Different methodologies are yielding different results on competing lists of the nation's top public high schools.

Four schools in the Triangle made the top 100 of Newsweek magazine’s “America’s Best High Schools 2012” list that was released this week. A total of 11 Triangle schools made the top 1,000 school list.

In contrast, only three schools in the entire state were in the top 1,000 in the U.S. News & World Report list released this month. Broughton High School in Raleigh was the only Triangle school in the top 1,000 on that list at 966.

How much stock should people place on the new list of the nation's best public high schools that was released this week by U.S. News & World Report.

As noted in today's article, the rankings saw some schools that do well on other lists such as Raleigh Charter High, Enloe High and East Chapel Hill High not getting ranked. Less academically heralded schools such as Garner High and Southern Wake Academy were honored on this new list.

The difference from the lists done by Newsweek and The Washington Post seems to be that U.S. News requires schools to do well with their low-income and minority students.

Terry Stoops is downplaying the notion that today's Wake County school board elections, or the district itself, should have national significance.

In his weekly Education Update today, Stoops of the conservative John Locke Foundation, disputes the idea that Wake was the "national model of educational excellence" touted by supporters of the old diversity policy. He points to the small number of Wake schools that have won U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon Schools awards or been ranked among the list of top high schools by Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report.

Stoops, the director of Locke's education studies, agrees that on the issue of whether Wake County residents should be pleased about the quality of the public schools "for the most part, the answer is yes." But he contends the rest of the country feels the same attachment to their local school district.

"So, does the Wake County school board election matter?" Stoops writes. "Yes it does. It matters to those of us who pay Wake County taxes, send our children to Wake County public schools, or have a spouse or relative who works in a Wake County public school. (The Stoops family hit the trifecta, baby.) Does the election matter to residents of Alamance County or, for that matter, Alameda County? I doubt it."

The Koch brothers are responding directly to the charges they were involved in the 2009 Wake County school board elections, saying the accusations are "false," "ugly and baseless."

In this post today on KochFacts.com, the Koch brothers say no money was donated in 2009 to Wake school board candidate by family members or the company's political action committee.

"The Wake County School Board claim is not a new one and has been debunked, most notably by Newsweek earlier this year and in the Washington Post," according to KochFacts.com. "'Partisan “progressive' activists recently have resurrected the tale and further embellished the ugly and baseless racial charge. This unfortunate but increasingly common political tactic is apparently intended to stigmatize opponents even if the underlying accusation is completely false."

Do 2007 donations from the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity to Wake CARES during the mandatory year-round lawsuit constitute grounds for linking the conservative Koch brothers to the 2009 Wake County school board elections?

That's how the left-wing cable news network MSNBC is trying to tie the Koch brothers to the new school board majority that ended the diversity policy. It was part of a segment on Wake County schools titled "Repealing the 20th Century" that aired Thursday night on MSNBC's "The Last Word" show.

"Now there are multiple reports directly or indirectly linking the Koch brothers — those mysterious right-wing billionaires behind the Astroturf-group Americans for Prosperity — to the Republican school board members who are actively pushing to resegregate Wake County schools," said Melissa Harris-Perry, the show's guest host. "To be fair, it's not entirely clear just how much money the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity put behind the candidates in 2009."

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Americans for Prosperity is seeing some partial success in its efforts to get retractions of claims that the group financially backed the winning Wake County school board candidates in 2009.

The Huffington Post posted a correction today to the statement it made in an online Monday article about the school board candidates having been "bankrolled" by AFP. To try to beef up the story, it posts additional info today on AFP, such as the group's support of the Wake CARES lawsuit and a story earlier this year in Newsweek.

But Robert Greenwald, the director of the new film that came out Monday, isn't issuing a retraction. Neither is Sue Sturgis of the liberal Institute for Southern Studies.

UPDATE

Sue Sturgis has added a clarification to a blog post she wrote Monday about the video.

Newsweek's revamped list of "America's Best Schools" could shake up some conceptions about which where high schools rank in the Triangle.

Newsweek used a new formula this year that considered factors such as  graduation and college-going rates, as well as SAT, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exam scores. Previously, Newsweek looked at AP and IB exams taken by students.

The new methodology led to some major changes compared to rankings in prior years.

Newsweek is questioning the strength of the ties that The Washington Post pointed to between the Wake County school board and the Tea Party.

In a blog post Friday, Ben Adler, national editor of Newsweek.com, says the connection that the Post pointed to in its front-page article on Jan. 12 were "tenuous" and "weak." Liberals have picked up on the Post article to accuse the Tea Party movement of trying to resegregate the Wake school system.

"But was the school board really 'backed by the national Tea Party'?," Adler writes. "No, the national Tea Party movement doesn’t normally get involved in races for school board."

The Raleigh-Durham region gets lauded as one of the country's "New Silicon Valleys" in a Newsweek roundup of the "10 American cities best situated for the recovery."

The Triangle and other regions, including Salt Lake City and northern Virginia, "offer high-paying high-tec jobs and housing prices well below those in coastal California."

As with other "best-of" lists, it's not just bragging rights for this region. Economic developers and recruiters say that making such lists bolster the Triangle's reputation and help attract new residents and businesses.

The Wake County school system is trumpeting changes that have tripled the number of schools in Newsweek's latest list of the top U.S. public high schools.

Back in June, only four district schools made Newsweek's list. But following complaints from Wake, Newsweek recalculated the data and 12 schools are now on the list of 1,735 schools.

“We have great schools in Wake County, and we want to make sure they get the credit they deserve,” said David Holdzkom, Wake's assistant superintendent for evaluation and research, in a district press release today. Our teachers, administrators and principals have worked hard for these results.”