School Board Race: Theodore Lee Miller on a GED Graduation Standard, Trades, and Accountability

Peter Pappas: Well, welcome back to the Carolina Cabinet. I'm your host, Peter Pappas in studio with the lovely Laura Mussler. Hello, hello. Welcome, welcome. And joining us this evening is Theodore Lee Miller, also known as Ted Miller. Welcome, sir. Thank you. Great to have you here tonight. so you are one of sixteen people running for Cumberland County School Board. first thing we need to know is well, who are you? where did you come from? And give us a little bit of background, career, maybe family here, and catch us up. Well, originally I come from Flint, Michigan. So I would be a Clint. So you know not to drink the water. Don't drink the water. Too late for me because I left Flint long before I said before. Okay. Okay. So military perhaps brought you down here? Okay. Came here in the military, listed in nineteen eighty one. Okay, served a full career, retired in two thousand and one prior to nine eleven, I I was ready to be called right back in. I mean if I'd have known I certainly wouldn't have retired, but that was just Okay. But did a full twenty year career and loved Fayetteville. My family had had been here, my children were all in the schools, all their friends were here, my wife. So just stayed in Fayetteville because I liked the city. Well, you mentioned schools. where what district did you stay in one district the whole time or what schools did you have your kids in? all my children graduated from East from Golden Wolf. Okay. All right. Good, good, good. So so now you decided now have you ever run for office before? In two thousand and one, right after I just retired, there was a race come up and I ran for Faville City Council. That was in DJ Hare's district and of course I did not win. Yeah, he's got somehow of a grip on that community. I don't know w if they don't have eyes to see what's not being done or what, but they keep sending him back. I don't know. Everybody likes to go in the city in front of you. Yeah, I guess, yeah. so I I maybe you're looking forward to the Mergerson Road corridor improvement. Well do you still live down that way or no, no I live out now in Pavlers Creek. Okay. Whereabouts is that? It's located by the real Walmart. Okay, okay. So definitely you've been in the community for a long time. And so let's talk about why. Why did you file? Well, I filed because I want to fix the education system in Cumberland County. All right. So what needs fixing? Our education system when we graduated children that are coming out of school, cannot read, that aren't out of grade level, to me that needs to be fixed. And when I talked about it, I I I was watching you did a interview with Hatch. Yes. And it came up and I know that you don't like to go to in the old days, but I go right to the old days because in nineteen seventy-nine I graduated Flint Northern High School. Eight years later, while I was stationed in Germany, I had the opportunity to go to college and I went to college every single day while I was doing that three year tour. And earned my associate's degree. Not a shortcut English. I could take a Dante's test. And if I scored good enough, Central Texas College Europe could award me credit. Right, right. So I took English. This is eight years after I graduated in nineteen seventy nine. The day I walked in there, the test practiced asked me a question. She So have you been studying? I said, Well, I intended to and the way things went, I just never got a chance and she got Very perturbed with me. Okay. So you're in here wasting my time. Why are you here? This is a difficult test. English? English 101, English 102 College. Well, we're doing remedial training for students that are showing up a favorable tech now for English. So yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I took the test. I got full credit for English 101 and English 102. Now I graduated 79, 1988. I'm taking that test. There's no other formal education after that. So my education level graduating in nineteen seventy nine was at least I had a first year college okay level of English. Well how do you c characterize yourself as a high school student though? Were you attending, were you cutting class? What were you doing? yeah, we used to skip some school in there. No, I was very Well you guys could still smoke back then and who drove the school bus? The seniors probably did. They could. Okay. Well, and you mentioned I don't like to go back to the old days 'cause to me the old days is gone. It's like when I show a building and somebody says, Hey, is this grandfather in? I said, Look, grandpa's dead. You need to do whatever is the current rule and the current situation we're facing. And that's my concern with putting people on school boards. So let's take it down from the general to the specific. What would you like to fix? I would like to see every single student graduating at grade level. Okay. in the Cumberland County school system. And I don't believe that's happening at all. And how how does the school board member change that? Well, the initiative that I want is that I want to require every single senior to take and pass the GED to graduate. Okay. Okay. And re that solution before that's right. Nobody has because nobody's proposed it. And the reason is I know