- [Kelly] The State Supreme Court gets involved in the Allison Riggs Jefferson Griffin State Supreme Court Race, and new legislation could lift the student cap on elementary school classrooms.

This is "State Lines."

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[bright music] ♪ - Welcome back to "State Lines," I'm Kelly McCullen.

We have a great panel here today.

Joining me, former North Carolina State Representative, Jason Saine, active State Representative, Zack Hawkins is to his right from Durham County, and then driving up from Johnston County is Senator Benton Sawrey, and in seat four, former North Carolina State Senator, Mary Wills Bode.

Hello everybody.

- Hello.

- Hi.

Lots to look forward, if you start missing it you can reminisce with the current act of elected officials.

- Best part, we can just ask them what's going on.

[panel laughing] - All right, let's talk about the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

It ruled two to one this week by that Republican majority that challenge ballots in the Allison Riggs Jefferson Griffin State Supreme Court Race must be quote, "cured," or they get tossed out but the North Carolina Supreme Court has stepped in to halt this ruling.

The Appeals Court majority won over 60,000 voters to confirm or complete the registration, which would verify the ballot that was cast.

But the dissenting judge says, "The voters had no reason to believe their ballots would not be counted."

So the ballot should be counted.

This is one where even Republican judges say, "Yep, there were problems with the past election process but you don't go back and change the results, you look forward."

You say?

- I was pleased to see that the Court of Appeals do not toss out votes.

And I don't think, I think it's important to be clear that nobody is saying this is the fault of the voters in this.

I think the Court of Appeals affirm that this is the State Board of Elections problem.

They knew about the problem.

They didn't take the steps to rectify the problem, and the Court of Appeals came up with a process they could cure their ballots.

Now obviously the Supreme Court stopped it I think the briefing deadline is today and we'll see what happens.

There've been some interesting orders that have come down for the Supreme Court recently.

It's hard to read the tea leaves but we'll be following this very closely.

- Representative Hawkins, this has been one Democrats made a lot of hay about this race but the Court of Appeals is a process-driven court and they found problems with the process, if not the voters.

- I'm glad democracy is open to criticism at every step.

And what the Supreme Court did by halting that process and stopping it, those ballots from being thrown out potentially could save democracy.

And the reasons that the senator mentioned, people at the end of the day who were voters knew that they went to the ballot and they cast their votes for who they wanted.

There was an election, 734 people more than Jefferson Griffin said that they agreed with the choice and we need to make sure that we honor the voters in the future.

We can improve the process, but that can't be done right now.

- Jason, all indications were the Board of Elections knew.

The State Board of Elections knew there were problems with the process, that some of these registrations were not complete and still counted those ballots.

What do you do with a voter who may not know that they've partially registered versus those that were never North Carolinians who cast ballots, those were completely tossed out.

- That's the real rub, because if you're a voter, you do it all the right way, like I have, every time I voted.

I wanna trust that everybody else is following that same process.

And part of that is understanding there, it's a huge responsibility to go vote.

We all take it very seriously.

We've been in elected office, we know how important it is, making sure that we have a process that has the integrity that people can trust in it, that every voter, when they go, they go, "Look, I did the same process as everybody else and was treated the same way."

I think that, more than anything, needs to be rectified.

And so taking a pause and having, I think, whatever the outcome of this case, I think it's very important that we do that, so that voters into the future still show up at the polls because they trust in the process.

- Mary Wills, if the higher courts, they start looking into this and they do see problems with the process, and it creates a situation where ballots just aren't, they're not proper ballots at the end of the day.

Where do we go here as a democracy?

Because both parties are gonna politicize this, even if judges are making a judgment that in their mind is the legal statement of this day.

- Sure.

Well, I think that voter confidence, everyone's talked about that.

Voter confidence is a concern.

Look, we all want eligible voters to be able to cast their allots and then be counted, but we want ineligible voters for their votes not to count.

But that is not what this case is about.

This case is about three types of voters who voted in good faith according to the established lawful procedures who are now having their ballots potentially canceled.

So those voters are voters, as mentioned, had allegedly incomplete voter registration forms.

Almost all of them have voted in previous elections.

A number of them are actually elected officials in North Carolina.

We're talking about military and overseas ballots that did not have the photo ID attached to their absentee ballots, which is not required by state or federal law.

And we're also talking about children who were born overseas to North Carolinians, who are dependents of their parents.

