Dornan bowed out of Civitas-WSFCS budget training session prior to its cancellation

A memorandum obtained by YES! Weekly reveals that John Dornan, a former president of the NC Public School Forum who was scheduled to be a featured speaker at a Jan. 14 education budget training session co-sponsored by the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools and the John W. Pope Civitas Institute, notified Superintendent Donald L. Martin and all nine school board members on Jan. 6 that he would not participate in the event after learning of the Civitas Institute's involvement.

“I regretfully am writing to inform you that I will not be taking part in the upcoming school board training session on school finance,” Dornan wrote in the Jan. 6 e-mail. “There was no mention of the Civitas Institute being part of this session; nor was I told that the event would be marketed by Civitas to board members and others in the surrounding area.”


On Jan. 10, Martin notified all school board members that the Jan. 14 event had been canceled in an e-mail message.

Dornan was slated to be one of three featured speakers at the seminar. Kerry Crutchfield, former finance director for the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, and Terry Stoops, director of education studies for the John Locke Foundation, were also scheduled to speak at the four-hour event. Dornan stated that Crutchfield contacted him about participating in the training session, but he was never informed of the Civitas Institute's involvement.

“While I believe in a free exchange of ideas and respect the right of any would-be think tank, be it Civitas or the Public School Forum, to hold views contrary to my own, I do not agree with Civitas when it comes to their stance on public schools and would not knowingly help them advance their views,” Dornan wrote.

Dornan stated that Civitas, a 501 (c )3 nonprofit organization, appears to favor a free market approach to public education — an approach he personally opposes.

“As for their very recent entry into the school board training arena I can’t help but believe that it is a thinly veiled attempt to spread their ideology, not one focused on building the capacity of school board members to make decisions that will strengthen the public schools,” Dornan wrote.

School board member Elisabeth Motsinger has been a vocal opponent of the school system co-sponsoring a budget training session with Civitas Institute given the partisan nature of Civitas Institute’s spinoff group, Civitas Action.

According to an analysis by the Institute for Southern Studies, Civitas Action, a 501 (c)4 organization, poured $196,272 into the 22 targeted political contests in North Carolina this fall and 72 percent of the $264,890 Civitas Action reportedly raised this election cycle came from Art Pope’s family retail business, Variety Stores. The rest came from Art Pope’s political group, Americans for Prosperity. The group spent nearly $285,000 in the 22 North Carolina races.

Real Jobs NC, which was founded by Art Pope, received notoriety for its attack ads during the 2010 midterm elections. The political action committee pumped nearly $1.5 million into targeted state races. Real Jobs NC received $200,000 from Pope’s Variety Stores, according to the Institute’s analysis.

Theo Helm, a spokesman for the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, did not immediately return phone calls or e-mail messages Wednesday afternoon seeking comment.