North Carolina has taken a wrong turn
Published January 7, 2021
Sixty years ago this week, a new Governor set North Carolina on a new course.
In his inauguration speech on January 5, 1961, Terry Sanford said the state should build its future not on low taxes, but on better education. Calling education “the rock upon which I will build the house of my administration,” he said:
“We must give our children the quality of education which they need to keep up in this rapidly advancing, scientific, complex world.
“They must be prepared to compete with the best in the nation, and I dedicate my public life to the proposition that education must be of a quality which is second to none. A second-rate education can only mean a second-rate future for North Carolina.”