And so all of these voters were lawful voters that voted in the election.

They were all early voters.

And so I think it is very damaging to democracy to say, we're gonna change the rules after the fact.

I think that does, I think that sets a very dangerous precedent.

It's anathema to how laws are supposed to work, especially around elections.

And I don't think you get to retrofit an election outcome after election day.

And I think the vast majority of North Carolinians and North Carolina voters agree with that.

- And that's the point to highlight is that they voted before, and these are military and overseas voters.

These are people who have voted in previous elections and have never been questioned.

And so the over politicization of this election, just because Jefferson Griffin didn't win this time, doesn't mean he can't put himself in the ballot the next time.

And so I really wanna make sure that we work to preserve democracy in North Carolina by ensuring that this vote goes forward.

- Senator, sorry.

If the process were flawed and we've all been on this show and heard that it was known about a year ago or more, why couldn't that be fixed at the state level by the Senate, the House, or the Board of Elections, or the executive branch, or anyone besides getting these voters caught up with their ballots possibly being tossed?

- Well, I think there were attempts to do so.

I mean, the law is clear on what's required at the registration of a voter.

It's just a case where the State Board of Elections, for whatever reason, years ago, had a flawed registration process for this specific bucket of voters.

There was some litigation that occurred leading up to the election.

It didn't pan out.

I believe there's some federal court cases, don't recall exactly, but it goes back to the process of integrity.

Nobody, and I'm gonna be clear about this.

Nobody's laying this fault at the voters themselves.

You know, it's a difficult process to go through, I mean, to register to vote, to be part, to engage.

But the State Board of Elections has some fundamental issues that need to be recognized and need to be thought through, which is why I think we're taking some steps at the legislative level to really take a look at what the administration process looks like.

- And I think if you're gonna look forward too, you gotta have good data, right?

And I think having this question helps you get to a better place in good data, right?

If you're looking at, what is wrong with the process?

Why did this happen?

I mean, I think just simply ignoring it is absolutely the wrong way to go.

So, if anything else out of this.

We get a better process out of it, we get a better understanding of what needs to happen, and I think that helps restore trust to the folks who are going to the polls and voting.

- Well, one thing that I just wanna highlight though, is this is only relevant to votes that were cast during early vote, and so we create a very real and significant equal protection issue when we're canceling voters who maybe potentially had incomplete voter registration forms from early vote.

But those people who voted on election day, they are not treated similarly, and so, I think that this is ripe for when we open this box and we go down this road and we say, "Well, these votes are gonna count, but these aren't," we're really inviting a lot of distrust and doing a significant amount of damage.

And if there is a problem in the process, then the appropriate thing would be to fix it for the next election.

- And then the federal courts said, "Handle this at the state level."

This could this end up back in federal court once the state Supreme Court handles it, right?

- It could, it absolutely could, but the thing that I also wanna highlight is that the nonpartisan board of elections called this race.

They said that there was nothing that needs to stop this process of halting the results from this election.

We need to move forward.

That's exactly what they said.

But the other thing is, is that all of these races, this is the only race of all on the ballot that was called.

The Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Attorney General, there are lots of other close races on the ballot, and I don't want us to over-politicize this because, to the former Senator's point, we don't want early voting to become a part of the process that people don't wanna take part in, and don't trust.

That has been one of the hallmarks of North Carolina elections, that thousands, millions of people have used that as a vehicle, and we don't want that to be an area where people pull back and don't take part, and there's no way North Carolina can take all those people on election day.

- Republicans love early voting now.

- They do, just ask Paul Schumaker.

- They do love it.

They do now.

- Let's talk about some schools, Representative Hawkins.

Legislative Republicans are pushing legislation to allow larger class sizes for kindergarten through third grade.

State laws capped that class size in K through three, but fourth grade and higher have no size caps.

Republicans capped those elementary classrooms back in 2017 with good intentions with the effect, according to some local school districts, especially Wake County, was it forced student reassignment, and they had to close enrollment at full elementary schools near kids houses.

To you Representative, you're from Durham County.

That's a big city school district.

Good intentions to keep class sizes low, and then the local school districts go, "Yeah, but it seems like parents aren't happy."

- And parents shouldn't be happy with that.

I'm a former classroom teacher.

I have two kids in elementary school, and there is a formula for making sure that you have a certain number of kids so that you can have good classroom dynamics, every kid can get attention, and at the level of instruction and the type of learning environment is set for those in K through three.

