The Wake County school system is taking a different approach than the Durham and Chapel Hill-Carrboro school systems in how they view proposed new charter schools.

As noted in today's article by Jane Stancill and Lynn Bonner, Durham school leaders are urging the State Board of Education to not give approval to a new charter high school that would be located in Research Triangle Park. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system is also raising concerns about a new charter school proposed in Orange County.

But Wake school officials have not submitted any response to the proposed Triangle Math and Science Academy that could open for the 2012-13 school year in the former Exploris Middle School building in downtown Raleigh.

As part of today's article on Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata's one-year anniversary on the job, he sat with the N&O for an extensive interview.

Here are some highlights from the interview, which touched on a variety of topics, including student assignment, the budget and how Tata evaluates his job performance.

The big topic of the moment is the implementation of the new student assignment plan. Tata was asked about the complaints from parents of charter school and magnet school students than the rules have changed on them since they can't just go to a base school now.

The State Board of Education will revisit nine charter school applications next month; one of those is the Howard and Lillian Lee Scholars Charter school proposed for Orange County.

The application is a part of the "fast track" process, said Joel Medley, director of the North Carolina Office of Charter Schools. It will go to the state board for discussion in Febuary, and a decision will be made in March, he said.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools opposed the school, and sent a letter to the state board last year, pointing out what it called factual errors in the school's application.

Could Wake County's new student assignment plan harm charter schools?

As noted in today's article, charter school parents and students complain that they're too low on the selection priority list in the assignment plan.  They're worried that this will hurt their ability when they leave charter schools to get into the schools in the district they had hoped to attend.

The issue is more focused on the middle schools and high schools due to the use of feeder patterns.

Civitas Action is using the issue of school choice to try to get voters to back Wake County school board candidates Heather Losurdo, Ron Margiotta, and Donna Williams.

In these mailers now hitting mailboxes, the conservative action arm of the Civitas Institute says each of the three GOP candidates "believes parents know best — give them choices."

"Heather Losurdo believes parents know what's best for their children — that is why she support empowering them to make sound education decisions for their families," says the mailer. "Heather wants people to have the option to send their children to neighborhood schools, other choice schools or charter schools because finding the right environment for learning can make all the difference in a child's future."

The mailer then lists a phone number you can call to thank the candidate "for supporting more choices for parents in Wake County." The wording on the mailers is identical. Just swap in the name of the particular candidate for that district.

Wake County school board candidate Jennifer Mansfield is praising the actions of the new school board majority while also warning that things have become too politicized.

In an interview Thursday on the Rick and Donna Martinez Show on WPTF, Mansfield highlighted he tightrope she's walking on of trying to get people who disagree with incumbent Kevin Hill to vote for her instead of Heather Losurdo.

"District 3 for the last four years has not had a voice for parents and students so that's first and foremost is to be a voice for District 3 residents," Mansfield answered when asked why she's running. "And we need somebody who's in there whose experienced and I've been doing this for over six years, been involved in school issues."

John Hood is citing school choice as "the single-biggest result of conservative electoral gains in 2009 and 2010."

Most of the focus of Hood's column last week in the conservative Carolina Journal focuses on the lifting the state's charter school cap and allowing tax credits for special-needs kids who attend private schools.

But Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, also cites school choice efforts in several school districts, including Wake County.

Bob Geary has joined the list of supporters of the old Wake County school diversity policy who are firing shots at the blue controlled-choice plan.

In an article in the latest issue of the liberal Independent weekly, Geary calls the blue plan "as close as Wake County can get (to charter schools) without raising taxes and building more schools." Geary is no fan of charter schools, something he goes into great lengths about in the article.

Geary draws the equivalence between the blue plan and charter schools because of Superintendent Tony Tata's assurance that "once Johnny or Jane is in a school, he or she won't ever be reassigned to another school in the same age range unless the parents choose it."

Wake County voters in District 3, whatever it winds up looking like, will have a clear choice when it comes to deciding between Democratic school board incumbent Kevin Hill and Republican challenger Heather Losurdo.

In an article Tuesday in the Raleigh Public Record, both candidates lay out  sharp differences on issues such as dropping the diversity policy, expanding charter schools and offering merit pay to teachers. Losurdo is aiming for those who support the board majority's actions while Hill is clearly aligned with the board minority who disagree with Wake's direction.

(The article talks about Hill saying he needs permission from N.C. State to run. Considering he's already formed a campaign committee, it's safe to say Hill plans to seek re-election.)

Sometimes we move more of the 1,400 letters we get each month into the publishing pool than we can possibly print, given that we have room for fewer than 280 of them each month. Our over-editing is your gain, however. Here are more than 25 letters that just got overrun by other topics before we could get them into the paper.