The John Locke Foundation is not exactly a great fan of the Wake school system, but they're showing the district some love on a new web site, NCTransparency.com.

Wake was graded today "the most transparent school system in the state" by the Locke Foundation, receiving a B. No other district got above a C.

"We've got to give Wake its due when it deserves it," said Terry Stoops, education policy analyst for the Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Raleigh.

It looks like Horace Tart will have at least one competitor in his bid to be reelected to the District 2 school board seat.

Cathy Truitt, a retired Johnston County principal with three decades of education experience, has announced her candidacy. In an interview in the Garner Citizen, Truitt takes some shots at Wake's reassignment policies and doesn't give Wake high marks for responsiveness to the public.

While Truitt doesn't advocate the complete elimination of busing, she does find that some aspects go too far.

Here's a look at how Johnston County is handling year-round school conversion.

As noted in today's article by Marti Maguire, the Johnston County school board voted Tuesday to start a single-track year-round school program. They're now waiting for the three schools being considered for the change to poll their parents to see if they want to switch.

Polling didn't occur when Wake converted 22 schools in 2007.

^{Most reporters are not mathematicians.}

^{I certainly am not. That is why I ask questions when it comes to stories involving those pesky numbers that made me cringe in college. Recently, I spoke to a Johnston County town manager to get clarification on estimates involving a water project.}

^{After a few minutes, the town manager obviously seemed annoyed with me. I guess my math skills were not clicking as fast as he would have liked. His tone of voice changed, he sighed loudly several times over the telephone and made a remark that he could not have explained it any easier to me.}

^{Sorry, but I did not go to college to become a math whiz. Numbers take me a little bit longer to comprehend than vowels and nouns. I could have just gone on my assumptions, printed the numbers and got everything wrong. But instead, I went straight to the source, asked a few questions, got the right information and wrote my story.}

^{I guess the town manager didn’t see it that way.}