Dave DeWitt

Raleigh has been named the winner in a national sustainability contest. The city took the top prize in the Siemens Sustainable Community Awards in the mid-size community category.

150 years ago today shots rang out at Fort Sumter South Carolina, marking the beginning of the Civil War. In Charleston, Re-enactors will play out the day's events. Here in North Carolina, the state office of historical records will re-release documents that tell the story of the state's older confederate soldiers. The "Senior Reserves" were men between 45 and 50 years old who were drafted in the last year of the war.  Also, UNC Chapel Hill is launching a website, Civil War Day-to-Day.

This is a period of unrivaled education reform. Charter schools, teacher merit pay, diversity policies - all efforts to improve what many see as a failing public school system. But every effort needs evidence as to whether it is working. Much of it comes from standardized testing. That puts even more emphasis on the most effective way to analyze the growing amount of data. The information is being used in all kinds of ways, from what classes a student takes to teacher merit pay and, in some cases, termination.

Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata says the task force he created to come up with a new student assignment plan is making progress.

Tata re-assigned 6 staff members to work on the plan full-time. He says they are working on specific plans now, checking to see how viable they might be.

Environmental groups are urging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reconsider approval of a new design for nuclear power plants in North and South Carolina. The AP-1000 Oversight Group filed a petition with the NRC. The group argues that the AP-1000 reactor design is flawed and should not be used at Shearon-Harris and other sites. John Runkle is the attorney for the group. 

President Richard Brodhead says Duke University will end its salary freeze. In 2009, the school froze wages and made cuts to deal with a shrinking endowment.

Today is the five-year anniversary of the founding of the North Caroline Education Lottery. When it was created in 2006, North Carolina was one of the last states east of the Mississippi to create a lottery.

Research out of Duke University shows that a gifted curriculum has great benefits for students, even those students who aren’t originally identified as gifted.

The study placed 5,000 students across North Carolina into gifted programs, some of whom were not identified by educators as being gifted. Many of those students soon performed well-enough to be identified as gifted.

Leaders in business, education, and government gathered in Raleigh today to discuss the future of student readiness. They were there as part of the "Many Voices, One Goal" Education Conference.

The president of the national organization that represents community colleges visited Guilford County yesterday. Walter Bumphus was in the state as part of a national listening tour.

Bumphus included North Carolina in his travels because of the state’s robust and comprehensive community college system. There are 58 community colleges in North Carolina, serving nearly a million students. Scott Ralls is the president of the North Carolina Community College system.

He says the down economy has meant laid-off workers arriving on campuses in droves: