Governor's Race: Education funding and policies

Jamie Costello, WMAR-2 News Anchor: Here's the thing that people want to know. The casinos are raising billions and billions of dollars supposedly for our schools, but we still have 14 Baltimore City Schools that don't have air conditioning. How is that possible?

Wes Moore, Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate: The fact that our city right now, has some of the and our state has some of the best schools in the country, and we have schools that have to get let out at noon when it's 90 degrees is unconscionable. The fact that we have some of the best schools in the country in the state of Maryland and we have students who cannot drink from the water fountains, because of lead, is unconscionable. And so, there's a few things we have to remember about this, making sure that we have proper funding for 21st Century schools, because we're sending a message, every single day our students walk into a classroom, every single day our educators walk into their place of employment, we send a message about what we expect from them without us even saying a word, just by the buildings they're walking into. We also know that we can't stop there. That the expectations that we're setting for our children and how we're thinking about an entire ecosystem of support is not just going to matter to them and their families, it's going to matter to all of us. This is what we mean when we say in our administration, we are going to have a leave no one behind agenda. The leave no one behind agenda means we are only going to be as great as how we are treating our most vulnerable and making sure that basic supports and supplies that our children are going to need to compete, that we have those things in place. And it's not just going to be about funding, it's about leadership and it's about direction and it's about accountability.

Kelly Swoope, WMAR-2 News Anchor: I know you're not as an advocate of CRT tell me why you think the critical race theory should be removed from the public schools.

Dan Cox, Republican Gubernatorial Candidate: Well, I go back to my love of Frederick Douglass and how he addressed issues of oppression and disparity. Through praising the founding principles we have as a nation that bind us together. And he always focused forwards, he didn't look backwards, with negativity and divisiveness, he said these are the facts, we have issues to fix, let's fix them and the reason we can do so is because we're Americans. We have these founding principles that say everyone is created equal, we're created, we're made in the imago Dei, we have a sense of justice, of civil authority, and of rights that can't be alienated. That means when it comes to our civil rights, we are the greatest nation on Earth. We have to move forward in that way when you do schooling, you're supposed to be doing reading, writing and arithmetic, you're supposed to be doing STEM technology, making sure our kids are world class in their learning and in their opportunities, so they can be wealthy or go on to college or do whatever they want to do, dream big dreams. Instead, sadly many times we're getting into indoctrination, we're getting into political ideology, and that just creates division, it distracts, and then it questions the student it causes the student to question whether they can trust the very system of government. This, again, sets me apart from my opponent, I am a huge proponent of teaching history, all of it.

Swoope: That was my next question.

Cox: All of it. But I'm opposed to being divisive. And dividing one group of people against another. Dividing our students and our children, can you imagine? Our kindergartners. I mean my kindergartner just loves to dress up as Spider-man! The last thing that they need is to feel like they have a country that they can't love and we have the greatest country on Earth, we have the principles that we love, and we can continue to advance that. And I tend to talk to young people about this on the campaign trail. I bring it up, I say, you know, as a 17-year civil rights attorney, what nation on Earth, can you actually sue your own government and get damages? Well, you can here. I've been doing it for 17 years on behalf of people who have been discriminated against in various capacities. It's a beautiful thing, it's how we've decided to correct wrongs, it's to bring a check and balance and to make sure our civil rights are always protected and you don't get that everywhere else, so that's why we're a great nation.