The Wake County school system stands to get less than half of the $500,000 it was supposed to receive from disgraced former House Speaker Jim Black for turning over land in Matthews to pay the fine for his state corruption conviction.

Black was allowed in 2009 to turn over 9.5 acres near Charlotte to the school system to settle half of the $1 million fine he was assessed in his state corruption case. On Tuesday, the school board will vote on selling the land to the Town of Matthews for $295,427.

If approved, the school system would get $241,127 with the State Board of Elections receiving $54,300.

UPDATE

In a comment to that post, Terry Stoops, director of education studies for the Locke Foundation, says Judge Donald Stephens owes Margiotta an apology for calling him "idiotic" for having criticized the deal in 2009.

Terry Stoops is offering "unsolicited advice" to the new Democratic majority on the Wake County school board that's contemplating substantive changes to the student assignment plan.

In a blog post today, Stoops, director of education studies for the conservative John Locke Foundation, writes that he didn't expect the Democrats to propose major changes Tuesday. He writes that he gave them too much credit for thinking they wouldn't do so.

Stoops writes "it's foolish" politically and "would simply invite the kind of criticism that may have contributed to the demise of the Republican majority."

Will the new Democratic majority on the Wake County school board find their new "third way" of governing or will they act like the prior majorities that provoked such heated opposition?

As noted in today's article, the new members say they recognize the problems that dogged past Democratic and Republican majorities on the school board. They say they won't go back to acting like it was pre-2009 when Democrats were last in charge.

“I’m hopeful that we’ll find that third way where we’re strengthening our schools and not going backwards,” said new Democratic school board member Christine Kushner.

Wake County student assignment will be the topic of a panel discussion Thursday night at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Tim Simmons of the Wake Education Partnership, Terry Stoops of the John Locke Foundation and "parent activist" Neil Riemann will be the panelists. Brenda Berg, a member of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, will be the moderator.

"Come to hear from expert panelists who will explore the complexities of school board politics and the topic of busing for diversity as they apply to this current and local issue," according to this flier for the event.

The forum starts at 6:30 p.m. in Gardner Hall, Room 105 at UNC-Chapel Hill. It's sponsored by the UNC chapter of Students for Education Reform and the Roosevelt Institute Education Center.

Terry Stoops and Perry Woods had a running exchange today on the qualifications of Heather Losurdo and Kevin Hill to be on the Wake County school board.

Stoops, director of education studies for the conservative John Locke Foundation, kicked things off in this blog post today responding to Woods  saying on the Bill LuMaye Show that Losurdo lacked qualifications for being on the board.

Citing the broad qualifications in the state Constitution, Stoops writes that "it is an implicit acknowledgment that experience and credentials do not guarantee competence." He adds that "diverse perspectives and experiences strengthen elected bodies."

The head of the Orange County Republican Party and the John Locke Foundation have slammed the proposed quarter-cent sales tax referendum on the Nov. 8 ballot.

In a press release earlier this month, Orange County GOP chair Bob Randall criticized the county commissioners for putting the tax increase to voters in an off-year election and so soon after voters "handily defeated" it in November 2010. (NOTE: Actually, the referendum narrowly lost, 51 to 49 percent, with heavy opposition among rural voters the decisive factor.)

"Running this referendum in a municipal and off-year election is a ruse,” Randall said. "American and Orange County taxpayers are all squeezed in ways they haven’t experienced since the 1930s and money is tight; households are living on budgets and the County can too.”

The local GOP leader also says many voters are "perplexed" as to why the County has allocated $50,000 this year for a "Voter Education Campaign" -- $10,00 more than allocated last year -- to "push" the measure. (See staff writer Katelyn Ferral's story on the county campaign here.)

“The County, by law, is not allowed to advocate on issues such as this” said Randall, “yet they have utilized taxpayer’s money to send emails and letters home to county students’ parents and produced an on-line video. They are only telling half of the story.”

In its own release Wednesday, the Raleigh-based John Locke Foundation said the commissioners are courting special interests and manipulating the voting process to get the tax increase passed. If approved, the quarter cent increase would raise an estimated $2.5 million a year.

