North Carolina policy, patiently examined.
News & Views treats North Carolina politics as a practical question of public consequences. Rob Schofield speaks with educators, lawmakers, reporters, analysts, and researchers about schools, maternal health, tax policy, vaccines, lotteries, housing, and the decisions shaping daily life in the state.
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News & Views is a North Carolina public-affairs interview program with a steady focus on policy, public institutions, and state-level accountability. It is not a quick headline recap. Rob Schofield opens episodes by laying out the civic stakes, often grounding the conversation in budget numbers, legislative context, recent reporting, or the practical conditions facing schools, families, and public agencies. The show then turns to guests who can speak from direct experience. A middle school teacher discusses teacher pay, veteran educator retention, and the loss of respect that comes with stagnant compensation. A state representative explains Black maternal health, postpartum coverage, and policy tools meant to prevent deaths. Education advocates and researchers connect preschool funding, child care quality, teacher preparation, and school readiness to long-term public outcomes. Budget analysts warn about tax triggers, revenue gaps, and the services that become vulnerable when lawmakers reduce the state’s fiscal capacity. Health experts address respiratory virus season, vaccine eligibility, public confusion, and the consequences of political attacks on public health infrastructure. Reporters bring in broader state trends, including lottery revenue, legalized gambling, and affordable housing. The format is interview-centered and patient. Questions often run long because they carry necessary background. The show’s argument is usually visible: government decisions matter, and underinvestment has human costs. Still, the value is not only opinion. News & Views is most useful when it slows down a public debate enough to show the machinery underneath it. It gives listeners a grounded way to follow North Carolina politics through classrooms, clinics, budgets, agencies, and legislative sessions.
Made for: For listeners who follow North Carolina government, public education, health policy, state budgets, and civic life. It fits people who want issue-heavy interviews with context, not quick partisan spectacle.
What sets it apart: News & Views stands out by treating state politics as a chain of practical consequences. Its interviews connect lawmakers, educators, analysts, researchers, and reporters to the systems their decisions and reporting describe.
Conversations with prominent state and national newsmakers – politicians, advocates, analysts, academics and activists — about the news, events and public policy debates that shape life in North Carolina.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Rob Schofield connects North Carolina policy arguments to their practical effects through informed, firmly framed interviews.
News & Views turns North Carolina policy debates into focused interviews with people working inside them. Rob Schofield begins with a clear editorial position, then asks guests to explain how decisions made in Raleigh affect public institutions and daily life.
Rob Schofield takes your school funding questions from teacher pay to property tax rules.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A measured look at North Carolina school funding, teacher pay, and why retaining experienced educators matters.
Justin Parmenter joins a careful discussion of North Carolina public-school funding, with the Raleigh rally and the latest rankings setting the frame: 46th for teacher pay and 39th for per-pupil spending.
A measured policy interview about North Carolina's maternal health crisis.
North Carolina's maternal health crisis sits at the center of the segment, and it keeps the focus on practical policy rather than broad abstraction.
A steady case for treating school funding as a legislative priority.
News & Views stays focused on public-school funding in North Carolina, with Keith Poston linking the 2026 legislative session to years of chronic underfunding and warning that proposed tax cuts could deepen the strain.
Georgia's gains and North Carolina's declines sharpen the case for sustained state preschool investment.
State preschool is the subject, but the episode is really about how uneven public commitment still is. News and Views uses The State of Preschool 2025 to set nearly $14.4 billion in state preschool spending against two state-level contrasts: Georgia is presented as strong on…
A clear look at how state lotteries are being reshaped by legalized private gambling.
North Carolina's lottery serves as the entry point, but the larger issue is how states keep lotteries relevant and revenue-producing as legalized private gambling expands around them.
Sally Hodges-Koppel makes North Carolina's budget gap legible by tying tax cuts to public services.
Rob Schofield's conversation with Sally Hodges-Koppel gives North Carolina's looming budget gap a clear public-policy frame. Hodges-Koppel, a public policy analyst at the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, describes a nearer-term shortfall of $3 billion, growing to just over…
A clear look at vaccine access, policy, and the gap between rules and recommendations.
The episode treats vaccine policy as a live public health and political fight, with UNC Professor of Medicine and infectious disease expert Dr. David Wall anchoring the discussion.
Moral questions with consequences for minds, machines, and power.
WSJ reporters unpack the Epstein files, surrogacy industry abuses, and true-crime court battles.
Dan Carlin's solo essays connecting executive power, historical collapse, and American democracy.
Justin Parmenter returns to News and Views.
Rob Schofield opens with a sober look at Black maternal health in North Carolina.
Rob Schofield opens by putting public-school funding at the top of the 2026 session.
North Carolina’s pre-K spending fell by nearly $1,000 per pupil, and county access ranges from 80% to under 10%.
North Carolina's state lottery is the launch point.
Rob Schofield on News and Views frames the episode around North Carolina’s 2026 short session, the consensus revenue forecast, and the state budget’s looming shortfall.
News and Views opens on the politics of vaccines.