In February of 2023, North Carolina state representative Hugh Blackwell introduced a bill that would make the state Board of Education an elected position. Such a change would require a constitutional amendment, and in North Carolina, that would mean a popular vote approving the measure. In May of 2024, the North Carolina Republican Party passed a resolution at their state convention calling for the board to be elected, echoing the sentiment of Blackwell’s bill. When a new General Assembly was elected at the end of that year, Blackwell reintroduced it in February 2025 as HB 144. It sat stuck in committee until May 14 of this year when it started to move, raising the possibility that it could be included on the 2026 ballot in November.
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Currently, the governor appoints eleven of the state Board of Education’s thirteen seats, with eight of those coming from different regions of the state. Another two seats are filled by the state treasurer and the lieutenant governor for a total of thirteen members. The eleven appointees serve eight-year terms, while the treasurer and lieutenant governor are subject to election every four years and thus their terms on the board are limited. This creates a board comprised of those with the means and connections to place themselves before the governor for appointment. In North Carolina’s history, it has elected six Republican governors compared to thirty-eight Democrats. Since 1992, the state has elected only one Republican, with his term stretching from 2012 to 2016. This means that in addition to narrowing the field to those with connections, the current system overwhelmingly favors Democrats.
North Carolina is a Dillon’s Rule state, meaning tremendous power is given to the state in all areas, and education is no different. This was learned by parents attending county school board meetings during COVID and the George Floyd riots, who were faced with the limited power of local boards. Among those state-level powers is the setting of the curriculum.
This current arrangement suits Democrats just fine, and reactions to potential elections for board seats was swift and predictable. In a Substack post with the cool, calm and collected title of “disaster on the ballot,” the left-leaning blogger Theo Nollert states:
“This bill continues an unhappy trend of changes made to the state government to make basic state functions more partisan, more political, and less fair.”
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Surprisingly, the Right has also produced some criticism for the bill with Andrew Dunn posting on his blog Longleaf Politics “I think a better course of action would be to make education policy more directly controlled by the governor.”(2) For a conservative to take this position in a state where an overwhelming number of governors have been Democrats is either a statement of noteworthy optimism, or a surrender. If it is a surrender, then the cultural and real political implications of controlling the state curriculum have not been fully grasped. If it is optimism, well, to each his own.
In personal conversations with well-connected individuals in North Carolina politics, I have also heard concerns about campaign spending. To put such an amendment on the ballot would draw heavy amounts of spending from left-wing education groups eager to maintain the status quo. The thought here is that conservatives would be unable to match the spending in the runup to the November election, and the measure would fail, giving Republicans a black eye. Adding to this anxiety are expectations that 2026 will already be a difficult year for conservatives, and such a ballot measure would only make things more difficult. But this line of thinking assumes there will be a more favorable opportunity in the future and with amendments requiring a legislative supermajority to appear on the ballot, it is not certain there will be an opportunity in the future. Here again, it becomes a question of how important curriculum control is. If having a seat at the table when setting the state curriculum is of low priority, then it makes sense to roll the dice and see if a supermajority exists in a year more favorable to conservative ballot measures. As for the campaign expenditures, it is probably true that conservatives will be unable to match the spending level of left-wing education groups. In such a scenario, does it hurt conservatives to give leftists something else to spend their money on? Perhaps those are funds Democrats would rather have spent on other races in the state, such as Don Davis’ bid for re-election or the U.S. Senate contest.
In summary, the prospects of real change in the state Board of Education seemed high ten days ago, but anxieties among conservatives have tempered those possibilities. The Left must be sighing in relief, as they understand the importance of controlling the curriculum and they are happy with the status quo.
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Image: Government of North Carolina