Does it matter whether Wake County school board members are elected by a plurality or a majority of the votes?

As noted in today's article, the revised version of Senate Bill 325 approved by the state House Elections Committee on Wednesday does away with the requirement that Wake school board candidates need a majority to win.

Instead, you'd only need a plurality to join the school board.

Wake County school board candidate Venita Peyton raised less than $1,700 in her underfunded and unsuccessful campaign bid last year.

Her last campaign report filed Monday makes it hard to tell what she got. But if you combine it with this prior one, it shows Peyton raised $1.645 and spent $1.529.96. Democratic school board member Keith Sutton raised $33,327 and spent $32,484.31 to win the seat he was first appointed to in 2009.

Peyton, who received 19 percent of the vote, was the only one of the five Republican-backed school board candidates who didn't get a donation from Art Pope or Bob Luddy. Both men gave donations to the other four GOP-backed candidates, who also lost last fall.

The Wake County Democratic Party outspent the Wake County Republican Party by more than two to one last year to help win the pivotal school board battle.

While it's hard to say how much was specifically spent on the Wake County school board races, the campaign finance reports would suggest that the Democrats were more active in getting their candidates elected. For instance, Democrats had a target of $80,000 in their get-out-the-vote efforts for the October races.

According to their year-end report, the Wake County Democratic Party received $176,227.18 and spent $183,252.88. According to their year-end report, the Wake County Republican Party raised $81,965.98 and spent $83.089.33.

Former Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta raised nearly $65,000 in his unsuccessful re-election bid last fall.

In his year-end report filed Monday, Margiotta reported raising $64,902.72 and spending $61,006.11 during the hard-fought District 8 battle. The Republican incumbent outspent his Democratic opponent, Susan Evans, who raised $43,386.53 and spent $39.077.16.

But the gap narrows to nearly even and could possibly in the end be in Evans' favor when you throw in all the outside money that was spent to topple Margiotta from what was thought to be a safe seat in Southwest Wake.

Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo raised nearly $100,000 in her unsuccessful campaign bid.

In her final campaign report filed Monday, Losurdo reported raising $99,207.29 and spending $98,207.83 It was a record amount for a Wake school board race.

The Republican outspent her main District 3 opponent, Democrat Kevin Hill, who raised $68,598 and spent $54,322. But the numbers look to be more in Hill's favor when you factor in the outside spending.

Wake County school board candidate Donna Williams raised close to $50,000 in her unsuccessful bid to win the District 6 seat.

In her final 2011 campaign finance report filed earlier this month, Williams reported raising $48,335.96. The Republican spent all the money and closed out the campaign committee.

Her main Democratic opponent, Christine Kushner, raised $51,343.47 and spent $37,123.21 to easily win the Raleigh seat. Combined, Williams and Kushner spent nearly $100,000.

The final campaign reports for last fall's elections are starting to come in and they show that Cynthia Matson was at a major funding disadvantage in her bid to win a seat on the Wake County school board.

In Matson's final report filed Tuesday, the Republican-backed candidate reported having raised and spent $13,807.10. Her Democratic opponent in District 5, Jim Martin, hasn't filed his final report yet. But Martin had reported raising $31,534.46 as of Sept. 26.

The biggest contributor in Matson's latest report is conservative businessman Art Pope, who gave $4.000. All five Republican school board candidates have reported receiving donations from Pope except for Venita Peyton, whose final report isn't in yet.

Is the Wake County school system undergoing "militarization" under the tenure of Superintendent Tony Tata?

That's a charge leveled in this Dec. 16 article by Jason Langberg and Lewis Pitts from the liberal Advocates for Children's Services. The article points to Tata's military career, the requirement of Junior ROTC for the new single-sex leadership academies and Wake's recent involvement in cybersecurity competitions.

The authors start by calling the Occupy Wall Street movement an "education justice movement." The piece charges that public education has "undergone a corporate coup" with the "mega-buck mafia’s buyout of public education."

Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo has raised a record total of more than $80,000 in her bid to unseat incumbent Kevin Hill.

New campaign finance reports made public today show that Losurdo had reported raising $82,357 through Oct. 24. The prior record was the $79,500 that conservative businessman Bob Luddy had raised, largely out of his own pocket, in his unsuccessful run for the school board in 1997.

Hill’s new report shows he’s raised $42,748 through Oct 24. While Hill has almost half of Losurdo’s total, outside groups not connected to his campaign have spent tens of thousands of dollars on mailers and television ads attacking Losurdo.

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Ron Margiotta has become only the third person to have raised more than $50,000 in a Wake County school board race.

A new campaign finance report filed this week shows that the incumbent board chairman had raised $52,748.31 as of Sept. 26. He has $31,915.55 on hand in the District 8 race.

Margiotta leads Susan Evans, who had raised $37,524.69 as of Sept. 26 with $21,770.23 on hand. But you also have to keep in mind the thousands of dollars spent by outside groups urging people to support Evans or vote against Margiotta.