A Politician Who Mattered
When I was studying early childhood special education, I became a lifelong fan of North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt. Children, and in particular young children, did well during his four terms as governor.
In 2009 Elon University was taking its sweet time deciding who would be its next dean of education. Even after extensive interviews, my professional credentials earned at the University of Maryland were judged inadequate in some critical way. Elon decided they needed to bring in the former “education governor” to check me out, and soon I was on a plane for the third time to Carolina where I would be interviewed by former governor Hunt himself.
Yikes.
I had a few days to prepare for what I knew would be tough questions from perhaps the most education-wise governor ever; a fierce advocate for public schools, teachers, curriculum and evaluation; the designer of the nation's first national board certification of teachers; a politician known for showing up in classrooms to read to the kids and to hear them read to him.
I knew his initiatives, including his insistence that public education is the beneficiary when responsible business leaders are at the table; his insight that kindergarten's value was enhanced by extending it to a full day; his prescient focus on early childhood education as worthy of the state's investment; his insistence that increasing funding for education would pay dividends. And, perhaps most critical of all, I knew of the governor's friendship with Elon's president, who would soon be picking his next education dean.
Gov. Hunt welcomed me warmly into his downtown Raleigh law office and walked me slowly past the framed photos of him in classrooms, with children, reading. He sat me down and got right to it. I braced for the impact of the first question.
“David,” he began, innocently enough, "I grew up on a dairy farm. And I spent most of my days doing this,” at which point both of his hands began opening and closing to mimic the milking of a cow. Open shut, open shut. Then he raised his hands toward my face, and exaggerating his imaginary milking, tossed me his first question:
“Have you ever done this?”
The accurate answer would have been “no, sir” but I have no recollection of what I actually said. Whatever it was, though, it must have been substantially this side of stupid because I got the gig.
Gov. Hunt died this past week at age 88.
It's a bummer for North Carolina that Gov. Hunt is not only gone but also that the state's—and most of the nation’s—politics have become stubbornly resistant to the kind of governing that he and his colleagues were able to pull off.
Over the course of his four terms as governor, they elevated the stature of North Carolina's public schools to the middle of the national rankings. Today's legislators have chosen instead to divert eye-popping sums away from public schools and into private school tuition vouchers. And three decades of successful litigation of a legal case have not produced the funding the courts decided was necessary to bring the state into compliance with its constitutional mandate.
The children of North Carolina, and the country, have lost one of the best friends they ever had.