They did it for a good reason, and I think that we need to keep it there.

By enlarging the class size, you are not allowing for student success.

You're not increasing student outcomes.

What's really happening is that we're allowing this particular process to overcome what we have not done in the state government, which is fund public schools to a point where we can have enough teachers in the classroom, high quality teachers, as well as making sure that we have enough space, enough buildings across North Carolina to fit the needs of our kids.

- Senator.

- What we're doing right now, public education in North Carolina seems to work.

We are growing with our national test scores.

Our students are succeeding.

They're doing well.

We're making major investments in our public schools and continuing to see year over year pay increases.

We're creating new advanced teaching roles So I disagree with Representative's point that we're not taking seriously our responsibility to public education in North Carolina.

It's a common theme that I just wanna push back on.

With respect to this particular piece of legislation, I generally disagree.

I have a seven, excuse me, almost a 6-year-old, excuse me, a 6-year-old, almost a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old child.

Class size matters, especially at that age group.

And I do think it's right to have lower class sizes, but I will say that local district flexibility and what works, they might have some pilot programs they wanna try.

Perhaps there's some room for some conversation about that.

But generally, smaller class sizes make sense, especially for that K-3 age group.

- Well, that's good to hear, 'cause that's exactly what I'm saying.

And we should not have larger class sizes for those in K-3, making sure that we keep a good student-to-teacher ratio, with a good teacher assistant in the classroom allows every student to learn.

And so I wanna make sure that I share that.

In contrast, that we should not be enlarging the sizes of our classrooms.

And between Durham County, Guilford County, Wake County, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, those are the places that are probably pushing back on larger K-3 class sizes.

And making sure that we have the type of environment that students can learn is exactly where we need to go.

This is not only from someone who served as a public school teacher, but somebody who, again, who has kids, special needs kids, where we have to make sure that they are centered.

- There's a different type of education, right?

Jason, do we have good data on classroom sizes.

Does it really matter if it's 17 kids versus 20 kids in the classroom in low grades?

- Well, maybe a little different opinion on it.

But we're still doing the same thing that we did back in the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s.

We're treating it all the same way.

We do know we have made an innovation in education.

We know that kids learn differently.

So the one-size-fits-all for everybody is the thing that probably bugs me the most.

I'm not sure that there's a right formula.

There's a generalization certainly, but I think that to your point about being able to innovate, to be able to look at things a little differently, to try new things, to pilot new things, I think more than anything needs to happen, because we've got a generation of kids, including mine, who's gone through COVID and lived through those years and are learning differently as well.

And just knowing that we shouldn't always do the same thing over and over again, thinking that we have perfected it and thinking that is absolutely the way that we always must do it.

So I think looking at ways to innovate, looking at things a little differently through a little different lens, making sure that we get the right education that fits the needs of that particular child, not just an overall generalization is probably the most important thing.

And yeah, it's a challenge for lawmakers.

I mean, nobody's got a silver bullet.

Nobody knows what's on the horizon.

We're doing our best to guess, but we have to keep guessing so that we innovate, so that we don't always do it the same way.

And I think too that we've gotta look at how teachers teach in the classroom too.

They have changed.

How they approach education, we have had advances.

People have looked, so I think these bills, I think, or at least they planting a flag, saying, "We're not always gonna do it the same way."

And I think that, more than anything, is the important part and the takeaway.

And it'll change two years from now.

You'll make different policy decisions two years from now.

So we always need to be following that wave and look at it.

- I'm hearing a deregulation of traditional schools.

Let some local schools do some things.

- Well, and that's completely fine.

But what we don't wanna end up with is a classrooms of 30 kids.

And most people that would ask for that have never been in the classroom, never managed the classroom, and may have experienced with their own children.

But it is a much different way to make sure, because you can't innovate when you have 1:20, a 1:17 ratio.

- Alright, Mary Wills, you represent those rural counties, and I know this has been a big deal for you.

- Yeah, sure.

So I think like anything, what you put into it is what you get out of it.

Regardless of innovating or not, there's some basic principles.

And if we look at the facts and the statistics about what we're putting in to our public education system in North Carolina, North Carolina ranks in the top 10 worst States in the country for teacher pay, and we're the second to last in the country for per pupil spending.

So that's the input side.

ON the output side, last year in North Carolina, only 54% of our students in K through 12 were proficient on their year end exams.