what they're telling me. As a matter of fact, they just touted how Governor Stein looked at what we're doing in North Carolina. We've got this eighty nine percent graduation rate. And I'm like, Right, and our students are sitting at eighth grade level education. Don't tout to me what you're doing here until you tell me that they're graduating grade level and I don't believe it. But We've had all these different tests that people bring up and they'll this test and this well, there's a gold standard. Nobody's ever challenged the test. If I dropped out of school and I come back and I said, You know, I made a big mistake. I dropped out of school. What do I have to do? I go and I take the GED price. And if I pass the GED test, they say you meet the standard that nationwide we say this is what a high school graduate should know when they graduate. Now you're telling me here in Cumberland County School System right now, we got 89%. Of our students are graduating. Well, they're being pushed through. Well, see, that's that's the point. But how many people do you ask yourself the question. How many students do you think right now when they take that test at the end of the school year are gonna pass that ID test? That's a good standard. I mean if you do drop out, that is that people are gonna change you that is that is true that's just a requirement. Okay. It's just a requirement. I looked it up, there's We actually require more semester hours. Is that a legislation or is that is something the school board sets up as what graduates? Well, we have more we require more semester hours when you graduate in Cumberland County than North Carolina requires for high school diploma. So we can we can have any requirement whatever her name was it smith she put in a requirement to do this. class project for all seniors. And if you didn't get it, it will it it became part of the curriculum. And as far as I know, that was strictly done. But from everything I've looked at, we can we can implement that as a school board. And one objection people will bring up, okay, what happens when you don't pass it? Because I'll give you my answer. I don't think 35% of students that were graduating or a grade level can pass that test. That's what I believe to be wrong. So in our live session we just discussed that the number of failing schools have received better grades this year after one year of a new superintendent. It went from fifty percent to fifty five percent that we're no longer failing. So it's a small ten percent jump, but it's something. how gotta crawl before you come on. Yeah, but we have that. We are always questioning of our government institutions. However, I gotta go with what's quoted and what's what's published as the the number. but how are you basing your thirty five percent of that you think that the kids graduating wouldn't be able to pass out of GED? Well, because I believe that they're just shoving right on through, regardless of what their academic level is. They're just moving them on through one way. Did you just pull the thirty five percent out of the air or did you Yes. That's that's my belief. based on having looked at what the what the information is on the GED test and what we see reported on where students are actually graduating at. So are GED results I guess aggregated and public publicized, like how people pass those or how's how's that data accessible to us? for us, well we would know how many seniors actually pass the test because we're the ones we're the ones administering it. We would get the results back because we're gonna need the results back. And you know, the biggest argument's gonna be so what about students that don't pass it? And I said, Great, we can we can break that down, we can talk about it. We can say, Yep, you sat in a chair for twelve years, you sat in the chair for twelve years, you did not drop out, you went through all the classes, you took them all, you said you passed. Except we failed you because you're not graduating with a twelfth grade education, you're graduating with wherever you're at, and there's a solution. So we can do it as You completed high school versus you graduated, meaning that you could pass a G and understand the GED test should just be cakewalk, right? We said these are students that are high school seniors. They they graduated. They got all their semester hours. This is this is a no-brainer. They shouldn't even have to study because we said they're there. And I don't believe it for what for a minute. Now there's a hindrance when you get to GED because you're always First, with the GED It's looked down on as not a high school diploma. Well, let's say that you completed Cumberland County School System. But you could not pass the GED. Yes, you didn't pass it, but we failed you as a school system. We failed you because we failed to educate you. And do you know what the actual number is that we spend per student to educate them? It's about one hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred dollars that we paid from a student from kindergarten all the way up to twelfth grade at current numbers. And you're telling me that the best we could do for one hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred dollars for one student was to get them to twelve eighth grade level? You're kidding me. Well, I mean, we've