Is it a higher value for Wake County students to attend their neighborhood school or for students from low-performing nodes to be able to get into a high-performing school?

That issue is at the heart of changes being proposed to bump up the importance of student achievement in the selection process for the new student assignment plan. If implemented, the changes could result in students from low-performing nodes taking away openings at the high-performing schools from the families who live near them.

“We want to make sure that low-performing students and minority students get a good shot at some of these schools,” Democratic board vice chairman Keith Sutton said last week. “We want to make sure the plan is successful. We don’t want to create more high-poverty schools.”

Tune back to the blog around 3 p.m. to get details on the 2011-12 student reassignment plan for Wake County.

There are a lot of questions that are waiting to be answered today. How different will the plan be from the one adopted by the old school board in 2009?

How will staff go about implementing the new assignment policy? What impact  will proximity, stability and family choice have on the plan?