And so, you know, if we wanna talk about innovating, I think that is great.

But study after study has shown that, especially in K through 3, small class sizes matter.

Even one study said that the odds of a student graduating from high school was 80% more likely if they had a small classroom size in that K through 3 educational experience.

- That Bill may have some trouble.

They got a bipartisan consensus.

People like small class size as well.

Let's also talk about another provision that would allow schools, public schools to hire up to 50% of what's called unlicensed teachers at one particular campus.

Charter schools already have this flexibility, but traditional schools must hire 100% licensed teachers.

Every job.

There are public school teachers who are currently teaching under temporary licenses.

Mary Wills are working to get that permanent license.

There's now a shortage of public school teachers and 10% of the teachers set to heck with it.

We're quitting the career or going into charter or private schools.

Once again, rethinking some things, licensed versus unlicensed teachers.

Does that really mean anything if a teacher's good?

Does the license make the teacher?

- You know, I think that, you know, the most important thing for a teacher, actually teacher quality is the longevity of the teacher.

How long the teacher has been in the classroom.

So, you know, I am all about innovation.

I think that's great.

I do think we need to take a serious look at that.

But if you ask any business owner how they're gonna improve their product, it's not by hiring unskilled labor with low wages and deregulating the quality, the quality controls.

And you know, we like to borrow from the private sector into the public sector, and we know that that's true.

If we wanna attract teachers to a profession, which is what teaching is, it is a profession.

You know, we've got to increase teacher pay.

We've gotta be thinking creatively about how we're gonna recruit teachers to places where, you know, we don't really have as many teachers.

In Granville County, we have had to go abroad to bring teachers in, licensed teachers in, which has been great for Granville County, but it's very costly.

And so, you know, if we're gonna continue to try and be a state that's competitive in business, then we've gotta get really serious about making this a priority, and investing in recruiting rather the best and brightest to be teachers in our state.

Because that is what our future is all about.

These kids and their ability to be productive citizens in the future.

- I don't think a license means that you're the best and brightest or the best at your particular job.

I mean, something that we've done over the past decade or so since Republicans back control of the general assemblies, is look at licensing barriers and regulations in North Carolina.

You know, you can have people that are experts in their particular trade that don't have the license.

You can have people that are subject matter experts that are teaching our students something that's very pertinent in the classroom.

We already see it at the community college level with our adjunct professors, at the university level with some of our professors.

I mean, I remember one of my best professor at NC State was a lawyer and he taught business law courses.

He didn't have a license to teach, but he was a subject matter expert in that particular field.

We have STEM classes all over North Carolina where a teaching license might not make that person excellent teacher, but whether they have a background in some type of science, tech, or engineering subject can help them and can excite the students, can make them excited to go look at STEM possibilities and things like that.

It's not requiring that we have unlicensed teachers, but it's giving the flexibility to go look for those people in our community where that license might be a barrier and bring people into the classrooms where they can help teachers and help our school systems.

- Representative Hawkins it was teacher shortages in Durham County, Wake County.

There's some great educators out there, but they're not gonna want to change careers and get a license.

Is is this an occupational licensing issue or is this a license that protects students against bad teachers?

- Well, just to, to make sure that I outlined, there are about five to 6,000, a teacher shortage across North Carolina.

So I understand and can appreciate the need for different ideas.

There are lots of teachers that are using the provisional license, and what we would love to do is find those who are in the private sector who would like to go through that process and be a part of the classroom.

But there are some, also, there's some fundamental pieces about being a teacher.

When you go through an educational preparatory program, you learn, again, classroom management, you learn how to make sure that you're dealing with outcomes.

Because sometimes, if you're an expert, you know how to talk about your subject, but you are not worried about what the outcomes are and what the student or the particular person is learning.

And those learning outcomes are key because we can't be competitive in AI.

We can't be competitive in tech.

We can't be competitive in making sure that North Carolina returns to its spot as the number one place to do business in the country without qualified teachers in the classroom.

And so to the former senator's point, the best thing to do is to make sure that North Carolina is in the top 10% for teacher pay and the top 10% for per-pupil spending.

That gives us an opportunity to improve and lift all the rising boats.

The other thing is that so many of those people wanna come to Durham, wanna come to Charlotte.

They may not wanna go to Granville County or Person County or down east.

And so it will also create more have and have nots by looking at this particular licensing bill and I disagree with the senator's, you know, sentiment that people don't need licenses.

