A provision of the 2012 Excellent Public Schools Act seeks to ensure that North Carolina public school kids are reading proficiently at the end of third grade. The John Locke Foundation’s Director of Research and Education Studies, Terry Stoops, explains why the policy is based in research and how its implementation is being politicized to make Republicans who supported it look bad. Then we turn to state fiscal policy. The McCrory administration and state lawmakers have been focusing on improving North Carolina’s unemployment insurance program. State lawmakers recently heard an update from the divisions of Workforce Solutions and Employment Security on efforts to pay down the state’s debt to the federal government for unemployment benefits, while also improving services for unemployed workers seeking jobs. Next is a look at business policy changes that may be coming. Some legislators want to replace the business privilege license tax levied now by many North Carolina local governments with a new, optional $100 local business tax. You’ll learn why lawmakers are pushing for that change. That’s followed by a look at efficiency in state government. The N.C. Revenue Department recently decided to scrap a multimillion-dollar project to create a Tax Information Management System, or TIMS. The Revenue Department’s chief operating officer defended the decision during a recent public presentation. And finally, we look at a state law that ties the hands of some property owners. The John Locke Foundation’s Legal Policy Analyst, Tyler Younts, discusses the Map Act and relays the story of Forsyth County residents who have been in limbo for years due to the law.