The report says Orange County voters have rejected taxes twice before. (NOTE: The sales tax referendum went to voters only once before. The report author may be referring to a 2008 vote defeating a proposed land-transfer tax or a proposed special school district tax that Orange County Schools district voters rejected before that.) 

"Voters still have many reasons to question Orange County commissioners' ability to manage scarce taxpayer dollars efficiently," said report co-author said Dr. Michael Sanera, JLF Director of Research and Local Government Studies. "Commissioners have only themselves to blame for continuing a pattern of government overspending during the last economic boom and overtaxing during tough economic times."

The report says local schools are already well funded and that despite plans to split any new tax revenue equally between the schools and economic development, the money would still go into the county's general fund and the allocation plan would not be binding on future county commissioners.

"Voters can decide whether it makes sense to fork over more money to county commissioners in the wake of the longest-running economic downturn since the Great Depression, with little prospect of rapid recovery," Sanera added.

Read the full Orange County GOP release below

Documents:

John Hood is warning North Carolina Republicans they should learn from their mistakes in the Wake County school board elections or risk the consequences during next year's presidential fight.

In a column today in The Carolina Journal, Hood, president of the conservative John Locke Foundation, writes that "Wake County Democrats staged the shocking defeat of the one conservative, Ron Margiotta, who wasn't a newcomer to the school board." Hood criticizes how Republicans presented their message to voters.

"For the most part, their (Democratic) candidates chose clear, persuasive messages that presented themselves as reasonable-sounding alternatives to opponents they portrayed as extreme," Hood writes. "The Republican messages were muddled and unappealing."

Terry Stoops is downplaying the notion that today's Wake County school board elections, or the district itself, should have national significance.

In his weekly Education Update today, Stoops of the conservative John Locke Foundation, disputes the idea that Wake was the "national model of educational excellence" touted by supporters of the old diversity policy. He points to the small number of Wake schools that have won U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon Schools awards or been ranked among the list of top high schools by Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report.

Stoops, the director of Locke's education studies, agrees that on the issue of whether Wake County residents should be pleased about the quality of the public schools "for the most part, the answer is yes." But he contends the rest of the country feels the same attachment to their local school district.

"So, does the Wake County school board election matter?" Stoops writes. "Yes it does. It matters to those of us who pay Wake County taxes, send our children to Wake County public schools, or have a spouse or relative who works in a Wake County public school. (The Stoops family hit the trifecta, baby.) Does the election matter to residents of Alamance County or, for that matter, Alameda County? I doubt it."

Terry Stoops says that Charlotte-Mecklenburg winning the Broad Prize shows that Wake County schools are "playing catch-up" to the often maligned school district.

in his weekly education update on Tuesday for the conservative John Locke Foundation, Stoops points to how people have taken frequent shots at CMS for its decision to move to neighborhood schools. One example he cites is how UCLA Professor Gary Orfield criticized Wake's elimination of the diversity policy in 2010 and said that "my feeling is that it's very important for people in Wake to drive over to Charlotte and see what's happened."

Stoops points to how Charlotte's low-income students outperform and outgraduate their Wake peers. He also points to how Broad praised Charlotte's efforts to target more resources into needier schools.

"So, I encourage people in Wake County and elsewhere to listen to Gary Orfield," Stoops writes. "Drive to Charlotte and 'see what's happened.' Better yet, let the Broad Foundation tell you what's happened. Charlotte-Mecklenburg has become 'a model for innovation in urban education.' Wake County is playing catch-up."

AdvancED is showing more love to the Durham school system than to Wake County right now.

A review team from AdvancED told the Durham school board on Wednesday that they're recommending that the district receive full accreditation. This comes as Wake's high schools are on accreditation warned status.

In a blog post today, Terry Stoops of the conservative John Locke Foundation calls the accreditation of Durham's schools "meaningless." He points to Durham's performance on state exams, which is much lower than Wake's performance, to say that "it is proof that AdvancED accreditation does not mean much about the quality of the schools in a district."