Tell that to architects, tell that to any other profession across the state.

And we don't want our students to not have the right people at the right time in their educational career.

- Jason, any comment on this?

You wanna talk about DEI, I got one more topic left.

We'll talk about it.

But I, but I do think that new problems require new solutions, right?

And so that is what the bill intends to do, right?

Is find ways to backfill, 'cause we do have the shortage.

And even if you followed all the things that you said and licensing and everything else, that is a onboarding and timing process.

So let's just admit that we can't fix the problem fast enough.

And if we don't fix the problem fast and quickly and have some solution that addresses it, who's getting left behind, right?

And while we figure all this out and there's, you know, on the whiteboard, so I think there's valid points about having the right training for a classroom.

But I don't know that it always means that you've gotta have a particular sheet of paper.

Some of that can happen while you're doing it.

You talk about provisional licensing.

I think there's multiple ways to approach that problem.

- Right, final topic, the State Senate has passed legislation that would ban DEI programs and end positions in public higher education, that's the UNC system.

Legislation in the House is being held that would bar DEI in state agencies and actually punish violators as two separate bills.

Let's go back to the Senate Senator Sawrey.

Hope to make law what UNC Systems Board of Governors banned by policy last year.

Universities couldn't teach or promote divisive concepts, nor could campuses treat people differently to create different advantages and disadvantages.

Over in the House, the separate bill would ban DEI from all state agencies, allow agency employees to sue their bosses and allow these agencies to be fined on a per-occurrence violation.

I'll hand this off to you.

Talk about that Senate bill.

UNC jumped.

We're part of the UNC system here at PBS North Carolina.

They jumped with policy a calendar year ago to get ahead of the Senate.

You still making it a law anyway?

- Sure, yeah, I mean, UNC Board of Governors has a policy in place about it.

They can change their policy.

We think it's pertinent to put this in the state law, take a strong stance against what we see as divisive concepts in our university system.

And even after the policy went into place, we're still seeing some coursework and some studies and some instances of DEIs in our UNC system schools.

DEI, I mean, the words taken in a vacuum sound great, and they're noble ideals.

But what it's morphed into is imposing divisive worldviews and really moving beyond what it was intended to years and years and years ago.

You know, my colleague, Senator Overcash, did a great job explaining the topics in the Rules Committee and on the Senate floor, because it is a tough conversation to have.

But when we see these examples of students and faculty being forced to subscribe to a certain ideology or perspective as a condition for employment or a condition for being part of a course, that's a problem.

Universities need to get back to teaching the core fundamentals of what's expected in their coursework and their majors.

They do not need to be engaging in politics, enforcing these ideas on people in order to obtain that degree, or in this case, as we talked about in the prior segment, potentially a license or ability to practice in our workforce.

- 90 seconds, Representative Hawkins.

On this one, it's little bills here and there starting to nibble away at policy.

- Yeah, they are, and North Carolina is where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great, and that's because we have embraced the diversity, the equity, and the inclusion work that started in the 1950s to bring us from an agrarian society to one of the tech hubs in the country.

And you can't get there without embracing and building a complete person, be it higher education, be it public schools, be it in state agencies.

We can't be a number one place to employ people if we're not looking and appreciating the whole person, and that's the way that people outside of North Carolina will think about that.

And so, while I understand that our Republican friends want to follow a national narrative, I think with the business community, and I represent RTP, so the number one driver for business in the state of North Carolina, they're not asking for this bill.

They want us to focus on workforce, no matter where it comes from, and they want us to build a strong workforce that's comprehensive, collective, cultural, and understanding with soft skills to get the job done and to make sure that their bottom line is reached.

Outside of that, I'm just asking my Republican friends to not lean into those national narratives and become business Republicans again, to make sure that we are looking at the future and making sure that everybody has an opportunity to succeed in this state, no matter who they are.

- That will be the final word.

We talked so much about education we didn't get a full panel analysis of this bill, but when it's hung in the House, Jason.

We'll figure that one out in a few weeks.

- We'll come back, right?

- Thank you so much.

- Of course.

- Welcome as a civilian.

- Thank you.

- Representative, senator, thank you, gentlemen, for coming on.

Mary Wills, always great to see you.

Congratulations.

- Thank you.

- Email us.

Statelines@pbsnc.org.

We'll read every email.

See you next time.

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