GREENSBORO – Last week Joe Biden announced he’d pick Michael Regan, North Carolina’s environmental chief, to head the EPA. Rumors have swirled about N.C. Public Health Czar Dr. Mandy Cohen being looked at for Secretary of Health and Human Services in a Biden administration. Now, another North Carolinian is being talked about for a cabinet post, this time in education.
Guildford County Superintendent of Public Schools Sharon Contreras is, according to CNN, on Biden’s short list to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. Of course, this is Biden picking choice Democrats to check certain boxes and advance the Left’s agenda, so the requisite woke factor means you know there’s cause for concern. Like so many other roles in his team, Biden was encouraged to pick a ‘woman of color’ for the education slot.
From the Greensboro News & Record:
“[…] CNN’s story cited anonymous sources familiar with the Biden team’s thinking on its education department pick.
Contreras, who has been superintendent of Guilford County Schools since 2016, could not be reached for comment on Saturday. She told the High Point Enterprise that she is “open to the idea” in an interview Wednesday about her name coming up in education circles as a potential candidate. […]
“It reflects that she’s somebody in the trenches and that does the work,” Todd Warren, president of the Guilford County Association of Educators, said of Contreras reportedly being on a shortlist for the post. “We’re proud,” he said, adding, “It’s an honor to be considered, I think.”
He acknowledged Contreras has been a controversial superintendent at times, and that they haven’t always agreed.
However, he said, “I do respect leaders that lead and don’t tail other people. She stakes out what she thinks should happen.” […]”
One of the positions Contreras staked out will sound familiar coming from a Democrat in North Carolina: increase teacher pay.
Her leadership was demonstrated on this issue first hand by how she decided to handle the district’s unexpected nearly $1 million surplus in funds, described here by local watchdog the Triad Conservative:
“[…] Was it returned to the taxpayers? Was it used to replace one of those notoriously leaky roofs that had been dramatized to justify a massive bond package on the ballot?
Of course not. They want to use nearly all of the money at their disposal on staff renumeration so that more money can be demanded of the voters for facilities. After all, public schools exist to serve the interests of the education establishment.
Anyway, diverting the monies to staff pay is precisely what the Superintendent, Sharon Contreras, did. She paid it out in bonuses to teachers even though they had not been teaching in the classroom; and in fact, even though they had pushed politically against teaching in the classroom in opposition to scientific input.”
The TC rightly adds that these teachers were also being kept comfortably paid while many others in the county and state struggled.
Such leadership from Contreras is part of what has propelled her into the national conversation regarding a Biden administration. But she’s not alone, there are reportedly others from the Greensboro area under consideration, including former Congresswoman Alma Adams (D).
Either way, as Biden promises to have schools ‘mostly’ open, his top contenders have all proven beholden to teachers unions that have consistently balked at full in-person instruction and made Leftist political demands to simply return to the classroom.
Guilford County has been quick bend to these pressures, to shutdown schools for instruction, and then to reward it all with bonuses from the surplus that not teaching kids creates. Contreras maybe more inclined to bow to these pressures after a previously earning a vote of no confidence by the Syracuse, New York school board due in a raucous 2014 meeting that saw cheers, jeers, and walk outs.
Seems like a natural pick to lead the the Biden administration’s education effort, then. That is, of course, if a Biden administration is what we ultimately have after this election debacle settles for good.
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