In a NC State dissertation titled “Who Has Access to 8th Grade Algebra in North Carolina? A Case Study of Mathematics Placement Practices for Algebra I,” Peter Eley found

Analysis of the data revealed that students predicted to gain access to 8 th grade Algebra did not, in fact, gain access. However, students who were enrolled in courses with certified teachers gained access at a greater rate. The study also suggests that students’ gender and ethnicity have no effect on the enrollment of students into 8 th grade Algebra in this school district. Moreover, evidence clearly suggests that students who are simply designated “Academically Gifted” are highly likely to enroll in 8 th grade Algebra.

The most important finding is that “students’ gender and ethnicity have no effect on the enrollment of students.”  Critics of eighth-grade Algebra I placement often complain that it excludes a disproportionate number of African-American students.

Sara Swindell Himmelrich’s UNC-Greensboro dissertation, “Parental perceptions of school meal programs in Guilford County, North Carolina,” revealed that low-income parents believed that schools served poor quality, unhealthy breakfasts and lunches.  I suspect that most parents feel the same way.

Finally, for the history buffs about there, I offer “The People’s Law: Popular Sovereignty and State Formation in North Carolina, 1780–1805” by Gregory King-Owen of The Ohio State University. King-Owen’s abstract describes the thesis of his lengthy dissertation,

Between 1780 and 1805 North Carolina’s government struggled to define the parameters of statehood through its policies. In the creation of the state, petitions from ordinary citizens played a central role in the debate over the people and their relationship to the government. Courted by emerging Federalists in the late 1780s, the people found themselves elevated to a central role in the political life of the state through their petitioning power. By the late 1790s, however, lawyers turned away from the people as a source of power through petitioning and tried to channel grievances through a court system whose rules would protect the purity of process over the substantive claims of petitioners.

In other words, the people had power until professional lawyers came along.  Very interesting stuff.