The state superintendent made a $928,000 emergency purchase that stoked the fight with the state board of education over what tool schools should be using to evaluate reading skills.
A Democratic state senator who Republicans found both annoying and essential officially stepped down to join the state Utilities Commission.
And presidential candidates Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer are spending millions on ads in North Carolina as Super Tuesday looms.
Mitch Kokai of the John Locke Foundation and Rob Schofield of NC Policy Watch — our political observers on the right and the left — assess the week's news.
