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RALEIGH -- A deep bench and powerful inside presence under the basket gave North Carolina lawmakers the advantage they needed to make a second half run and beat a squad of South Carolina legislators 35 -27 in a charity game Wednesday.

With the win at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, North Carolina reclaimed the trophy from its southern rival and extended its series lead to 11-6 in an on-again, off-again competition that dates to 1979.

"It was a great game," said Rep. Burt Jones, a Rockingham Republican who coached the team and reveled in his post-game interview. "I think we played just a little bit better. ... We had a little run in the second half and pulled away."

The 6-foot, 5-inch center Rep. Chris Millis, a Hampstead Republican, scored big points for the bipartisan N.C. General Assembly team and swatted a few big South Carolina shots, easily winning the crowd's MVP nod. "Everybody played hard," he said, sounding just like a professional athlete. "It was a team win."

Gov. Pat McCrory made an appearance in the second half, playing good minutes but later clanked two free throws late in the game. "I've never been so nervous in my life," McCrory said at the line.

A bipartisan House bill that would change the state's teacher tenure law moved swiftly through the House Education committee Tuesday.

The bill would allow veteran teachers to keep tenure, though they would lose it with two consecutive years of poor performance. Teachers with four years experience who are rated "highly effective" would be granted tenure.

The House bill is on a collision course with a Senate bill that abolishes teacher tenure.

A bipartisan coalition of North Carolina lawmakers introduced a bill Thursday to add more law enforcement officers and social workers to elementary and middle schools and install panic alarms in every classroom in the state.

The measure includes $17 million to add the officers, staff and alarms and mandates additional crisis drills and training to prepare for violent attacks at schools.

House Speaker Thom Tillis launched the effort more than a month ago and the legislation is designed to dovetail with Gov. Pat McCrory’s newly announced Center for Safer Schools. State Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat, said the legislation represents “a strong bipartisan consensus on an issue that should not have any partisan overtones.”

A bill directing the state Department of Public Instruction to come up with a plan for attaching "endorsements" to high school diplomas passed the House by a vote of 110-1 and is on its way to Gov. Pat McCrory.

The bill "tries to get the ball rolling on vocational education," said Rep. Bryan Holloway, a King Republican.

Legislators want high school diplomas to indicate whether students are prepared for work, college, or both after graduation.

Increasing vocational education was one of McCrory's campaign issues.

Rep. Paul Luebke, a Durham Democrat, objected to bringing the bill to a vote Wednesday evening, the same day it was debated in a House committee. But in the end, he sounded resigned.

"This is a feel-good bill," he said. "There's not much substance in it. There are still a lot of questions we could be debating on the floor."

Luebke voted for the bill. Rep. Carla Cunningham, a Democrat from Charlotte, voted against it.

The N.C. Association of Educators, a group long associated with Democrats, announced endorsements Wednesday of three Republican House members over their Democratic challengers. 

Reps. Bryan Holloway of Stokes, Linda Johnson of Cabarrus, and Hugh Blackwell of Burke County won NCAE's nod in what the group said is its first round of legislative endorsements. The other 13 endorsements announced Wednesday all went to Democrats.

Holloway and Blackwell are House education budget writers. Johnson is a co-chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee.

The House pushed money toward the K-12 budget this year, though not all made it into the final budget.

"These three legislative leaders were courageous, strong and vocal for public school educators and students this past short session, and our educators are going to be strong and vocal in working for their re-election this November," NCAE President Rodney Ellis said in a statement.

The House approved a bill that will require the State Board of Education to plan for and administer ACT pre-tests to 8th and 10th graders and the ACT to 11th graders, if they have the money.

The state board has been talking for months about administering the national tests in middle and high school to see if students are prepared for college.

Under the bill, schools would also be able to administer a test called WorkKeys that's meant to determine whether students are ready for community college or jobs.

The legislature voted earlier this session to eliminate four state end-of-course exams. The ACT bill sponsors said the national tests would be better than the state tests at determining how students are doing.

"It truly gets to the problem we need to address, finding a way to address accountability and remediation," said Tricia Cotham, a Mecklenburg Democrat and a bill sponsor.

Rep. Bryan Holloway, a Stokes County Republican and bill sponsor, said in an interview that the tests are "needed to address the remediation problem, especially in community colleges."

The community colleges have found for years that  significant numbers of students are not ready for college work.

Offering the tests will cost about $7 million, and the House budget writers have not included the money in their proposal. But Holloway said they were trying to find it.

The House approved a bill Tuesday that requires the state's schools to use a software tool to help diagnose students' progress.

The state has already made the system, called the Education Value Added Assessment System or EVAAS, available to schools. The bill now requires districts to use it or an equivalent program. The state and not local districts will pay for the software, which is owned by SAS. The House budget included $1 million for expanding the system.

Supporters say the system works and has shown improvements in student performance. Schools are already required to incorporate data and diagnostic systems in their improvement plans.

State Rep. Bryan Holloway, a King Republican and a former teacher, said he objected to forcing school systems to use the software.

"Now we as a state legislature are going to tell our superintendents, many of them have PhDs, our principals who have master's degrees, how they have to implement their school improvement plans?" he asked. "Someone has got to type that data in. Someone has to enter that data. I imagine it's going to be passed off to the teachers. They're not going to be thrilled to find out they have another duty added to their vast plate."

The bill passed the House 94 to 19 and now goes to the Senate.

UPDATE: SAS says the software does not require any extra work for teachers.

SAS applies its analysis to standardized test scores supplied by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, said spokesman Trent Smith.

The House rejected a bill encouraging grocery stores to provide sanitizing wipes to customers to clean shopping cart handles.

Rep. Ed Jones, a Greensboro Democrat, said he filed the bill after learning that researchers determined shopping carts provided some of the most exposure to germs and were most risky for children under the age of six.

The legislation would have encouraged retailers to provide the wipes and instructed local health departments to promote their use.

The bill quickly drew derisive comments from House Republicans.

Rep. George Cleveland, a Jacksonville Republican, said the bill represented the "nanny state having fun."

"I think we're going to lead our society to the point where we're going to be so sterile, we'll all just have to live in a bubble," he said. "When I grew up, I think the saying was you had to eat a peck of dirt or you wouldn't be a healthy kid, and I believe that."

More after the jump.

Tonight will see the N.C. General Assembly — the NCGA? — play its own version of the March Madness sweeping college basketball.

The game will be in Columbia, S.C.

Rep. Phil Haire, a Sylva Democrat, organized this year's lineup, a bipartisan squad known more for passing bills than basketballs.

House Chaplain Jim Harry accurately summarized the pre-game mood when he called upon a higher power to be with the North Carolina squad.

"Please remind them they're not 20-year-olds running up and down the court," Harry intoned.

More after the jump.

A few more House bills from this afternoon:

H.B. 159: Taxpayer Bill of Rights, Reps. John Blust, Mitchell Setzer, Bryan Holloway

H.B. 161: Require Six-Year-Olds to Attend School, Reps. Rick Glazier, Angela Bryant, Earline Parmon and Ray Rapp

H.B. 162: Elec. Record Interrogation / B1, B2, C Felony, Reps. Glazier, Dan Blue and Deborah Ross