Wake County school board member John Tedesco has approached several African-American leaders to be a part of the economically disadvantaged student performance task force.

Tedesco said he's contacted several people, including Raleigh City Councilman James West, Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association President Daniel Coleman and the Rev. Patrick Wooden, the pastor of Raleigh's Upper Room Church of God in Christ. He said he's been asking people who are leaders and who represent a broad section of the community.

Tedesco said he has not asked the Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, to participate on the task force. Both men have had a war of words over the new school board majority's plan to end the diversity policy.

Is the Wake County school board's new economically disadvantaged student performance task force the right step toward helping those students or just window dressing to cover for the resegregation of schools?

As noted in today's article, members of the new school board majority have high hopes that the task force will come up with recommendations for improving the graduation rate, raising student achievement and reducing suspensions.

The new majority argues that the task force, along with the use of neighborhood schools, will accomplish more than what's happened under the diversity policy.

Supporters of the diversity policy are mobilizing for Tuesday's Wake County school board meeting, citing graduation statistics and a desire to keep up the pressure on the board majority.

"Two of the school board minority have asked us to keep coming; the new majority wants us to fade away so they can quietly segregate our schools," according to an e-mail message being circulated among diversity policy supporters. "Inside sources indicate that they want to move fast, and are hoping for a lull in the public's attention. . . ."

In e-mail messages, Wake's graduation rate is favorably compared with those of urban districts that don't have diversity policies. For instance, they cite how Wake's 78.4 percent graduation rate is much higher than the rates in places such as Dallas, Detroit and Houston.

You can add Communities in Schools to the groups now taking shots at the diversity policy with the new school board members set to take office.

Neither the state nor local chapters of the group had publicly complained about the diversity policy before even though many of the students they help are among those directly impacted. But relations have frayed between CIS and Wake, as shown in today's op-ed column by Mike Stephens, chief operating officer of Communities In Schools of North Carolina.

"Busing our students is not the only way - or necessarily the best way - to make sure North Carolina is achieving equality in its public schools," Stephens writes. "We do not have to look farther than the Wake County school system to understand this."

Wake's high school graduation rate has dropped more than what was previously reported.

The state released this month revised graduation rates for individual school districts. In Wake, the overall 4-year graduation rate is 78.4 percent. It had been reported at 78.6 percent in August.

The graduation rate also dropped since August for several Wake groups, including low-income students.

Both school systems in Orange County were honored Monday for having high graduation rates.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools received recognition at a state ceremony held by the Department of Public Instruction in Raleigh. State Superintendent June Atkinson and former govenor Jim Hunt presented the honors.

North Carolina's overall graduation rate is 71.7 percent. At Chapel Hill-Carrboro, the overall rate for their student cohort was 86.7 percent; in Orange County Schools, the rate was 81.4 percent for the class of 2009.

The student cohort rate tracks the progress of all students who enter districts in the ninth grade.

Since there's been so much talk about graduation rates this campaign, you guys might be interested in this event today.

The state honored the school districts and high schools with the top graduation rates. Wake didn't make the district list but Green Hope High School did make the list for best rates for schools with 500 or more students.

During the campaign, the school board candidates who lost focused on Wake's high overall graduation rate. The candidates who won focused on the low graduation rate for low-income students.

The Wake Education Partnership isn't backing down from commenting on the issues in the school board races.

A little less than two weeks after a complaint was filed against the WEP, the group revisited the board races today in this week's In Context e-newsletter. This edition addresses remarks made by candidates about Wake's graduation rate, the size of Wake's bureaucracy and the achievement gap.

The Partnership addresses the complaint by saying "the newsletter will continue to cover current school topics in an effort to provide a fuller understanding of education issues."

The Wake Schools Community Alliance has weighed in with campaign mailers for all for its endorsed school board candidates.

Each mailer mentions that only 54 percent of Wake's low-income students are graduating from high school and that the district didn't make Adequate Yearly progress under No Child Left Behind in 2008-09. (Wake is one of the state's 60 districts that are in school improvement status for not meeting NCLB for at least two years in a row.)

But most of the mailers also mention material specific to that individual district.

Deborah Prickett and Karen Simon pretty much took 180s from each other during this morning's District 7 Wake school board candidate forum.

Prickett repeatedly found ways to mention her support for neighborhood schools as a way to promote stability and improve academic performance. LIke the other WSCA-backed candidates, Prickett repeatedly pointed to Wake's 54.6 percent graduation rate for low-income students to attack the diversity policy.

"There is overwhelming evidence that the diversity policy isn’t working in Wake," Prickett said. "Too many poor and minority students are not graduating."