State Superintendent of Public Instruction Race

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Eimile: We are going to go through the campaign process and some of the events that went on before and after as well as the results. First, we are going to talk with Emily about stuff that happened during the campaign.  What’s with the controversy? 

Emily: There was a lot of funds controversy during the race.  The first was when Atkinson accused Tedesko of taking campaign contributions from officers that work in a company that does business with the Wake County school system.

Eimile: So why is that bad?

Emily: Well it was seen as inappropriate because he shouldn’t have been exchanging money with anyone in the school system because Wake County is so large.  It was a conflict of interest and people said it as inappropriate.

Eimile: That makes sense.  Where there any other accusations?

Emily: Later At was accussed of paying NAACP members to work for her campaign.  That was not tru, she actually hasn’t made any payments towards the NAACP this election at all.  But he got this idea form in 2008 when there were small payments that were no more than 100 dollars. 

Eimile: What were they for?

Emily: They were for small program ads, mostly just small advertisements.

Eimile: What do they do with those advertisements?  Did they put them in programs?

Emily: Yeah in programs and newsletters that go out to the members.

Later, Atkinson was also one of the sponsors for a fundraiser in April of 2011 for the Wake Citizens of Good Government.  It was to raise money for the school board candidates that opposed a Republican majority.

Eimile: Did Tedesko not like that?

Emily: Yeah he made sure voters knew about that because he said it was inappropriate for her to be sponsoring the fundraiser.  She also donated money to Jim Martin who was a democratic candidate for the school board and now a member. 

Eimile: Wow, so there was a pretty good amount of controversy going on throughout the election. So now we are going to talk about why Tedesko is possibly at a disadvantage, Aaron. 

Aaron: Sure, well John Tedesko, he was first elected to the Wake County school board back in 2009, but in 2010, he made a lot of national headline news for his policies.  He was in favor of neighborhood schools and opposed to the socio-economic policy that Wake County schools already had.

Eimile: What was the difference between the first policy and the one he wanted?

Aaron: Well the socio-economic diversity policy helps with achievement gaps between low-income students and middle or higher income students.  Whenever you think of Wake County school system, it is very big, the largest one in the state and whenever you think of certain schools such as Green Hope or Panther Creek, you think of wealthier students as opposed to southeast Raleigh and Emerald High School.  Granted these are magnet schools, they are in lower income areas.  Tedesko was in favor of neighborhood schools, so he believed that opposed to driving 45 minutes to a school away, why not go to a school that is literally blocks away from you.  However he caught a lot of slack from the North Carolina NAACP because they thought that these policies were in favor of segregated schools.

Eimile: That makes sense.  So how did Wake County feel about that? Was it popular?

Aaron: It was very split in between, you know you had a lot of parents, especially the higher income who did not want their students going to school with…

Eimile: ...People from the lower income communities

Aaron: Right.

Eimile: So how do you think that affected him in the election?

Aaron: Well with it being national headline news, the media attacked him, even Steven Colbert attacked him and that doesn’t look good on your part. 

Eimile Right, so what were some of the benefits that June Atkinson had to begin with, Rob?

Rob: Well I think while John Tedesko was out getting criticized, June Atkinson was getting stuff done in the position.  She has held the position since 2005 and each year she has seen improvement in the school system.  When she first took over, there was a 68% graduation rate in the high schools and each year it has gone up and is now at an all time high of 80%.  Just last year, Harvard University had a report about the school systems in each state, and North Carolina was one of six states that had the most student achievement out of each dollar spent.  Which is pretty good, I would say. 

Eimile: Wow.  Well that is impressive.  So is there anything else that may have helped her in her campaign against Tedesko? Did she have more experience?

Rob: I definitely think her background, as an educator was really crucial.  He had a very business background and not really with the school system where she had been there since 2005, a business teacher, and has all education background.  It definitely helped her a lot.

Eimile: Ok thanks, Rob.  I actually remember that the Harvard study came up in the debate that we went and watched on the 6^th of October where we got to go watch a live forum between the candidates.  So Grant, why don’t you tell who won and who lost that forum debate. 

Grant: Well, the clear winner in the beginning was probably Tedesko, he came out really strong with a more conservative agenda. He said that the federal government should decrease their role and we should cut down on the bureaucracy in education.  He used his business experience as one of the biggest things for his campaign. He really criticized Atkinson for being part of the Democratic Legislative Bureaucracy and he ran on a plan of reforming that. But Atkinson fought back strong touting her experience in education and she is the only candidate that has the background and experience for the position.  She also talked about the increase in graduation rate that we already talked about, how it increased from 68% to 80%.

Eimile: So overall do you think that Tedesko looked strong coming out of it?

Grant: At the end of the debate, the fast talking Tedesko won on style points but Atkinson emerged as the clear winner after Tedesko failed to provide specifics on how he would reform Atkinson’s policy.  

Eimile Well that reflects really well onto the results of the actual election because June Atkinson did win.  She had 2,339,060 as opposed to John Tedesco who had 1, 973, 010 votes so percentage, 54% to June Atkinson and 45% to John Tedesco.  That’s all we have to talk about.  Thanks for listening.