Opinion Roundup: Energizing young voters, a new form of school detention, fixing N.C. disaster aid and more

Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2018 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: Energizing young voters for midterm elections, ACLU report card gives N.C. troublesome grade, a new way to deal with disruptive students, UNC Health Care redacts public records request, the opioid crisis comes to Randolph County, fixing disaster aid and more.

SCOTT BAUER: $30 million poured into effort to energize young voters (AP reports) — NextGen America, formed by billionaire activist Tom Steyer, hopes to be a game changer. Steyer is investing more than $30 million in what's believed to be the largest voter engagement effort of its kind in U.S. history. The push to register college students to vote is focusing on states such as Wisconsin, Virginia, California and North Carolina with competitive races for Congress, U.S. Senate and other offices.

No easy answer to gerrymandering (Winston-Salem Journal) — That the courts want to dismantle partisan gerrymandering deserves plenty of applause. To understand how that works and how it might unfold requires a moment of silence as we consider everyone and everything that would be affected.

STEPHANIE CARSON: ACLU Report Card: Civil Rights, Liberties Under Fire in NC (Public News Service reports) — While thousands of Americans enjoyed a day off from work Monday for Labor Day, it's the work done by NC’s General Assembly in the last legislative sessions that has civil rights activists concerned. Specifically, the ACLU of North Carolina gives the Tar Heel State low marks for pushing forward legislation that included limits to voting access, LGBTQ equality, privacy rights and more.

In Chapel Hill schools, talking is the new detention (WRAL reports) — If a student is repeatedly disruptive in class or gets into an altercation with another student, they go to what's loosely called a "conference." For about 30 minutes, the student sits down and has a conversation with the person they offended. Principal Robert Bales of McDougle Middle School is the first to test out the so-called "restorative practice" in the district.

JASON DEBRUYN & LIZ SCHLEMMER: 10 Questions To Understand School Funding In NC (WUNC reports) — State educators have marched in Raleigh repeatedly over the years - and most recently in May - to call for better funding for public schools. While the spotlight is often on teacher pay, the full picture is a lot more complicated. Here a few school funding questions answered using data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction:

ELIZABETH TODD-BRELAND: Activist teachers aren’t just fighting for themselves. They’re fighting for their students (Washington Post Column) — It's back-to-school season. Kids mourn the end of summer and excitedly meet new classmates. Parents rejoice for the end of the summer child-care scramble. And teachers set up their classrooms, finish lesson plans and, increasingly, protest. This last step has become more visible with the wave of #RedForEd protests over the course of the past year in such places as West Virginia, Arizona and North Carolina.

JOHN MURAWSKI: UNC Health Care’s response to a public records request, left NC’s Treasurer in the dark (Durham_Herald Sun reports) — NC’s State Treasurer, Dale Folwell, issued a press release last week applauding UNC Health Care for revealing what it charges to the 727,000 people covered by the State Health Plan. However, there’s just one twist: UNC actually refused to release the info Folwell requested under the Freedom of Information Act. Instead, UNC sent Folwell’s office a contract with all the relevant information blacked out.

Like so much of the state, and country, the opioid crisis comes to Randolph County (Greensboro News & Record reports) — Not so very long ago, overdose calls to Randolph County 911 were uncommon. That has changed dramatically. From January through June, telecommunicators fielded 257 calls reporting overdoses, an average of about 1.5 overdose calls every day.

THOMAS GOLDSMITH: More Choice for Medicare Advantage Subscribers, or More Problems? (NC Health News reports) — The government agency in charge of Medicare recently announced that it’s giving some patients more choice about whether to take an expensive drug infused in a medical office, or a cheaper substitute. However, the “preferred drug” might not be what the doctor originally ordered.

Fix disaster aid problems; don’t play politics with them (Fayetteville Observer) — Republican state lawmakers decided last week to investigate the Cooper administration’s slow response to Hurricane Matthew relief in some of the state’s hardest-hit areas, like this one. That could be a useful exercise, if our legislators use what they find to fix real problems, and they don’t turn this into just another opportunity to deliver political body blows to the Democratic governor. We fear what we’ll see is the latter.

MARK PRICE: Would iconic Cape Hatteras Lighthouse be underwater now if it wasn’t moved 20 years ago? (Charlotte Observer reports) — When experts decided in 1999 that the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse had to be moved to survive, Dare County officials sued to stop the risky relocation. They lost, however, and the nation’s tallest brick lighthouse — built in 1870 at 198.49 feet — was put on rails and rolled to a new home on Hatteras Island.

REBECCA MARTINEZ: North Carolinians Mobilize To Collect Plastic Debris Before It Hits The Ocean (WUNC reports) — Our state, like the rest of the world, has a plastic problem. And with more than 3,000 miles of ocean and sound coastline, the plastic that is dropped along a roadside or blown into in a ditch has a direct route to the sea.

JENNIFER ALLEN: Shackleford Horse Births ‘Balance’ Deaths (Coastal Review Online reports) — Shackleford Banks is part of the 56 miles of barrier islands that make up Cape Lookout National Seashore. Found south of Beaufort and Harkers Island, on the southernmost island in the national park, the herd of wild horses that has roamed free for centuries is managed by the park and the nonprofit Foundation for Shackleford Horses.

REBECCA MARTINEZ: Conservationists Create New Public Game Land For Elk Population (WUNC reports) — After nearly being destroyed by development and over-hunting, elk were re-introduced into the Cataloochie Valley in the early aughts. State Wildlife Resources Commission Biologist David Stewart says the herd now has about 150 animals.

ALFRED CHARLES: New black-owned brewery breaks new ground at Rocky Mount Mills (WRAL reports) — Briana Blake and Celeste Beatty have united to open Rocky Mount Brewery, which will cater to North Carolina's growing class of craft beer enthusiasts. The pair of black women are treading new ground in the craft beer industry. The Rocky Mount Mills publication says Rocky Mount Brewer is one one of two black-owned breweries in North Carolina, which reportedly has the most craft breweries and brewpubs in the South.

Beaches full as Labor Day caps summer season (Wilmington Star News reports) — The Ward family had one more piece of business to handle before heading home Monday: a group picture on the Carolina Beach Boardwalk. “Carolina Beach is in our roots,” Ed Ward said. “We grew up coming here and we wanted to come back as a family to honor her. Even before I-40 was here, Carolina Beach was just a quick day trip for us when we were young.”

MARK PRICE: A mysterious square aircraft hovering in night sky ‘scared me to death,’ NC man says (Charlotte Observer reports) — Another alleged UFO sighting near Charlotte has appeared on Facebook and in this case, it was posted by a husband and father who says he doesn’t necessarily believe in UFOs. North Carolina is in the top 10 among the 50 states when it comes to UFO sightings, according to the National UFO Reporting Center in Davenport in Washington state.