Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow for the liberal Century Foundation, is calling last week's Wake County school board election results "an important victory for proponents of integration."

Kahlenberg's column, which was reposted today in The Washington Post's Answer Sheet blog, says "the vote has national significance because it demonstrates that if school diversity policies are pursued through choice, rather than compulsion, they can draw strong public support."

Kahlenberg was an outspoken supporter of the old diversity policy and criticized the board majority's decision to scrap it. He went on to back the efforts to develop a compromise plan "to employ choice to promote integration by student achievement levels, a close cousin of socioeconomic status."

"Voters sided with business people and teachers and civil rights groups in rejecting resegregation," Kanlenberg says of the election results. "This development should give hope to supporters of integration that if implemented smartly — through public school choice rather than compulsory busing — diversity can win broad support from voters."

Wake County school board candidate Jennifer Mansfield is urging the school board to halt work on the new choice-based student assignment plan being developed by staff.

In a press release today, Mansfield said she's issued an open letter to the school board asking them to "begin looking for an alternative assignment model that addresses the needs and desires of Wake County residents." She says it's "clear that this plan will not be ready for implementation in a few months as planned."

"After the never ending controversy and upheaval we experienced with previous assignment policy, it should be clear to you that any new assignment plan must have transparency to be successful," Mansfield says in the press release. "Under this controlled choice model, parents may not get their first, second or even third choice in this plan and they will never know why.”

It appears the die has been cast in favor of Wake County moving to a controlled-choice plan instead of sticking with a base-assignment plan.

As noted in today's article, Wake Superintendent Tony Tata laid out his time line Tuesday for implementing what will be a choice plan. None of the board members griped about it and both Republicans and Democrats said what's going to be implemented is a choice plan.

But you can still probably expect some disagreements about how it would be implemented.

More to come later but Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata laid out today a work plan for implementing a controlled-choice student assignment plan for the 2012-13 school year.

Tata's work plan has him presenting the feeder patterns along with a school board vote on a final assignment plan in September or October. Public hearings that are still be scheduled would be held between now and then.

Assuming things are approved, families would begin making choices in December.

UPDATE

After the work session, several board members on both sides of the diversity fight acknowledged that Wake will now be moving toward a choice plan and won't go back to a base assignment plan.

Add Richard Kahlenberg to the list of those who are praising the student assignment model for Wake County that was proposed by the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership.

In a guest blog column in today's Washington Post, Kahlenberg writes that the new controlled-choice plan "presents a credible third way between the constant reassignment of students under the old system and the tea party’s proposed re-segregation of Raleigh’s schools." He also calls it a "a politically palatable model for preserving diversity in our schools."

Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the liberal Century Foundation, was one of the most outspoken national supporters of Wake's old socioeconomic diversity policy. After the 2009 school board elections, Kahlenberg called for using controlled choice as a way to still maintain diversity in Wake's schools.

We'll now have to wait until February to get our first glimpse at the student assignment model being developed by Michael Alves.

In a joint statement today, the leadership of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership say they want to hold off until the Wake County school board begins holding February work sessions on how to develop a new long-term plan.

The board will look in those work sessions at a consensus-building model being advocated by board member Kevin Hill.

Depending on your point of view, don't look for Michael Alves to provide Wake County school board members with any presents or lumps of coal in their Christmas stockings.

Tim Simmons, vice president of communications of the Wake Education Partnership, said Alves won't be presenting his controlled-choice plan to school leaders until January. The original timeline had called for giving a student assignment plan to the board by November or December.

With the holidays coming up so soon, Simmons said they decided it would make more sense to give the report and hold a public presentation in January. Alves was commissioned to develop the plan by the WEP and the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce.

The forum Thursday at Lacy Elementary School's PTA meeting produced more than a few highlights.

You had, as previously noted, school board members Ron Margiotta and Deborah Prickett objecting to the use of student achievement in the Alves plan. You had a somewhat modified version of the presentation on the Alves plan from what was given last week to the Garner Chamber of Commerce.

You had Dana Cope questioning Tim Simmons about the Alves plan and objecting to board member Carolyn Morrison's vote this year against returning the Lacy nodes from Stough Elementary.

Wake County school board members Ron Margiotta and Deborah Prickett both said tonight they oppose the use of student achievement as a factor in Michael Alves' controlled-choice student assignment plan.

Both board members were unexpected guests at tonight's Lacy Elementary School PTA forum on student assignment in which Wake Education Partnership Vice President Tim Simmons gave details on the plan that Alves is developing.

Margiotta, the board chairman, said he's willing to look at the Alves plan and that he likes how it's using proximity, stability and choice as guiding principles. But he equated the plan's use of student achievement as a "quota," similar to the use of socioeconomic diversity that the board dropped from the student assignment policy this year.

Here's a quick recap of today's Wake Education Partnership update on the student assignment plan being developed by Michael Alves.

Wake would be divided into two to four attendance areas with similar student achievement levels that refelct the county's demographics. Student achievement would be used to make individual determinations of whether to grant a family's request for a  particular school.

Also, instead of a base assignment, you'd have a "base option" in which every family would be given a school they can request. Priority would be given to those who live in the walk zone, basically 1.5 miles.

UPDATE

Click here for the handout from today's WEP presentation. Changed wording from zone to attendance area.