State Rep. Nelson Dollar is defending his decision to work for Horace Tart's Wake school board reelection campaign.

Dollar, who runs J.N. Dollar & Associates, a media and public relations consulting firm, pointed out that he had also been a consultant in Tart's 2005 campaign.

Dollar's continued involvement with Tart has raised eyebrows with some people, especially considering he attended the Wake Schools Community Alliance's February meeting in Holly Springs.

The John Locke Foundation is pitching a new checklist for voters to use when deciding which school board candidates to vote for this year.

The 28-question checklist touches on a variety of areas. Some of the questions may have a more conservative bent, which isn't surprising considering who put the list together.

Here are some of the questions:

You can understand why Casey Ash is leaving the Wake school system to take a job teaching social studies at a much higher paying charter school in New York City.

As some of you have already noted, Ash was mentioned in a New York Times article last week about a new charter school opening in September in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan.

Ash was billed as being part "of an eight-teacher dream team" that will receive a salary of $125,000. They also will be eligible for bonuses, based on schoolwide performance, of up to $25,000 in the second year.

While these are more state than Wake issues, there's obviously some interest in them here.

Yesterday, the state House passed H593, which would allow school districts to start traditional-calendar schools as early as the second Monday in August instead of the current Aug. 25 date.

The state House also passed H856, which would raise the cap on charter schools to 106 schools. The cap has been locked at 100 since the start of charter schools in this state.

Even if the state Senate doesn't approve either bill this year, the big deal is that they passed the crossover legislation deadline. This means both bills could be brought back later this session.

The Triangle has been shut out on the latest round of charter school openings.

None of the four local applicants made the list of six finalists who will be interviewed by the State Board of Education. Click here for a post detailing the local folks.

The six finalists are McKinnney Academy and Mountain Island Charter School in Mecklenburg County, New Bern International Academy in Craven County,Bear Grass Charter in Martin County, Lake Lure Classical Academy in Rutherford County and Henderson Collegiate in Vance County.

Click here for thumbnail info on all 18 applicants. Henderson Collegiate is interesting as it's basically a clone of the KIPP model of longer school days and greater parental involvement.

We've got four local groups in the running for the state's three open charter school slots.

As noted in today's article, members of a State Board of Education committee are supposed to turn in by today their rankings of the 18 applicants. From that list, six will be chosen for the next round of consideration.

If Horizon Academy's application is approved, Sonya Bellson, a school founder, thinks they should easily attract applicants. Even though they plan to be in Louisburg in Franklin County, they'd expect to get interest from northern Wake families.

One predominantly black Raleigh charter school got a reprieve today while another is still hanging in the wind.

The state Board of Education voted today to give PreEminent Charter a three-year renewal to see if scores improve. But the board delayed taking action on Torchlight Academy until they get some additional information.

Torchlight could still wind up not having its charter renewed, which would basically mean the school would close at the end of this school year.

Should the state give more latitude to high F&R and minority charter schools before not renewing their charters?

As noted in today's article, representatives from PreEminent Charter and Torchlight Academy, both in Raleigh, are making that case in an attempt to keep their charters. State officials are citing low test scores and other issues for not recommending that their charters be renewed when they expire in June.

"You have to look at more than statistics," said Don McQueen, executive director of Torchlight. "You have to look at the character of the school."

The school board wants more state funding and local taxing authority but not the removal of the cap on charter schools.

The school board voted 6-2 on Tuesday against Ron Margiotta's motion to add the lifting of the charter cap to the 2009 legislative agenda. The agenda lists the things that the district wants the General Assembly to change.

The school board had voted in 2007 to add removal of the cap to the legislative agenda. But the board has rebuffed efforts to add it to the 2008 and 2009 agendas.

Margiotta, a long-time supporter of lifting the 100-school cap, made another request on Tuesday. Only Horace Tart backed his motion.

Click here to read the approved 2009 legislative agenda.

It looks like we can now close the book on SPARC Academy.

A federal judge has thrown out SPARC's lawsuit alleging the State Board of Education didn't renew the school's charter because its students and management are predominantly African American. Click here for a prior post.

What may not have helped the Raleigh charter school's case is that its attorney didn't show up for the hearing. It had been rescheduled to that day at his request. A week later, the judge dismissed the case.