Reports that North Carolina Superintendent Catherine Truitt has tapped Terry Stoops as an advisor should be cause for concern for anyone who cares about the future of North Carolina’s public schools.
Take a look back on how he’s used his position at the ultra-conservative John Locke Foundation to further dismantle public education:
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Stoops founded his own charter school in Wake County with his wife Jaime Stoops and has been a vocal advocate for the founding of several more charter schools across Wake County, despite concerns of the racial segregation and damage that it will do to the Wake County School System.
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When District Court Judge Lee handed down his decision that the North Carolina General Assembly owed North Carolina’s public schools over $785 million in order to fully meet the needs of North Carolina’s millions of public school students earlier this year, Stoops released a statement on the Locke Foundation’s site grossly condemning the decision as a “money grab” and a “brazen scheme.”
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He has repeatedly spoken in favor of expanding funding for private school voucher programs – funding that has come at the expense of funding for North Carolina’s public schools, which started the year with over 11,000 teaching staff shortages.
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Stoops was one of the primary individuals responsible for the Locke Foundation’s draft of the Parents’ Bill of Rights that was later introduced into the House – a piece of legislation also referred to as North Carolina’s “Don’t Say Gay Bill.”
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Stoops was appointed to Lt. Governor Mark Robinson’s FACTS taskforce to investigate “indoctrination” in North Carolina public schools, but reports found “details were scarce” with “nary a fact to be found” and criticism that it was only used to “manufacture a base-motivating wedge issue where none actually exists.”
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