Is Senate Bill 325 essentially a second try for Republicans to hold a majority on the Wake County school board?

As noted in today's article, the stated main purpose of the new legislation is to give individual Wake County voters the ability to elect a second school board member. But the bill also lets state Republican lawmakers rewrite the boundaries for Wake's school board districts.

This comes after the redistricting plan approved by the former Republican school board majority in 2011 didn't turn out as some thought that it would in ensuring GOP control of the state's largest school district.

The new bill that would change the way Wake County school board members are elected is getting opposition from liberal groups.

In this blog post today, Rob Schofield of the liberal N.C. Policy Watch writes that S325 "would change the rules of how school board members are elected in the capital county in a way that is clearly designed to alter the board’s power structure and move things in a conservative direction."

"It’s hard to believe that anyone could advance such a blatant power grab with a straight face," Schofield writes. "...Given their record thus far in the 2013 session, however, it appears that neither shame nor embarrassment are conditions that tend to afflict the conservative ideologues running the show on Jones Street.

One clarification on the comments that Schofield writes about Joe Bryan, chairman of the Wake County Board of Commissioners. What Bryan was surprised about Wednesday is that the bill didn't go as far as they wanted to let voters pick a majority of school board seats.

Wake County school board member and state House candidate Chris Malone is drawing complaints from liberal groups for a robocall saying he wants "to get good kids out of failing schools."

In a blog post Wednesday for the liberal Independent Weekly, Will Huntsberry quotes Malone saying in the robocall that "I want to get good kids out of failing schools, so every single kid can have a great education." The post also has the full text of the robocall.

"Such logic seems flawed," Huntsberry writes. "If Malone pulls the 'good kids' — Does this mean white kids? Rich kids? Smart kids? — out of 'failing schools,' it’s unclear how the failing school will then be more likely to provide a 'great education.'"

Liberals are continuing to criticize former Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata for taking his severance package after being fired by the school board.

In the new issue of the liberal Independent Weekly out today, there's an item saying "Tony Tata took my lunch money." The Indy says that Tata's $253,625 severance package would buy 126,812 full-price lunches for Wake elementary school students or 634,062 reduced-price lunches.

It's similar to the complaint made in a blog post last Wednesday by Rob Schofield of the liberal N.C. Policy Watch, who wrote it's not moral or right for Tata to take the money.

Last week's firing of Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata drew a variety of responses ranging from praise to condemnation.

For instance, Wake County Republican Party Chairwoman Susan Bryant called it "shameful, absolutely shameful." Two members of District 8 Board Advisory Council — Beth Shugg and Julea Danielson — resigned last week in protest of the firing.

But the leadership of the state NAACP, in a Wednesday press release, said they "commend the Wake County Board of Education for the poise and grace with which they handled the difficult issues raised by Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata's performance as Superintendent of the Wake County Public School System."

The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is mobilizing to get the new Wake County student assignment plan to include the diversity-related assignments.

In an email message dated Sept. 12, GSIW chairwoman Yevonne Brannon tells people that her discussions with school board members was "not encouraging." Brannon writes about a "board member who wants what we want but is too weak to push for it and too afraid to step up to the plate, because he is worried about community push back."

Brannon writes that "another board member who doesn’t seem to 'agree' about how to fix diversity-how to have balanced schools.....he seems to believe kids can choose out. After some discussion he agreed to 'think it over.'"

Supporters of restoring diversity to Wake County's student assignment plan have been talking about a recent article on resegregation and school choice in the Winston-Salem Forsyth County schools.

This Sunday article in the Winston-Salem Journal notes how the school district phased out busing for diversity starting in 1995 in favor of "choice zones," which allow parents to choose from among multiple schools. The article says that racial resegregation quickly accelerated in the schools and led to concentrated poverty in certain schools.

"Despite zoned assignment plans offering parents diverse school choices, local schools tend to reflect their neighborhoods," according to the article. "And those neighborhoods, while changing, still reflect the legacy of zoning laws that laid out where black people were allowed to live for much of the 20th century."

Wake County school board member John Tedesco is called "statesmanlike" in this week's issue of the liberal Independent weekly.

This article by Bob Geary notes Tedesco's willingness to reach out to the Democratic school board members for compromises on issues such as student assignment. Geary also writes that "around here, Tedesco is viewed as a conservative ideologue," but he's being called too moderate by his opponent for the Republican nomination for state schools superintendent.

"While Tedesco is poison for many Democrats, he's also the only Republican school board member who regularly communicates with any of the five Democrats who now constitute the new board majority, after two years of Republican control," Geary writes.

Rob Schofield is slamming Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata for questioning school board members Susan Evans and Christine Kushner about their ties to the Great Schools in Wake Coalition.

In a blog post today, Schofield of the liberal N.C. Policy Watch writes that "Tata is little more than a puppet voice for the same forces that owned and manipulated the former “gang of five." He calls Tata's latest actions a "dishonest and politically-calculated assault. He praises Great Schools as a "heroic citizens group" that is "made up almost of exclusively of concerned moms."

Schofield, who has been a frequent critic of Tata, contends that raising concerns that Evans and Kushner are kowtowing to a special-interest group are "an outrageous set of lies." He points to the various groups that current and former Republican school board members have been involved with.

"The bottom line: Absent some kind of sincere apology, Tata has irreparably compromised his ability to lead the Wake County schools in an honest and productive way," Schofield writes.

The liberal/progressive Great Schools in Wake Coalition is being praised for helping oust the Republican majority on the Wake County school board.

In this week's issue of the liberal Independent Weekly, GSIW received one of the publication's 2012 Citizen Awards. The article cites Great Schools' various efforts over the past two years such as its white papers, community forums and having members speak at school board meetings.

"When the 2011 elections in Wake County resulted in a stunning defeat for the Republicans, with all five school board seats on the ballot won by pro-diversity candidates, GSIW was the major factor in the outcome," according to the article by Bob Geary.