Gov. Bev Perdue has weighed in again on the Wake County school diversity fight, saying she is worried about the negative impact "The Colbert Report" segment may have on North Carolina's image.

In a meeting Thursday with the Greensboro News & Record editorial board, Perdue said she's concerned all the national publicity may cause businesses not to come to the state. She also complained that schools shouldn't "stuff all the poor kids in one school and all the rich kids in another school."

“Now, I’ll tell you, on the other question about the school system, I was unhappy we were on Colbert, watching what was YouTubed around the world," Perdue said. "I was unhappy about that and this morning I read the comments from the executive director of the Raleigh-Wake Chamber of Commerce and I read that Harvey [Schmitt] said this is not good because if this stuff keeps getting said about Raleigh and not so much Charlotte but Wake County, if you’re a business leader, you don’t want to come in to an area that schools are in disarray.”

Perdue on AmEx, Wake County from Mark Binker on Vimeo.

How much are Raleigh's and Wake County's reputations being hurt by this latest round of national media attention over the school diversity fight?

As noted in today's article, the Wake County school system had, by and large, a good reputation nationally before the diversity policy was eliminated. How deserved, or not, that reputation was is another question.

Now area leaders are confronting the latest batch of national attention since "The Colbert Report" segment on Wake went viral.

New Wake County Superintendent Anthony Tata is back in town today to officially meet with area business leaders.

The Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce is hosting a reception for Tata from 4 to 7 p.m. at Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh. The event is not open to the general public.

Tata will give a brief speech and meet and great with Chamber leadership.

The new year "will finally feel like there's a recovery underway," said Matthew Martin, a Federal Reserve economist in Charlotte.

As consumer confidence and spending continues to rebound, job growth will increase in 2011, Martin told several hundred business leaders at the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce's economic forecast meeting this morning.

"This is the first time in 4-5 years that I haven't had to cringe when talking about the year ahead," he said. "You'll begin to hear more stories of people finding jobs, more announcements of new jobs."

That's not to say there aren't challenges. Housing remains weak, and probably won't rebound much in 2011. 

The economy in 2011 is like Tom Hanks in the movie "Cast Away," said John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities.

"We've survived the crash, but now we're on a very different island and we have to determine how to make it all work," Silvia told several hundred business officials on Tuesday morning at the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce's annual economic forecast event.

There's no question the economy is reviving and there is little risk of a double-dip recession. Even rising commodity and energy prices won't "be able to stop this economic recovery," he said. "Overall, you have a lot of momentum going."

But there are some big changes. One is employment. There are simply certain jobs that aren't ever coming back, Silvia said.

We'll now have to wait until February to get our first glimpse at the student assignment model being developed by Michael Alves.

In a joint statement today, the leadership of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership say they want to hold off until the Wake County school board begins holding February work sessions on how to develop a new long-term plan.

The board will look in those work sessions at a consensus-building model being advocated by board member Kevin Hill.

You still might have a chance to line up a visit this week with new Wake County Superintendent Anthony Tata.

As noted in Friday's article by Thomas Goldsmith, Tata will speak with the Wake County Taxpayers Association while he's in town this week. But school board chairman Ron Margiotta, who is organizing Tata's itinerary, said today that he's nowhere near completing the schedule for the rest of the Thursday and Friday trip.

"We're trying to reach out to elected officials, to the (Greater Raleigh) Chamber (of Commerce), to Wake Ed(ucation) Partnership...," Margiotta said.

UPDATE

Simmons also said they'll also help out with the Jan. 14 reception for Tata that's being sponsored by the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce.

Richard Kahlenberg is calling the Wake County school system's school diversity fight an example of one of the best developments to happen in education in 2010.

But before you scratch your heads about it, here's what Kahlenberg, an ardent defender of using socioeconomic integration, means.

In a blog post Monday for the progressive Century Foundation, Kahlenberg cites the controversy in Wake an an example of how at the local level "many citizens and education leaders fought back vigorously against growing segregation."

Depending on your point of view, don't look for Michael Alves to provide Wake County school board members with any presents or lumps of coal in their Christmas stockings.

Tim Simmons, vice president of communications of the Wake Education Partnership, said Alves won't be presenting his controlled-choice plan to school leaders until January. The original timeline had called for giving a student assignment plan to the board by November or December.

With the holidays coming up so soon, Simmons said they decided it would make more sense to give the report and hold a public presentation in January. Alves was commissioned to develop the plan by the WEP and the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce.

Fresh off his part-time job recommending ways to fix the nation's staggering deficit and his full-time job running the UNC system, Erskine Bowles in early January will share his outlook on the 2011 economy.

Bowles is scheduled as a keynote speaker at the annual prognostication and networking forum sponsored by the N.C. Chamber and N.C. Bankers Association on Jan. 3.

His speech will likely touch on his recent work in Washington as co-chairman of President Barack Obama's budget deficit commission. Given that he is retiring as UNC system president on Dec. 31, there might be some discussion of what's next for the self-described workaholic.