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TODAY AT THE STATEHOUSE: The action starts early Tuesday and will likely stretch past 10 p.m. again. The House and Senate plan to convene a skeletal session just before 10 a.m. to read in committee reports, then recess until 2 p.m. House Speaker Thom Tillis said the session will go until 5:15 p.m. or so before a dinner recess for committee meetings. The chamber will reconvene at 7 p.m. and go late. The Senate isn't expected to stay as long but its calendar is getting crowded. Gov. Pat McCrory lists no public events.

McCRORY'S OFFICE WON'T RELEASE DAILY SCHEDULE ANYMORE: The governor's Communications Director Kim Genardo is changing the office's policy of releasing a daily calendar. Genardo said if there is no event scheduled, she won't send out a notice stating as much, meaning some days will have no notice to the governor's schedule. McCrory pledged to release a daily schedule during the gubernatorial campaign as he bashed his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue, for taking a "secret" trip to Pennsylvania to study fracking rigs. Republicans jumped on McCrory's Democratic opponent for not pledging to do the same. “Everyone knew where I was as mayor,” McCrory said a year ago. “My records were open."

***A busy week means lots of news below in the Dome Morning Memo. Send more news and tips to dome@newsobserver.com. ****

The two major-party candidates for governor both stress close connections between education and business but approach the question of improving education from different angles. Democrat Walter Dalton would extend already established paths, while Republican Pat McCrory’s education proposals have the potential to remake the state’s public education system from kindergarten through college.

Read about education in the governor's race, the third installment in a series, and see a graphic of how the plans stack up.

More political headlines:

--On Tuesday, it will be four weeks before the Nov. 6 elections – let the countdown begin. We have had our first debates, more ads than you can shake a stick at, and more than a few motorcades. Read Rob Christensen's tutorial on what to expect in the closing month.

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney – who has struggled to find momentum – will offer voters two starkly different prescriptions for fixing the ailing economy as they duel Wednesday in their first and perhaps most critical debate.

More than 60 million people are expected to watch when the nationally televised, 90-minute debate kicks off at 9 p.m., far more than watched the two major party national conventions and dwarfing the number that watched Romney in Republican primary debates. Read more here.

More political headlines below.

The Democratic departures that continued Thursday with former House Speaker Joe Hackney are not coordinated --but lawmakers say the moves signal deep frustrations with the new GOP legislative leadership and a desire to avoid bruising re-election battles in unfavorable districts newly drawn by Republicans. Read more here.

The Democratic governor's race continues to evolve as Erskine Bowles said Thursday that he would not run for governor, but others moved to fill the void with former Congressman Bob Etheridge announcing his bid. Read more here.

Education's role as a prominent issue in the 2012 elections continues to increase. State Board of Education Chairman Bill Harrison is asking his members to champion public education in a political environment where lawmakers are increasingly open to alternatives. Read more here.

Speakers from the American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying arm for the oil and gas industry, said Thursday that the energy industry's self-policing standards should serve as a model for how North Carolina can regulate natural gas exploration and "fracking." Read more here.

And a high-ranking law enforcement officer in the state Division of Motor Vehicles says his superiors planted a hidden tracking device in his state-issued car in hopes of finding something to use against him in a long-running personnel dispute. Read more here.

Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat, will challenge incumbent state Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson in a primary.

Atkinson, a Democrat in her second term, announced today that she is seeking re-election.

Glazier said he would do a better job than Atkinson at standing up to Republicans and would use the office as a bully pulpit to talk about the value of public education. Losing public education means losing "a real foundation of democracy," he said.

With data showing that 66 percent of students are not proficient in reading and the state is 49th in per pupil spending, "it's time to change what we're doing."

Initially, Glazier said he would run if Atkinson didn't. Here's his explanation of why he's in:

Glazier said he talked to Atkinson in October, and she told him she would make a decision by Thanksgiving.  At that time, Glazier said, he was being asked to consider running for the office, and he agreed to defer if she made a decision by then.

Thanksgiving came and went and there was no Atkinson decision, Glazier said. The first time he heard for sure that she had decided to run was last week at Hunt Institute retreat for policy makers. That late notice didn't give anyone else who wanted to launch a serious campaign time to start work, he said.

"There comes a point at which you have to get prepared, you have to make a decision to move forward. You have to decide to go," he said.

Primary challenges against incumbents are somewhat rare. Glazier said he was looking forward to making his case.

"Being an incumbent does not entitle you in perpetuity to a job," he said.

Rep. Rick Glazier thinks school board candidates should pay a little more.

The Fayetteville Democrat filed a bill this week that would raise the filing fee for school board candidates from $5 to $100.

He said that would bring it in line with other local offices, which can be as high as $250, and reduce the number of candidates who never campaign.

"What we see in my county is that people will be mad at a teacher or a superintendent one day and they'll decide to file, but they never really campaign because they've calmed down," he said.

He said that a higher filing fee would push candidates to be "vested" in their campaign.

Glazier also argued that a longer list of candidates increases the cost of holding an election. 

A number of bills never made it past the legislature.

The bills would have:

Prohibited smoking in public spaces such as restaurants and workplaces.

Rolled back a law requiring most schools to open on or after Aug. 25.

Called for a public vote on banning same-sex marriage in the constitution.

Prohibited corporal punishment in schools.

Called for a public vote on amending the state constitution to bar governments from taking property for economic development purposes.

A full list after the jump.