Ever thought of Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta as a "street-wise Hercules," a "Superman" and "larger than life?"

The family of Patrice Lee, a co-founder of Wake CARES, adapted the words from Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out For a Hero" to come up with a re-election song for Margiotta. After all, as sung by Lee's daughter, Bailey, "Wake County tosses and turns and we dream of what we need."

"We've found our hero. We're holding on to our hero with all of our might. He's gonna win big and it's gonna be soon 'cause Ron is larger than life, larger than life."

Wake CARES is touting its support of Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta's re-election bid in District 8.

In a press release today, Margiotta's campaign points to how the three co-founders of Wake CARES — Kathleen Brennan, Patrice Lee and Dawn Graff — hosted a Family Fun Day on July 17 to support Margiotta.

“It is no surprise that so many people support Ron in his re-election to the School Board,” said Brennan in the press release. “Ron has worked tirelessly to respond to the frustration of parents throughout Wake County at the former status quo that resulted in years of policies that resulted in frequent reassignments, mandatory year round schedules and a failure to innovate or achieve the academic potential of students throughout the system."

Education Week is checking in on the Wake County school diversity fight as part of its weekly focus on a school district.

Today's article focuses on the school board's decision to have Superintendent Tony Tata review the Wake School Choice Plan as part of his efforts to develop a new long-term student assignment plan. The article calls the decision a step "that may turn down the temperature of the intense debate."

Going forward on the blog, I'm just going to call the proposal from the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership the Wake School Choice Plan.

Is an Enloe High School student facing repercussions for having questioned the lack of diversity within the classes on campus?

As noted in today's article, Wake County school officials say they're investigating allegations that Enloe social studies teacher Joseph Hoffman told his classes on Thursday that he was considering rescinding the college recommendation letters for senior Jay Zhang.

The reason Hoffman was allegedly upset was over this letter to the editor in Thursday's N&O in which Zhang talked about "the glaring academic and cultural divide between the magnet and non-magnet students."

A discussion Thursday about how to help improve the performance of African American male students turned into yet another fight over school diversity in Wake County.

School board member Keith Sutton gave a presentation during Thursday's ED task force meeting highlighting the racial achievement and graduation rate gaps between black and white students. Click here and here to see what was handed out.

The ensuing Q&A turned into a discussion of the elimination of the diversity policy, with some shouting and heated words.

Supporters of community schools had a much better turnout at Thursday's student reassignment hearing at Garner High School.

As noted in today's article, it was sharply different from Wednesday's hearing at Southeast Raleigh High when the biggest group was supporters of the Wake County's old diversity policy. It was a lot more evenly mixed Thursday.

Wake County Commissioner Phil Matthews set the tone as the first speaker.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

The Associated Press weighs in on the Wake County school controversy with a story noting the historical context between current battle.

In an article being distributed today, AP contrast the relatively quiet integration of Raleigh's schools in 1960 with the recent acrimony. The article recaps the last 50 years, including the escalation over the past few months, for the national audience that will be reading the story.

"We're not going to sit idly by while they turn the clock back on the blood, sweat and tears and wipe their feet on the sacrifices of so many that have enabled us to get to the place we are today," says the Rev. Barber, president of the state NAACP, in the article.

Wake CARES is celebrating last night's vote by the Wake County school board with a press conference today.

Here's the group's press release:

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST ON PRESS CONFERENCE

Here's a second chance for those (like me) who missed most of or all of this afternoon's State of Things radio broadcast on Wake County student reassignment.

The audio should be posted online, according to the show's web site, this afternoon. It will also be rebroadcast tonight on WUNC-91.5 FM at 9 p.m.

According to the show's blurb: