands of the states and saying, ‘You are not going to receive your education dollars from us unless you have [critical race theory] trainings for teachers, unless you have a [diversity, equity and inclusion] program in every one of your counties, unless you are participating in the [social and emotional learning] program,’” Morrow said. “I think we should do the opposite. I think we should say, ‘Alright, you are not going to be receiving funds unless you are pushing a pro-America — a pro-excellence-in-education — merit-based system.’”

A petition on a website associated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Trump ally, puts forward Morrow to be considered for the education department post. The website enables regular people to make nominations for a variety of government roles. The website says the nominations are for the purposes of public discourse.

Morrow said she didn’t write the nomination herself but would be honored to take the job. She added she hadn’t spoken with anyone on the Trump campaign or White House transition team about it.

Although Morrow lost the statewide race to lead North Carolina’s schools this year — and also lost a 2022 race for a school board seat in Wake County — she said she thinks her views resonated with Republican voters, even if it wasn’t enough voters to carry her to victory in a state Trump also won. Trump beat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris 51% to 48% this year; Morrow lost to Green by a similar margin.

A spokesman for the North Carolina Democratic Party pointed to Morrow’s lack of success in elections, questioning if Trump would support someone with that record, and added that if Trump did put Morrow in charge of the education department, she “would destroy public schools in America.”

During her run for state superintendent, Morrow had said that, if elected, she’d have North Carolina reject the billion-plus dollars it receives in federal funding for schools. She told WRAL Monday that if Trump picked her to run the department, she’d be similarly focused on making budget cuts on a larger scale.

“I think things are very bloated in D.C.,” she said. “How many people are actually in the U.S. Department of Education? Is it 1,000? Is it 5,000? Is it 10,000 people? That needs to be looked at and streamlined.”

The Department of Education has 4,400 employees, according to its website, which says it’s the smallest of all 15 cabinet-level federal agencies.