proven that the US Department of Education didn't do anything but drop our standards the more money we threw at something. So maybe money isn't the solution. However, The Cumberland County School System is deficient about a eight hundred million dollars in capital in improvements and things like that. what what have you followed with the consultancy's reports from I think it was last year when they came out with the full capital and it rated it what red, orange, yellow, and green as far as the urgency of these things. and now they've come back and they've started moving schools around to consolidate and start building new ones. So how serious are you going to be able to take those repairs and balance it with accountability for students? Well, it's interesting about the money because one of the things that I want to look at, and that's is going to require the legislature, is that I ran some numbers on the North Carolina education line from the time that it started to how much money has come in the county school system actually got. We've got about three hundred twenty five million dollars is what we got. And I went back and I said, based on the formula that I would be doing, which is that money's divided per student throughout the state, we should have gotten six hundred and sixty million dollars. Okay, if we'd have been if we'd have been compensated per student based on what the revenue loop was. And I want to go back and I wanna have them redo it. And also I want to take it out of the hands of the North Carolina because we have to go hand in hand to North Carolina. Department of Education and ask them, please, will you give us some money? Well why why is that? Why not just base that on each individual student? Now, if you want us to put it in certain funds and hold it until we're ready to use it, that's fine, but that money should be coming to us based on the number of students that we have enrolled. Okay. Okay. And that would go a long way towards getting us some of the money that we need for the funding of these type of repairs. Well isn't the are the schools down in enrollment? I thought we were losing students here in Crumberlin County. You made a wonderful point on that about whenever the actual hatch one was, because you talked about was it your child or your granddaughter does not does not go to school here. Right. And and you had a reason for that. Yes, exactly, and I agree. So and had you talked about that that enrollment level is really a drop off in the middle levels. Well, you know what gets people to bring our students back in if they're actually dropping out because they're going to toy schools or being homeschooled or some other alternative than going to the Cumberland County school system? Get to our students graduating grade level, which again brings us back that we're gonna hold schools accountable. We're we're gonna prove the number. Doesn't mean the students aren't graduating, but it's gonna mean that we're gonna have a real number now. 'Cause you're saying, look at what we're doing here. You you bel I don't believe that because I can fix those numbers any way I want to. One of your one year that it says teachers visit each student's home once a year. Yeah. Why? Well, that has and when I say visit, it doesn't necessarily it's not like some type of inspection to go and actually talk one on one with the parent, but also you get a chance to see Where does that what is that child's neighborhood? Where does that child actually live? To get a better understanding of your students, we always expect the parents to come to the school. yeah, parents, parents, I come to school. I mean, if I don't care about my kid, then I'm not involved. And I mean we go there and we get a chance to actually talk with the parents and get a chance to just see how does that work with a high school teacher who has six or seven classes a day? day great question with thirty students per class and then it changes again it each semester. You're talking about a full time job of visiting students' homes. Great question. Great question. Thanks. I love a sharp bye. See somebody is thinking because I thought it out too, because that is a question. But every student is signed with what? A home room. So it'll be the home teacher possible. Not the not the science. Okay, so that reduces the number at least. There you go. Well, it seems like to me that is you know, item five on your initiative here about teachers visiting once a year, that's more of a DSS breach of things. They're not doing DSS. They're just they're just going to talk to the parent one on one and get a chance one to see where they're un to understand their students better and actually get a chance to talk with the parent. It just has to be a short one. Ask them if you have any concerns. Is there anything, you know, that That's what the parent teacher conference is for. And 'cause I want to see where my kids are going to school and what the teacher says and who they are. it's none of your business what I do in my own home. I guess we've asked around. The parent teacher conferences are very ill attended. That's correct. That's because if I'm a single mother and I happen to be working when the parent teacher conference is scheduled, so I'm just never able to get there because I'm working trying to take care of my family. I'm