The legislature wants the state Board of Education to figure out how to get all high school students to graduate in four years.
Under a measure the Senate approved unanimously Tuesday, the Board of Education must set minimum goals for graduation of 74 percent by 2014, 80 percent by 2016, and 90 percent by 2018. The measure now goes to Gov. Bev Perdue for her signature.
The long-term goal, with no date attached, is to have all students graduate.
The standards were relaxed from the original suggestion from a legislative committee on dropout prevention that wanted to hit 90 percent graduation by 2015.
Burr ahead, barely
Republican Sen. Richard Burr holds a five-point lead over his Democratic challenger, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, according to a new poll.
Burr leads Marshall by a 38-to-33 percent margin, according to a survey by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm based in Raleigh. Libertarian candidate Michael Beitler polled 10 percent of the vote.
The poll suggests that North Carolina's Senate race is far from decided, with many voters still looking.
The survey found that 28 percent of North Carolina voters are unsure of their opinion of Burr and 58 percent are uncertain of Marshall, including 54 percent of Democrats.
The largest group of undecided voters is Democratic, according to the poll, meaning that Marshall must consolidate her base if she is to have a chance to win.
The poll of 502 North Carolina voters was conducted June 26-27 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
Other recent polls include a SurveyUSA poll taken for WRAL which showed Burr leading Marshall by 50-40 percent, and a Rasmussen Reports poll showing Burr leading Marshall by a 44-43 percent margin.
Biden fundraiser set
Vice President Joe Biden will attend a Democratic Party fundraiser in Chapel Hill this month at the Carolina Inn.
The event, to benefit the Democratic National Committee, comes as the Obama administration is putting on a push in North Carolina, regarded as a swing state.
Charlotte, for example, is one of the four finalists as a site for the Democratic National Convention in 2012.
The Biden event will be heldJuly 22. Cost of admission is $500 a person, although the invitation notes that the DNC can legally accept as much as $30,400 from an individual per calendar year.
Biden was last in the Triangle in March, when he visited the facilities at Cree and had lunch at Bullock's BBQ in Durham.
Open meetings win
The N.C. Court of Appeals said two Yancey County residents deserve a hearing on whether that county's Board of Commissioners violated the state open meetings law when it kicked them off the county's social services board.
In November 2008, the county commissioners appointed Tamera Frank and Peter Franklin to the Yancey County Department of Social Services Board of Directors. The next month, three new county commissioners were sworn in, and on that same day they declared the appointments invalid and named two new board members to replace Frank and Franklin, according to an opinion published Tuesday.
The ousted board members sued, saying their ouster was not legal and that it was done at a meeting that violated the state open meetings law because it was not properly advertised and announced. A judge dismissed the case.
But a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled that there is enough evidence that the meeting wasn't announced to warrant a trial. Frank and Franklin "are therefore entitled to a judicial determination of whether the actions taken by the Board at the unannounced meeting are null and void," Justice Jim Wynn wrote.
The opinion follows another victory for open government in the appellate courts. A recent Supreme Court ruling held that a judge - not a state agency - should determine whether a public records request has been adequately fulfilled.
By staff writers Lynn Bonner, Rob Christensen and Benjamin Niolet
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The barely 2-week-old campaign for governor has gotten off to a raucous start, with a lawsuit, threats of “evisceration” and the two national parties wading in playing hard ball. 
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A campaign commercial funded by the Democratic Governors Association includes facts about Pat McCrory’s corporate ties but may lead viewers to distorted conclusions. 
Most modern U.S. presidents have played golf, but it's touchy, since many people view it as an expensive, elite sport. President Barack Obama plays golf a lot, but he won't let the news media see him do it. Keep up with the latest political stories with our free daily e-mail newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox!
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