Both the Raleigh Public Record and News 14 Carolina noted John Locke Foundation Director of Research and Local Government Studies Michael Sanera‘s presentation this week to Wake County commissioners. Sanera spoke against a proposal to place a half-cent transit tax on the November ballot.

A CNN story picked up by the Triad’s WXII, along with stations as far away as KERO in Bakersfield, Calif., quoted Director of Education Studies Terry Stoops on the issue of extending the public school calendar. A Lincoln Times-News editorial cited Stoops’ analysis of a recent statewide classroom conditions survey. (The John Locke Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, issued a report Thursday that raises questions about the urgency of this search for educational funds, which Perdue seems to think are so desperately needed. Pointing to an annual survey of North Carolina educators, the Locke report shows their assessment of classroom conditions is almost exactly the same now as it was a year ago, before budget cuts prompted statewide headlines claiming the educational system was in jeopardy.) N.C. Senate Republicans promoted the transcript of a recent Carolina Journal Radio interview with Stoops on education funding myths.

A Greensboro News & Record editorial cited research from Director of Fiscal Policy Studies Fergus Hodgson on North Carolina’s efforts to repay a multibillion-dollar debt to the federal government for money borrowed to pay unemployment benefits. Watchdog.org quoted Hodgson in an article reacting to President Obama’s recent decision not to deport illegal immigrants brought to the country as children.

An editorial appearing in both the Burlington Times-News and Kinston Free Press cited JLF research while making the case for compensation of victims of North Carolina’s eugenics program. A High Point Enterprise article relied upon data from Policy Analyst Michael Lowrey‘s annual By The Numbers report. (Proposed local property tax increases could end what has been a slight downward trend in the tax burden for High Pointers, according to a John Locke Foundation report. High Point ranked 11th in the state in combined city-county property tax burden per capita in 2010 at $1,274, according to the Raleigh-based conservative think tank.)