trying to provide for my family. I live a single mom, I understand that. Okay. Excellent. Yeah, I I I I understand that I can't do the the parent teacher conference, but I could could call in and be like, Hey, my child is, you know, how is they how are they doing where you send, you know, you can communicate. You want to come to my home? I don't want you in my home. I don't want anybody I don't know in my home. But they nobody said they have to come in to your home. What's wrong with talking right there at the door? That's true. Okay. I don't answer my if I don't know who you are, then you can come to my schedule. I don't think it would just be drop to union voting. Okay. So I mean I I I like what I'm hearing. All students graduate at grade level. it's passing the G. You don't? Why? No. Why? I think you should go to G To jail, directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, and you should be expelled from the entire district. I'm not gonna argue with you. Well how how prevalent are assaults on teachers in our county? I don't have an actual number, but I I do know that you know that they can turn around. See if it was me. If it was me and I was a teacher and s and a student had had struck me, I'm not even going to the school board. It's the same as I had no same as I had in the army. Right. I said, you know, if one of my soldiers were to strike me. As an NCO, I'm not going to make command. I'm going to immediately report and find a report with the MPs because I'm not going to give my chain command a chance to gloss that over. Right, right. Okay. And in the same way, you know what? If I'm a teacher and I get stuff, I'm gonna file a charge. I'm not gonna give the school board or I'm not gonna give the principal or the administrators the chance to sweep that under. No. So different ideas, great. We start the conversation. I don't have a problem discussing a full on mandatory forever suspension from school. I don't believe you should touch it, but I believe we need to protect our teachers. Okay. So let's talk about is there anything in your opinion that the school system or school board is doing right at this moment? If they're not graduating all students it's easy. If they're not graduating all the students that are graduating grade level no. Okay. Well, what about are we missing any programs that are not available to these students? Is there sometimes I think maybe the graduation could be a matter of engagement with the kids if there's not something that they if okay, we'll talk about old days, shop classes and hands on stuff. are we lacking those kinds of programs to maybe keep the The child interested in learning and staying in school? I know that they have these different schools and different programs. But we'll go back. Well at the current day, right now in Michigan, it's actually expanded, is that they have this massive campus. It's called the Genesee Valley Skills Center. Okay. And they offer all of these different trades, and the students, if they meet the academic Requirements, which means you actually have to be on grade level. You can't be falling behind. It's kind of like playing sports. You can go and in my case, it was half a day. The the first year that I because I attended two years. The first year I w I went and attended, I took the class called home construction. Okay. The school system actually built three residential properties. It was all built by students for the most part. Sounds like slave labor. Well they learned that they learned a trade, didn't they? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they make twenty five cents an hour at least in jail, so you know. It it was built primarily all by students. Certain things age-wise they weren't able to do under master carpenters. So the the instructor's wife and master carpenters under the twenty-five-thirty years. But you've learned the basic of the skill you could you could leave school and go from there and go to work for somebody and you knew how to frame a house. You knew how to do trimming. You knew how to hang cabinets. we had done brick laying. You knew how to do these things before you could get your foot in the door on trades and learn the skill. Okay. But it wasn't it wasn't just that one because the second year I took welding, I was hoping to go to Alaska work on the pipeline. But they did transmission rebuilds, body repair, cosmetoma People actually came in and had their hair done by the students that were there. So so you learned the different skills as an alternative route to get there. And one of the things I'd brought up was that why aren't we why aren't we doing that? Why don't we build this where we have it and we can be doing we can be teaching the HVAC, we can be teaching the plumbing, we can be teaching the electrical, we can be teaching all of these different skills to the students to prepare them to actually go out. We teach her in the balance of Jackbook first. We learned that when I was in school. I understand that. I had a young man that came up to me in a Walmart one time and he asked me, he said, I need to sew a button on my clothing. i is this what I how do you and I was thinking, We we learned that in school. Yeah. Well and we're not today I mean, what are we teaching? Teaching how to pass the test. I think we're we're we're failing to teach