The Wake County school system is touting that the district's high school juniors are outperforming the state and the state's other large districts on the ACT exam.

In a press release today, Wake notes that the composite ACT score for the district's juniors this past school year was 20.3 That compares to an average score of 18.2 for the state, 18.4 for Winston-Salem Forsyth, 18.3 for Charlotte-Mecklenburg, 18.0 for Guilford, 17.7 for Durham and 17.2 for Cumberland County.

Wake is also touting that it had a higher percentage of juniors meeting each of the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks when compared to the state as a whole, and to other large North Carolina school districts.

This was the first year the state required all high school juniors to take the ACT exam. Click here to view a statewide report that was published today by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

How significant, if at all, is it that the gap has narrowed between the Wake County school system's graduation rate and the state average?

It was one of the points of contention during Tuesday's school board retreat as the board reviewed this draft strategic plan. Superintendent Tony Tata talked about how pg. 6 shows the state's graduation rate has risen since 2006 while it's dropped in Wake.

"That’s an alarming trend there where we are flat or marginally decreasing while the state is steadily increasing," Tata told the board.

For you Wake Forest-Rolesville High School parents wondering about your new principal, the signs seem to look good.

The Fayetteville Observer has posted an article today that describes Clinton Robinson as having "led a remarkable turnaround at E.E. Smith High School, The article says E.E. Smith went from being a low-performing school threatened with closure by Superior Court Judge Howard Manning to now having a passing rate of more than 80 percent on state exams.

"I see a bright, bright future for him," said Cumberland County Superintendent Frank Till about Robinson in the article.

Robinson said in the article he was recruited by Wake to work at Wake Forest-Rolesville High to replace Tina Hoots, who retired.

Is the glass half full or half empty when it comes to comparing how the Wake County school system is doing academically versus other school districts?

During Tuesday's school board work session, school administrators touted how Wake is doing better overall than the state and the state's four other largest districts. But school board member John Tedesco focused more on how Wake is trailing some of those districts among some subgroups.

In addition, questions were raised whether greater funding might explain why Wake is trailing among some of the subgroups.