N.C. Spin has heard some of the same gossip as Dome.

The weekly politics newsletter seconds some of the names we've heard tossed around for Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue's administration.

(Those would be Bryan Beatty and Scott Thomas for Crime Control; Crandall Bowles at Commerce; Clark Jenkins, Gene Conti and Lanny Wilson at Transportation; and Dempsey Benton, Bill Ross and Britt Cobb to stay.)

They also toss out some new names:

Cultural Resources: Kay Myers, wife of former state transportation board member and Democratic fundraiser Gordon Myers of Asheville.

Education: Howard Lee to remain chair of the board of education and J.B. Buxton to remain advisor to the governor on education.

Commerce: Former deputy Tony Copeland, now working for Longistics in Raleigh.

Environment and Natural Resources: Current assistant secretary Robin Smith, Richard Rogers and former UNC-Wilmington chancellor Jim Leutze.

Administration: Rep. Alma Adams of Greensboro.

Employment Security Commission: Current head Harry Payne to remain.

Office of State Personnel: Rep. Linda Coleman of Knightdale.

The usual caveat applies that the above names are just gossip. The Perdue transition team says the governor-elect has not made any decisions.

State educators say a recent report is incorrect.

The N.C. Department of Public Instruction says a report by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center got the state's own calculation of its dropout rate wrong.

The report said the state figured it had a 95 percent graduation rate — far above the report's own calculation of 67 percent using a different methodology.

But DPI spokeswoman Vanessa Jeter wrote Dome in an e-mail that the state's figures actually showed a dropout rate of 69.4 percent, much closer to the report's figure.

After the report came out, Deputy Superintendent J.B. Buxton wrote the researchers on June 3 to inform them of the error and request a correction.

"In presenting the report's findings at a news conference, the researchers acknowledged that North Carolina's numbers were out-of-date in the report and that our state has made significant progress in reporting the issue of high school graduation rates," Jeter wrote.

Previously: N.C. dropout rate ranked 12th worst.

North Carolina education leaders are warning that they can’t live with the funding proposed by the state House.

The state House would provide less money for public education than proposed by Gov. Mike Easley, especially when it comes to awarding bonuses to teachers for student performance.

During today’s state Board of Education meeting, Deputy Superintendent J.B. Buxton warned there might have to be changes in the amount of bonus money given this year. He didn’t spell out what that could entail, but the choices wouldn’t be pretty.

If the state is short on bonus money, the rewards could be cut. Teachers could get less than the $1,500 they typically receive if their schools showed higher than expected improvement on state exams.

Easley could also pull money from elsewhere in the budget, including the amount that would be provided to individual school districts.

Howard Lee, chairman of the state board, urged his colleagues to lobby legislators to provide more money. If not, he said they may to consider major budget cuts the next time they meet .

“If we don’t get the resources we need, we’ll have to enter into crisis mode,” Lee said.