Businessmen Art Pope and Jim Goodmon are out in the financial forefront when it comes to backing candidates for Wake County Board of Commissioners.

As noted in today's article, the latest round of campaign reports show that  Pope and his family have given at least $32,000 to Republican candidates for commissioner. Campaign reports also show that Goodmon and his wife have given at least $13,000 to Democratic candidates for commissioner.

“It’s a contributor referendum on the school board,” said Democratic candidate Jack Nichols.

Former Wake County school board member Tom Oxholm did his best Peter Finch impersonation in a speech on school funding during Saturday's Great Schools in Wake Coalition forum.

In a speech mixed with data and fiery words, Oxholm implied that members of the school board majority are demagogues who don't know what they're talking about financially. He also threw in a New Jersey dig and explained that the move to socioeconomic diversity he helped implement in 2000 was done for financial reasons because they didn't have enough money for academic programs.

"Our assignment decision was never designed to help any particular student," Oxholm said of the board's vote in 2000. "Test scores for any one individual were not taken into account because of their school assignment and we knew it wouldn't make them any better a student. We also knew it wouldn't make them any worse of a student."

Capitol Broadcasting CEO Jim Goodmon, former school board member Tom Oxholm and several university professors are among the speakers at next month's Great Schools in Wake Coalition fall forum.

Not surprisingly, the GSIW forum will support the group's position that maintaining socioeconomic diversity in student assignment in Wake County's schools would be a good thing. The title of the forum, "Costs and Consequences: What’s at Stake for Wake," sums up GSIW's perspective.

In a press advisory today, GSIW touts how the forum will "will allow citizens to learn more about the economic impact of Wake County School Board policy changes on the health and prosperity of our local economy."

The 22 former Wake County school board members who gathered together today were officially diplomatic about the changes being made by the new board majority, but it was clear they were personally unhappy with what's happening.

The former members talked about wanting "to ensure an equal opportunity for a sound basic education for every child in Wake County Public Schools." It was clear from their two-page statement that they feel "equal opportunity" is based on keeping the school district's longstanding busing for diversity efforts.

"For over 30 years, the Wake County Public School System has been a model for school districts around the nation," according to the statement read at today's press conference. "Because research consistently shows that challenges to success for all students in high poverty and racially isolated schools are greater, we have worked hard to prevent the creation of such schools."

UPDATE

Click here for an article in the Independent that lists the statement read by the former school board members..

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've got a member of a George Soros-backed group and a Carolina Hurricanes hockey player among the donors in the District 1 Wake school board race.

Rita Rakestraw's donors include Gene Guerrero, a senior policy analyst for the Open Society Institute, who gave $250. The institute's founder and president is liberal billionaire George Soros, who is not exactly a favorite of conservatives.

Chris Malone has got some star power, namely a $250 contribution from Rod Brind'Amour, the team captain for the Hurricanes. Brind'Amour's ex-wife lives just outside Wake Forest with their three young children.

UPDATE

The Board of Elections says Karen Simon doesn't have to file until Sept. 28 because she hasn't spent more than $3,000 yet.

The 30-day pre-election campaign finance reports for Wake school board candidates are trickling in.

Candidates who intend to spend more than $3,000 have to have their report postmarked by today. As of this morning, five reports were in at the Wake Board of Elections.

The most interesting reports tell who is backing incumbent Horace Tart and challenger Cathy Truitt in the District 2 race. John Tedesco's report hadn't been in as of this morning.

Outgoing school board members Eleanor Goettee, Patti Head and Lori Millberg are backing candidates in at least some of this fall's races.

All three board members, whose terms will expire after November, are backing Horace Tart in the District 2 school board race. Tart is the lone incumbent seeking re-election this fall.

"He's brought great service to that district," Head said of Tart. "He's brought great common sense."

The need for more money for Wake schools was a big issue at Tuesday's forum but reassignment and neighborhood schools also were discussed.

As noted in today's article, former school board Tom Oxholm took a strong stance against those critics who are calling for a system of neighborhood schools in Wake. Oxholm was a panelist on the discussion on whether Wake has achieved academic excellence.

Oxholm said that if you want to see the effects of neighborhood schools you can look at what the area was like before the 1976 merger when the downtown Raleigh schools were poor and underenrolled.

After Monday's experience in Cary, school board members should probably get a more positive feeling from tonight's forum, "Achieving Educational Excellence in Tough Times."

Here are some hints to the direction of the forum, whose sponsors are WakeUP Wake County, BiggerPicture4Wake, the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children, Wake NCAE and the Wake County League of Women Voters.

Tom Oxholm, co-author of "A School District's Journey to Excellence" will speak on whether Wake has achieved academic excellence.