Fifteen former Wake County school board members have signed a joint letter that supports the diversity policy and urges voters to pick school board candidates Lois Nixon, Rita Rakestraw, Karen Simon and Horace Tart.

In the letter, it argues that Wake has no "bad" schools and that the "opposite of diverse schools is unequal schools." It says that '"community schools' means that 'you' can't come into 'my' community.'"

The signers include recent former members such as Rosa Gill and Beverley Clark. But you also've got names such as Tom Oxholm, Carol Parker, Susan Parry, Wray Stephens and Judy Hoffman.

You guys may want to say hello to Gerald Grant, who viewed the blog Thursday before speaking at Quail Ridge Books & Music on his new book "Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh."

In front of around 100 people, Grant forcefully articulated his support for Wake's diversity policy. Citing a February article, he took Dana Cope, leader of the Children's PAC, to task for saying, "how dare they use my children for a social experiment that has gone wrong and needs replacing."

"The experiment has not gone wrong as Dana Cope says," Grant said. "It doesn't need to be replaced. It needs to be replicated."

You can tell a lot about candidates from who gives them money.

As noted in today's article by Michael Biesecker, there are pretty noticeable patterns in the people giving money to County Commissioner Kenn Gardner and challenger Stan Norwalk.

Gardner's getting a lot of money from developers and the housing industry. Norwalk is getting a lot of money from slow-growth advocates and educators.