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WRAL-TV investigative reporter Cristin Severance discusses the Leandro documentary.

Carolina Journal is the source for daily news and commentary on state and local government, in digital & print, covering politics and public policy.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday he would aim to get Republican lawmakers to fund public education improvements a judge says the state must start implementing.

The North Carolina Constitution designates the legislature as the branch of government with the power to determine how state taxpayer dollars are collected and spent. It’s a fundamental fact taught to North Carolina schoolchildren as early as third grade. Recently, children and adults alike witnessed the courts uphold this principle in the long-running Leandro v. State of North Carolina case. The saga of Leandro – a school finance “adequacy” case about the state constitutional require...

On Monday, March 15, defendants in the long-running Leandro lawsuit, in consultation with plaintiffs in the case, submitted a document called the Comprehensive Remedial Plan to Superior Court Judge David Lee.  The plan was mandated in consent orders Lee issued in January 2020 and September. All parties in the case have agreed to the plan’s components.  Lee will next call a hearing for the case, although details haven’t been decided. Lee, the court-appointed overseer of the Leandro case,...