If the Triangle High Five has its way, Wake, Durham, Orange and Johnston counties and the Chapel hill-Carrboro school system will have a uniform set of math course names and sequences.

As noted in today's article, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board will review the Triangle High Five proposal at tonight's board meeting. Ruth Steidinger, Wake's senior director of middle school program,s said the board would likely get the presentation in January.

Wake will need to decide relatively soon so that high school students can make their course selections for the fall 2012 semester.

The new student assignment plan and an update on middle school math placement will be on the agenda of today's meeting of the Wake County school board economically disadvantaged student performance task force.

The task force will hear about efforts to do community outreach, particularly among low-income families, about the new choice plan. One of the concerns raised is making sure that poor families will have the same opportunity to participate in the choice process.

The task force will then get an update on middle school math placement, looking at the 20th-day numbers at individual schools. The discussion will take place while the new placement policy is in limbo seeing whether the new Democratic majority will take action.

More to come later but the Wake County school board tabled the adoption of the math placement policy and approved the cap on Walnut Creek Elementary School.

Republican board member Deborah Prickett joined the four Democrats in voting the table the vote on the math policy on a 5-3 vote. Staff said they were uncertain how the new core curriculum standards would impact the math policy.

The vote on the cap was unanimous. New students who move into Walnut Creek's base will be sent to Creech Road Elementary until the school's enrollment drops below 862 students. It's now at 929 students.

UPDATE

During the discussion, Ruth Steidinger, senior director for middle school programs, said the R&P for the math policy would have to be revised because of the new core curriculum standards. One question was whether EVAAS would even still be used under the common core.

Democratic board member Keith Sutton said it would be irresponsible to adopt the policy when the R&P will have to be revised. After the meeting, Prickett said she voted to table the policy because of the concerns about how it would be impacted by the common core.

Assuming the questions are answered, it will be up to the new Democratic majority to decide whether to proceed with the policy. It's worth noting that the crowd, which included the new members and their supporters, applauded when the motion to table the policy passed.

The outgoing Republican majority on the Wake County school board could vote today on the new middle school math placement policy that could be tossed out or revised in a few weeks by the new Democratic majority.

As noted in today's article, the second and final reading of the math policy is on today's agenda. It still has the support of the Republican board members while drawing concerns from current and incoming Democratic board members.

It's possible the vote may be pulled from the agenda (see end of the post for more details). Assuming the vote still occurs today, the issues of using an EVAAS probability predictor of 70 percent as the floor and the restrictions on the use of teacher judgment still divide the board members.

UPDATE

Click here to read the revised version of the policy the board is scheduled to vote on today.

Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo is promoting her runoff endorsement from the Wake Schools Community Alliance in this new campaign mailer.

In the mailer, Losurdo quotes from the WSCA endorsement which had blamed incumbent Kevin Hill for "failing graduation rates," "600 teachers fired," "26,000 students reassigned," "'Wacky Wednesday' PLTs" and "mandatory year-round schedules." The mailer quotes how WSCA said Losurdo "has consistently supported neighborhood schools, advocated for the use of EVAAS" and "called for civility and consensus-building on our School Board."

"Wake County's Leading Independent Education Reform Organization Supports Heather Losurdo," says the mailer. "So should you."

The mailer is interesting considering how Losurdo's supporters were dismissive of the WSCA before the runoff when the group endorsed Jennifer Mansfield.

Don't look for the new middle school math policy to be discussed, after all, at today's Wake County school board economically disadvantaged student performance task force meeting.

School board vice chairman John Tedesco said the math policy was removed from the agenda because of the need for staff to review how it would be impacted by the new common core of curriculum standards. He said hopes to have the task force discuss the policy in December.

Tedesco said today's meeting agenda is still in flux, with at least one topic expected to be the draft equity policy.

The meeting starts at 4:30 p.m. at Brentwood Elementary School, 3426 Ingram Road in North Raleigh.

The Wake Schools Community Alliance is now endorsing Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo in the District 3 runoff after having previously backed Jennifer Mansfield.

In a press release today, WSCA says Losurdo "has consistently supported neighborhood schools, advocated for the use of EVAAS and other objective data-driven measurements to meet our educational challenges head-on and called for civility and consensus-building on our School Board."

In contrast, WSCA rips into incumbent school board member Kevin Hill, citing his tenure as board chairman. They blame him for "falling graduation rates," "600 teachers fired, while protecting non-teaching administrators," "26,000 students reassigned," '"Wacky Wednesday' PLT’s were implemented, without regard to their impact on families" and "mandatory year round schedules forced on thousands of families."

The new student assignment plan is on today's Wake County school board agenda but not the new middle school math placement policy.

School board vice chairman John Tedesco said that the second reading of the math policy was pushed to the Nov. 1 meeting because of the potential crowd today for the assignment vote.

Tedesco said he wants to adopt the math policy and deal with the concerns about the new 5th/6th grade compacted math class. One question will be whether a potential new Democratic school board majority might handle both issues differently.

"The Ron Margiotta Record" is the focus of this recent campaign mailer sent by the incumbent Wake County school board chairman.

Margiotta says in the mailer that during his two terms on the board "student achievement has steadily improved" and "today Wake County Public Schools ranks as one of the top districts in the Nation." He cites things such as the first gain in graduation rates in seven years, 95 percent of schools meeting or exceeding state ABC growth goals and the increase in placement among qualified middle school students in advanced math classes.

Margiotta also touts things such as no teacher layoffs in the face of $100 million in budget cuts, how he "protected all magnet programs across the county after federal support dollars ended" and the Broad Superintendents Academy audit showing the leanness of the district's operations.

Civitas Action is using the issue of teacher merit pay/performance pay to try to get voters to back Wake County school board candidates Heather Losurdo, Ron Margiotta, and Donna Williams.

In these mailers sent last week, the conservative action arm of the Civitas Institute says the three GOP candidates have "a plan for our best teachers. Support excellence!"

"Donna Williams knows that the best way to retain and attract the best teachers is to reward them for their contributions to the educational development of our children," says the mailer. "Donna believes we need to compensate the best teachers at a higher rate so we can keep them in the classroom."