* A black or Native American child visiting the state Capitol on a school field trip can wander among the statues, monuments and plaques without seeing an image of someone of the same skin color.

Eddie Davis, a former teacher and former head of the state's largest teachers union, calls it "segregated history in the 21st century." He is proposing that the state Capitol in downtown Raleigh, built with the help of slave labor, reflect and represent all of its people, including those who aren't white, about a quarter to one-third of the population.

He asked members of the state Historical Commission last week to add a "Hall of Inclusion" on the second floor of the Capitol, with plaques recognizing historical contributions by racial and ethnic minorities. (N&O)

* Jam-packed Wake County classrooms with up to 40 or more students have sparked a blame game between leaders of North Carolina's largest school district and state officials and educators.

* As a result of tough-on-crime sentencing laws approved by legislators 15 years ago, North Carolina's inmate population is booming and will soon outpace the number of prison beds.

Despite this, the state budget signed by Perdue this month orders seven small prisons closed, eliminates 972 corrections jobs and cuts programs aimed at keeping juvenile offenders from becoming hardened criminals.

Administrators say the state Department of Correction can safely absorb the cuts in the short-term by increasing the number of inmates at other facilities. But judges, legislators and others with a stake in the criminal justice system worry that the growth, if unchecked, will soon result in prisons so crowded as to be unsafe for inmates and staff. (N&O)

Buncombe County Schools will raise class size in higher grades to cope with state-mandated budget cuts to education.

The system lost 42 teaching positions because of a $15 million budget cut, the Asheville Citizen-Times reports.

The school system was able to rehire almost all of the teachers who were laid off at the end of last school year, but it wasn't able to fill all vacant positions. In most cases, students will see two or three extra students in their classrooms. Class sizes vary by grade and course, from 17 to 21 students per class.

The state's school system must each decide how to cut spending.

As part of the final state budget deal, lawmakers and Gov. Beverly Perdue mandated $225 million in cuts to local school systems. Lawmakers scrapped language that would have required increased class sizes in grades 4-12. Instead the budget gave school administrators increased flexibility to move money and to spend federal stimulus dollars while encouraging officials to leave class rooms alone.

The state's teacher lobby, Perdue and certain lawmakers said they believe such cuts can be made without increasing class size, which is necessary when schools have fewer teachers. Administrators in Wake say they believe paying teachers with stimulus money, which runs out in two years, would create more problems than it solves.

House and Senate budget negotiators reached a final, no more changes, budget deal just before 6 p.m. Monday.

The budget has not been put into a bill form yet, but the plan is to have the document done before midnight so it can be read into the record, a necessary step before any votes could be taken.

The education budget would keep K-3 class size intact. For grades 4 through 12, local school boards would have to cut spending. The order from the state budget would be for officials to try to preserve the classroom as much as possible.

The budget would spend approximately $18.7 billion including about $990 million in new taxes.

Rep. Mickey Michaux, a Durham Democrat and senior budget writer said that state residents will see budget cuts across all categories of state spending. Public education would be cut 4.8 percent or $1.8 billion from last year and higher education would see a 6.2 percent cut or $1.9 billion.

More after the jump.

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House Democrats spent the first hour of budget debate listing the items that proposed taxes would save.

It's been the strategy all along for House Democrats on selling the tax increase: don't say the word "taxes" and name the programs the new revenue would save.

"The most decimating and draconian and dramatic cuts to the school budget can be restored," said Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat.

The taxes would spare a proposed increase in the average class size for grades K-3. Fourth grade classes and above would still see an increase of two students. In education, the budget would restore thousands of teaching, staff and assistant principal positions that the House had originally planned to cut.

In Health and Human Services, the taxes would eliminate a child care subsidy reduction, soften a cut to the Smart Start early childhood program and replace funding for a second dose chicken pox vaccine.

The list of restorations begins of page 25 on the document below.

House Republican Leader Paul Stam said that one more student in Wake County classrooms would save as much as $200 million in construction costs.

The Senate's budget proposal would increase the average class size by two students to save $320 million. The change is intended to be temporary.

Stam said if the state made permanent an increase of one student, it would save much more in future construction costs.

"That experience in class size reduction has had almost no educational benefits and yet has cost the state billions and billions," said Stam, an Apex Republican.

Stam made his comments during a taping of Headline Saturday, a WRAL-produced show that features WRAL anchor David Crabtree and News & Observer Executive Editor John Drescher as hosts. A certain Dome contributor also appeared on this week's show, which was a roundup of legislative action this session.

The show will air at 7 p.m. on WRAL and will be available on the station's Web site.

Correction: A previous version of this post overstated the amount of savings. Stam said a one student-per-teacher increase would delay the need for

* four elementary schools operating on a traditional calendar or three elementary schools operating on a year-round multi-track calendar ($23 million per school)

* one middle school operating on a traditional calendar or (80%) of a middle school operating on a year-round calendar. ($43 million)

* one high school operating on a traditional calendar. ($73 million) 

A spokesman for Gov. Beverly Perdue said that the Senate's budget proposal has left the governor "troubled."

“The Senate made some good investments in what we know of its budget so far, but at this point in time Governor Perdue is troubled by the proposed increase in class size," said David Kochman, a spokesman. "An increase of two students per class means eliminating 6,200 teaching positions and reducing the amount of individual attention our kids receive in the classroom.”

Sen. Linda Garrou, the Senate's senior budget writer, said the proposal to add two students to the average class size is intended to be a temporary fix for the state's budget problems. A former teacher, Garrou said the decision was difficult for her.

Fewer teachers would be needed and Garrou said those losses would likely occur through attrition. Schools across the state routinely have to search for new teachers as school years begin. 

The Senate's proposed $20.05 billion budget relies on an average of two more students in classrooms across the state.

Increasing class size to 20 students in K-3 and 22 in grades 4-12 would save $320 million annually, said Sen. Linda Garrou, the senate's senior budget writer and a Winston-Salem Democrat.

The class size proposal is likely to find favor among Republicans who have previously called for the change.

Garrou and her fellow appropriations committee co-chairs gave a peek at the Senate's budget Monday. The full document will be available online at 7 p.m. The details released so far highlight a document that differs from Gov. Beverly Perdue's budget in several key areas.

The budget would lay off as many as 712 state employees and eliminate some 900 vacant positions. Perdue's proposal would have sought to keep layoffs to a pool of fewer than 300 employees.

The leaders of state departments would have targets to meet in cuts. Officials could make the cuts in several ways including furloughs, said Sen. A.B. Swindell, a Nashville Democrat. Perdue said she avoided furloughs because she feared the message it would send to businesses and investors about the state's financial condition.

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