As we celebrate the holidays, Carolina Journal Radio looks back at some of the most interesting topics covered during the past year. New data on the academic performance of North Carolina public schools gave us a snapshot into the challenges our state faces to ensure we’re producing educated young men and women. Dr. Terry Stoops, the John Locke Foundation’s director of research and education studies, says there wasn’t much change in the new scores, which means those hoping to bash education reformers won’t have ammunition to do so, and education reformers hoping to tout big gains won’t have ammunition either. Then we turn to free speech. Rather than engage in debate, the political left is relying increasingly on manufactured outrage to shut down debate on a growing number of topics. It’s a situation that prompted Fox News contributors Guy Benson and Mary Katharine Ham to write the recent book “End of Discussion.” Benson and Ham explain how the left’s tactics make America “less free and less fun.” Turning to economics and growth, we delve into a school of economics dubbed “public choice,” which has an answer for the common question: Why do government policies tend to benefit special interests, rather than the public at large? JLF Vice President for Research Roy Cordato explored the so-called “special interest effect” during a speech earlier this year. That’s followed by a refutation of leftist conventional wisdom. Left-wing pundits and politicians have spent much time recently bemoaning the negative impact of income inequality. But James Piereson, president of the William E. Simon Foundation and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, says the focus on inequality diverts attention from a much more important problem: slow economic growth. And finally, we look at health care reform ideas being discussed by a handful of presidential candidates. Katherine Restrepo, the John Locke Foundation’s health and human services analyst, explains the principles upon which every candidate should be relying for his/her health care plans.