Should the Wake County school board move quickly to extend Superintendent Tony Tata's contract?

As noted in today's article, Tata is generally getting good reviews as he hits the one-year anniversary mark of his tenure on Tuesday. But he also faces some challenges, including potentially from members of the new Democratic school board majority.

Republican school board members are talking about wanting the board to take action next month to extend Tata's contract past the June 30, 2014 end date.

The issue of Michael Alves' unannounced private meeting with the new Democratic members of the Wake County school board won't seem to go away.

The issue was revisited with some heated comments during Tuesday's board meeting. The discussion, more of which is detailed later in the post, shows the continuing wariness between the Republican and Democratic members.

More recently, Terry Stoops, director of education studies for the conservative John Locke Foundation, brought up the issue in a Thursday blog post.

Who will the Democratic majority on the Wake County school board side with on the new student assignment plan?

As noted in today's article, different influential groups have taken opposing sides on the plan. Will the Democratic board members side with the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership who want the plan to be implemented for this fall?

Or will the new majority side with the Great Schools in Wake Coalition's call for the plan to be delayed a year?

What do Wake County school board meetings and the Cartoon Network have in common?

The New York Times thinks both have a lot in common according to this article that was posted online Sunday night and will appear in Monday's print edition. The Times article notes the more recent developments in the Wake school diversity controversy and how the Wake School Choice Plan could be the solution.

"The (school) board is split five Republicans to four Democrats, and for the last 15 months meetings have looked like a Cartoon Network special, featuring in the lead role Mr. (John) Tedesco, 36, the most verbal member of the majority," according to the article. "He is single with no children and has lots of time on his hands to stir things up."

UPDATE

No front page this time. The article appeared on pg. 11 in the A section of Monday's New York Times.

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.

How much of the acrimony over the move to community based schools in Wake County is because of a lack of communication by the school board?

As noted in today's article, the Raleigh City Council passed a resolution in April expressing concern about the move to community based schools and asked for information on how the demographics at area schools would be impacted. Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker expressed irritation at Monday's East Raleigh CAC meeting about not having gotten a response to the request.

"They didn't feel they had to respond to us," Meeker said. "A city of 45 percent of the students expressing concern about what they're doing and they didn't bother to send a letter back to us."

With the Wake school board elections two weeks away, add Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce President Harvey Schmitt to those warning about the potential dangers of abandoning the diversity policy.

In an interview this morning on WPTF, Schmitt praised the academic quality of the Wake school system as helping the economic health of the region. While Schmitt said he understands why people would want neighborhood schools, he warned that abandoning the diversity policy would lead to the creation of pockets of economic decay and inequalities in property values.

UPDATE

Click here to listen to the interview.

Keith Sutton is your newest Wake County school board member.

The school board moved so quickly through the interview process today that the vote wasn't held off until tomorrow. Board members tapped Sutton, legislative affairs program manager for the N.C. Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, for the District 4 vacancy in Southeast Raleigh.

Sutton will serve out Rosa Gill's term through November 2011. Whether he runs for a full four-year term remains to be seen.

UPDATE

For those who want one-stop shopping, click here for Sutton's application.