Supporters of requiring voters to show a photo ID are pointing to the Wake County school system's kindergarten registration process to bolster their argument.

In a Dec. 21 Civitas Review blog post, Brian Balfour, an analyst for the conservative Civitas Institute, writes how Wake includes "a photo ID of the parent or guardian" as one of the required kindergarten registration
documents.

Balfour points to how critics of voter ID say "that anywhere from eight percent to 11 percent of adult North Carolinians have no photo ID." Based on that 8 to 11 percent figures and Wake's enrollment, Balfour writes "that would add to quite a few children whose parents wouldn’t meet the required documentation."

Wake County school board chairman Kevin Hill is continuing his efforts to justify the board majority's firing of Superintendent Tony Tata.

As noted in today's article, Hill met Friday with N&O editors and reporters to list out issues such as concerns about Tata's relationship with board members and staff and his handling of taxpayer dollars. Some of it's similar to what he said at Tuesday's board meeting but he went into more detail.

Hill also went into how he wants to handle the superintendent's search and the timing of the next school bond issue.

UPDATE

Click here to view the letter to the editor from Kevin Hill that will appear in Tuesday's paper in response to Tata's point of view column.

A flash poll from the conservative Civitas Institute found that the majority of respondents opposed the Wake County school board's firing of Superintendent Tony Tata.

According to the results released Thursday, 59 percent of the 400 registered voters contacted said they disapproved of the firing. Only 28 percent said they approved. Thirteen percent weren't sure.

Tata also had an higher approval rating than the school board.

Former Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta is being praised for showing "what conservatives accomplished for Wake schools" in the latest issue of Civitas Review.

The magazine article published by the conservative Civitas Institute praises Margiotta and the former Republican school board majority for various accomplishments in their two-year tenure. The list includes raising the graduation rate, passing the new choice-based student assignment plan, increasing minority placement in Algebra I, lowering student suspensions and not laying off teachers.

"Liberals and their allies like to stereotype conservatives as penny-pinchers who don’t care about students," writes Civitas President Francis DeLuca, the author of the article. "But Ron Margiotta and his conservative allies showed how false that image is."

Bob Luebke says the Wake County school board's passage of the student assignment directive "is not encouraging for conservatives," "disappointing" and "the same old school assignment plan in different packaging."

In this online article Thursday for the conservative Civitas Institute, Luebke writes "don't believe him" when school board chairman Kevin Hill says they're not going back to the old assignment plan. He points to how Hill talks about "healthy schools" and "diversity."

"While most candidates played nice during last fall’s election, it was really only a matter of time before the masks came off and the major philosophical differences between the two camps were exposed," Luebke writes.

Wake County school board chairman Kevin Hill is taking heat for saying that he agrees with the statement that "'family choice' is, therefore, basically selfish and anti-social in that it focuses on the 'wants' of a single family rather than the 'needs' of society."

In a Wednesday blog post for the Civitas Review, the weblog of the conservative Civitas Institute, Jim Tynen writes that "you have to give credit to the chairman of the Wake County School Board for frankness in discussing what’s important." Hill and others have attributed that statement about choice being selfish and anti-social to the Association of California School Administrators.

"Some bloggers see this in the ACSA statement as far left-wing," Tynen writes. "But you don’t have to go that far; it seems to me to be a rather clear, if unusually candid, expression of what liberals everywhere actually think. They believe society comes first."

On the same day that 21 Wake County school board protesters entered guilty pleas, former Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta is getting honored by the conservative Civitas Institute.

Margiotta is being praised for his "courage" and "boldness" as he gets tonight the inaugural Civitas Audentia Award at the Conservative Leadership Conference. Civitas also praises Margiotta for promoting "reforms."

Here is today's Civitas press release:

March 2 could be a memorable day for former Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta.

In the morning, Margiotta will be in court as a potential witness in the case against the Rev. William Barber of the state NAACP, who was arrested on charges of disrupting school board meetings in 2010. In the evening, Margiotta will receive the Civitas Institute's inaugural Courage in Leadership Award.

"We need to respect politicians who do the right thing in the face of criticism and hostility," said Francis DeLuca, president of Civitas, about the conservative group's award to Margiotta.

Cash Michaels is speculating on Debra Goldman becoming the new Wake County school board vice chairwoman and lists three actions that he says the new Democratic majority must do.

In this week's issue of The Carolinian, Michaels writes that the new majority must revise the student assignment plan "to ensure that no more high poverty schools are created, and that low performing students have access to high performing schools." He also says the new majority will "also have to prioritize the removal of several acts by the current GOP board."

"First, they must cancel any contract the board has with the conservative Civitas Institute, the right-wing think tank funded by conservative activist Art Pope that was hired to train new Wake School Board members," Michaels writes. "Their services are clearly not needed now."

Will Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo be able to turn things around today thanks to the help of some outside political advice she picked up after the runoff?

After Losurdo only picked up 40 percent of the vote on Oct. 11, the campaign reached out to Jack Hawke to be a consultant for the runoff. Hawke is a longtime figure in state politics, having been the former chairman of the state Republican Party, a former president of the conservative Civitas Institute and a consultant to presumptive GOP gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory.

"I knew we had to change things," Hawke said. "She was 10 points down (as of Oct. 11). I'm proud of what she's done but we had a lot of ground to make up."