critical thinking. We are focused on Not leaving a child behind, which was a big screw up for the Republican Party. But we're here. We're here now, twenty five years later, and it's still we needed to span all that. Even when no child was left behind, the first critique I made on that was, Well, it it really sounds great on paper. Here's the problem with it, because you actually have to go it'll be a thirteen year process because you're actually gonna have to start with the first student under the program. Right. And then wait until you get to the twelfth grade to actually see Yes, you'll pick up at the eighth and the ninth and tenth. But if they're already behind, they may not meet meet the goals. But the first student student coming through, you talk about Department of Education. Understand that was the last year group to graduate before that before they took over. Yeah. Or started trying to help our local people. So All right. Well, let's talk about Ooh, we got so many good ones here. With 16 candidates filed for this at-large position, how is a voter supposed to tell these candidates apart from substance rather than just name recognition? Well, thing is I don't have name recognition. Hopefully, when they're watching the show and the beauty courses, because of my business, all of my clients, I'll be able to share that video and then share that video and share that video. So hopefully more people will get that. Okay. But as far as for the people that actually see the show or hear me speak Who actually has a plan to get our students at grade level, graduate at grade level? And and and there's a point though that wasn't made on that, because we could say okay, they they they're not at grade level, but see, there is a solution to that, and that solution is for free at FTCC. You continue to go and study, you take the continuing education classes when you pass the GED. You bring that back down to Cumberland County School System and we will issue you and correct your transcript to reflect that. We're not going to punish you because we failed to do our job. Okay. And encourage the students to continue to study to bring up their level. And it's also good for the Fayetteville economy because when businesses come here and they're hiring a student and they take a look, they know that our graduation means something. That we're not just handing you someone, well, yeah, you need to. Teach them right. Give them a reading test and you have to give them a mathematics test before we hire because we're not even sure they can add and subtract. Well, hopefully Fable Tech will serve us and continue serving the industry here and start you know, they have special programs for different manufacturers here that you can go through and be trained and then get the job. So But they they have big things program and it and it's absolutely perfect. Okay. So campaigns don't run on Word of mouth alone. Campaigns always need money and they need volunteers. So if you like what you hear today of before, Theodore Lee Miller, then donate on his campaign and how do they get a hold of you, Theodore? I don't actually have a website set up. So if I wanted to donate to you or volunteer with you, how do I get a hold of you? the easiest way to get get in touch with me would be through my business. Which is? Headstallwalk dot com. If you pull that up, you'll find it and go to the contact sheet and just say, Hey, I'm interested in your campaign. I'll get back to you from there. Okay. But as far as as raising the money I'm just self-finance. Yeah. And limited finance. And well that's why we ask them for money. Because campaigns that run on We're asking for your see. so so okay, do you have a Facebook do you have a Facebook or a website? Just the website for your it's Ted's Doll Walking. Okay. Ted's Doll Walking. But if you just type in Ted's Dollwalking, it's gonna pop up. But I mean I'm I'm there, but and you know, there's a lot of people that have probably actually seen me. Okay. I'll be the old guy that is wearing that yellow construction worker mask. Okay. Walking a dog down the road and sometimes I because I always wear it. I mean, I'm not wearing it today, but I mean I've had people come up to me in food line and ask me to wear something's at because I look like a worker. You look like yeah, you look official. Yeah. I just always wear that best. Well, the best is the physical bit when I'm being in the job. Okay. Well Ted Theodore Lee Miller, thank you for being here with us this evening. we're right at 30 minutes and we've enjoyed having you. And good luck to you in the race. I consider even if I do not I would love to win. I I am passionate about one thing and it's education. Even if I don't win, it's programs like yours and the opportunity I get to express the views, to put out my ideas. And even if I don't like it, or even if I don't make it, if somebody hears it and goes, That's a good idea that I want. Change the narrative. That I will absolutely. Well, thank you again. Y'all have a good evening. And thanks for tuning in, the Carolina Cabinet. Of course, you can go to all of our links and all that stuff on the Carolina Cabinet.com. Please like, share, subscribe. It cate it's like four seconds. It doesn't cost you a dime. So please do that. Yeah. And until next week, have a good evening. Thank you.