Allison Backhouse now has her own blog and her focus today is on AdvancED's  accreditation investigation of the Wake County school system.

Backhouse criticizes the "ridiculous complaint" by the Rev. William Barber of the state NAACP that led to the review. Noting the recent positive AdvancED report, she writes that the organization's concerns were addressed "due to the hard work of the previous Board and Supt. Tata."

"But, what has really changed – besides the political majority on the School Board?" Backhouse writes. "Are our high schools and their students better in some way? Even the Wake Education Partnership came to the conclusion that accreditation is just a public perception issue. We think it’s important only because we’ve been told it is."

Should the Wake County school board move quickly to extend Superintendent Tony Tata's contract?

As noted in today's article, Tata is generally getting good reviews as he hits the one-year anniversary mark of his tenure on Tuesday. But he also faces some challenges, including potentially from members of the new Democratic school board majority.

Republican school board members are talking about wanting the board to take action next month to extend Tata's contract past the June 30, 2014 end date.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata is getting a lot of credit for AdvancED upping the accreditation status of the school district's high schools.

As noted in today's article, AdvancED said in its new report that the school system has made "significant" progress to address the issues it had raised in its March report. Throughout the report, AdvancED cites Tata as being a major factor for the change.

"A common theme during interviews was the significance of the Superintendents’ influence on the direction of the system in providing governance and leadership focused on student learning and system effectiveness," according to the report. "Described as a 'calmer' Board, stakeholders attributed this change unequivocally to the Superintendent’s leadership."

AdvancED has upped Wake's accreditation status to accreditation advised.

Click here to read the report. More to come...

The Wake County school board will dive into the details of Superintendent Tony Tata's draft strategic plan during today's all-day retreat.

AdvancED required Wake to develop a strategic plan as one of its seven action steps when it put Wake's high schools on accreditation warned status in March. The old board started the process when it adopted the mission, vision and core beliefs for the district.

Now it's up to the new board to finish the process.

I'll go into more detail later, but here's an abbreviated recap of Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata's press conference today.

Tata said he's hoping to soon reach a deal to lease the Governor Morehead School for the Blind site. He said the deal will help raise money to save the program while also providing Wake with "prime" space for a new school in that part of Raleigh.

Tata said the 3,541 magnet school applications received so far is comparable to this same time period in February. As to people complaining about seeing only a handful of seats being listed as available at some schools, Tata said the nunber is no different than in past years but they're now being transparent.

What that number reflects Tata said, is the number of seats open to students who are not yet in the magnet program. The number of openings looks artificially low because they're no longer making rising sixth- and ninth-graders in magnet schools apply to move on to the next school in their feeder.

Tata said the recent AdvancED review team visit went well and he's expecting a good report in the next 30 days.

The review team from AdvancED will begin today the interviews that will help determine whether Wake County's high schools remain accredited.

The interview schedule for today includes seven current school board members and the three newly elected board members. Also on tap today are Superintendent Tony Tata, teachers and high school principals.

Wednesday's interview schedule includes two school board members, Deputy Superintendent Cathy Moore, the chief officers, area superintendents, the student assignment task force and the student body presidents.

Tomorrow's interview schedule also includes several community members and groups, including the state NAACP, the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, the Wake Schools Community Alliance, the Wake PTA Council, the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership.

Has the Wake County school system done enough to satisfy AdvancED's concerns to keep the accreditation for the district's high schools.

As noted in today's article, school officials say in their progress report that they've completed five of the seven action steps laid out by AdvancED in its March report. School officials say the other steps are in progress of being completed.

"As the above progress report clearly demonstrates, significant work has occurred over the months since the AdvancED review to improve the governance and cohesiveness of the Wake County Public Schools leadership team,” according to Wake’s progress report.

I'll have more on this later, but Wake County school officials have released today their progress report to AdvancED.

Click here for a page with links to the progress report, executive summary, supporting evidence and interview schedule. Wake prepared the data ahead of the AdvancED return visit on Nov. 29-30.

The goal is to get AdvancED to keep Wake's high schools accredited.

Click here for the original AdvancED report.

In somewhat election-related news, AdvancED will be back in town at the end of the month to assess how well the Wake County school system is doing with the issues the accreditation organization announced in March.

In the March report, AdvancED criticized the school board's governance and put the high schools on accreditation warned status. AdvancED identified seven action steps in its report and gave Wake a year to address the issues.

Ann Majestic, the school board's attorney, said a review team from AdvancED will return on Nov. 29-30 to see what's happened in the past six months. Superintendent Tony Tata has said they're seeking to fully comply with AdvancED's requested changes.