Terry Stoops is taking aim at a recent Brookings Institution report that speculated that the schools in the Raleigh-Cary metropolitan area benefited from the Wake County school system's “history of aggressive district-wide socioeconomic integration policies.”

In an op-ed piece today, Stoops, the director of education studies for the conservative John Locke Foundation, writes that the Brookings report has "critical flaws." Stoops writes that there are "fundamental dissimilarities" between the Raleigh-Cary metro area and the other large metro areas in the report.  

Stoops also points to how Wake's low-income students trail the state in performance and in graduation rate.

"Without a doubt, residents of Wake County want a system of public schools that provides a high-quality education to all children," Stoops writes. "But the answer does not lie in empowering the school board or county commission to find ways to compel a certain class of citizens to attend a certain school or live in a particular neighborhood."

How much revision is in store for year two of the new Wake County student assignment plan?

As noted in today's article, new Democratic school board members Susan Evans and Christine Kushner acknowledge it's too difficult to make changes at this late date for the 2012-13 school year. But they are talking about looking at substantive changes for the 2013-14 school year.

Kushner talked about the possibility of merging the choice plan with the base assignment component of the old plan.

A new report from the Brookings Institution is likely to add more fuel to the debate about the value of the Wake County school system's old socioeconomic diversity policy.

As noted in today's article, the report found that schools attended by low-income and middle/high-income students in the Raleigh-Cary metropolitan area exceeded test score expectations more than in any of the 100 largest metropolitan areas.

"One possible explanation is that Wake County has a history of aggressive district-wide socioeconomic integration policies," according to the report.

UPDATE

Click here to read Kahlenberg's column on the Brookings report that was posted Sunday in The Washington Post's Answer Sheet blog.

A new ranking system from the Brookings Institution places Wake County as fourth best among the nation's 25 largest school districts in providing school choice.

The new Education Choice and Competition Index released this morning has Wake with a "B-" grade. New York City was ranked first with a "B" grade. Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools ranked 11th with a "C+" grade.

Wake performed well in the categories of Accessible On-line Information, District School Quality, Popularity of Schools Reflected in Funding and Restructure or Close Undersubscribed Schools. But Brookings said Wake needs improvement on the old student assignment plan that's being phased out.

The N.C. Sustainable Association is about to conduct a count of companies and jobs that make up the state's clean energy sector. 

The Raleigh-based group will begin its annual census Friday, with emails sent out to about 1,800 companies it identifies as part of the sector. The organization will follow-up with phone calls to companies that don't respond to email.

Classifying and estimating the size of the green economy is an inexact science at best, resulting in widely divergent results, depending on criteria used. There is no uniform standard on what counts as a green job.

The sustainable energy association limits its definition to energy efficiency, renewable energy, smart grid, green buildings and electric vehicles.

The Triangle is the nation's second-fastest growing region for green jobs, according to a report issued today by the Brookings Institution, one of this country's most influential think tanks.

The Brookings report, "Sizing the Clean Economy," is the first attempt at a comprehensive assessment of the nation's green jobs sector. Regional studies issued in the past have not been consistent in how they define and count green jobs, making comparisons all but useless.

For example, North Carolina had nearly 79,000 green collar jobs in 2010, according to the Brookings count. That total is bigger by orders of magnitude than the 12,500 green jobs counted last year by the state's green-collar advocacy group, the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association.

Still, the Brookings study tells us something valuable: that North Carolina has the nation's 11th largest statewide green economy, while the Triangle is the 30th largest regional green economy.

A new report by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. says that the country's largest metropolitan areas need to refocus their energies on boosting exports.

Exports, the report says, result in higher paying jobs and provide people without college degrees more employment options.

Metro areas with a large manufacturing bases are in the best position to boost exports, the report says.

The Raleigh-Cary metro area was the 54th largest producer of exports in 2008 with total exports of $5 billion, according to the report.

That amounted to 9.8 percent of the region's economy.

An estimated 33,652 jobs are related to exports.

The Triangle exports the most products to Canada, followed by Mexico, the United Kingdom, Japan and China.

The Triangle's major export industries are chemical manufacturing, computer and software manufacturing and royalties from intellectual property.

Among the local companies mentioned in the report are Aviat Networks, Environ Products, Sharp Business Systems, Quanovia, data storage company EMC and General Electric's aviation manufacturing facility in Durham.