WakeUP Wake County says the Wake County school system's future "brightens" now that the school board is changing the student assignment plan.

In an email update today, WakeUP Wake says the group is "excited that Wake County will significantly revise the current 'choice' plan, that has already proven to decrease economic diversity in elementary schools."

WakeUP Wake also "thanks" the members of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition "for their persistence over the past two years." Great Schools i a project of WakeUP Wake, an officially non-partisan progressive group

Wake County school board members John Tedesco and Keith Sutton painted sharply different views on the issue of choice in student assignment and last week's board vote for staff to develop an address-based plan with a diversity component.

In this interview last Thursday on the Bill LuMaye Show on WPTF, Tedesco said that the move to a choice plan had "changed the culture" of the school system to "put the families first." He said it promoted "free market principles" by causing schools to compete to attract students.

In this interview last Friday on the Bill LuMaye Show, board vice chairman Sutton said that Wake was "too large" to have the degree of choice that was in the choice plan. Sutton said there would be "some significant changes" made when the new plan goes into effect for the 2013-14 school year.

Wake County school board chairman Kevin Hill is taking heat for saying that he agrees with the statement that "'family choice' is, therefore, basically selfish and anti-social in that it focuses on the 'wants' of a single family rather than the 'needs' of society."

In a Wednesday blog post for the Civitas Review, the weblog of the conservative Civitas Institute, Jim Tynen writes that "you have to give credit to the chairman of the Wake County School Board for frankness in discussing what’s important." Hill and others have attributed that statement about choice being selfish and anti-social to the Association of California School Administrators.

"Some bloggers see this in the ACSA statement as far left-wing," Tynen writes. "But you don’t have to go that far; it seems to me to be a rather clear, if unusually candid, expression of what liberals everywhere actually think. They believe society comes first."

Wake County school board member John Tedesco is called "statesmanlike" in this week's issue of the liberal Independent weekly.

This article by Bob Geary notes Tedesco's willingness to reach out to the Democratic school board members for compromises on issues such as student assignment. Geary also writes that "around here, Tedesco is viewed as a conservative ideologue," but he's being called too moderate by his opponent for the Republican nomination for state schools superintendent.

"While Tedesco is poison for many Democrats, he's also the only Republican school board member who regularly communicates with any of the five Democrats who now constitute the new board majority, after two years of Republican control," Geary writes.

Cash Michaels is speculating on whether Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata will do as he's publicly stated that he'll carry out the new student assignment directive.

In an article in The Carolinian out today, Michaels notes that Tata "has had several very public nasty fights with" the school board's new Democratic majority. The liberal Michaels also calls Tata "a conservative Tea Party sympathizer who sources say has US senatorial aspirations in a few years."

"With his heart really not into establishing a base school model with aspects of choice, and elements of stability, proximity, student achievement and diversity, will Tata drag his feet in meeting the 2013-14 school year deadline, or will the retired US Army brigadier general be the “good soldier,” and follow the directive?" Michaels writes.

It looks like one consequence of Wake County's controlled-choice student assignment plan is that it's impacting the racial balance at schools

As noted in today's article, an analysis of projected kindergarten enrollment data for this fall indicates kindergarten classes at 23 schools will see their percentages of white students increase by at least 10 percentage points over the 2011-12 school year. Meanwhile, the proportion of black students at schools with predominantly minority kindergarten classes will rise as well, but not as sharply.

"There were no diversity guidelines,” said education consultant Michael Alves. “Pretty much what you are looking at is the result of parental preference.”

UPDATE

For those who are having trouble viewing the Excel files, I'm adding PDF links. Click here for the 2012-13 projected white kindergarten enrollments. Click here for the 2012-13 projected black kindergarten enrollments.

Wake County Republican Party Chairwoman Susan Bryant charges the school board's Democratic majority "lied" when they said they wouldn't scrap the choice-based student assignment plan.

In Thursday's issue of the Elephant Express and in a press release that day, Bryant focuses back on the fall elections where she says the Democratic board candidates "deliberately soft-pedaled their intent to scrap Tata’s bipartisan parental-choice assignment plan."  Bryant points to interviews that the candidates gave about not making sweeping changes to the Wake County school choice plan.

"The truth is, they are going back to the old plan as closely as the law will allow," Bryant writes. "Each child’s address will be tied to a specific school to be chosen on some sort of socioeconomic basis."

It looks like Wake County school board member Susan Evans is ready to jump in with ideas she wants the staff to explore under the student assignment directive.

In a Wednesday morning email to staff that was copied to board chairman Kevin Hill, Evans said she wanted to "float some ideas" about next steps in the assignment process. Evans wrote that Hill suggested she initiate the meeting with staff because the board won't be meeting for a month.

"I realize that you will need some time to determine what staff members will be charged with this task, etc., so I am not asking for this discussion to take place immediately, but would appreciate an the opportunity to brainstorm with those involved before we get too far into the process," Evans writes.

In a press release today, Calla Wright of the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children is thanking the Democratic majority on the Wake County school board for their "courageous move" to pass the student assignment directive.

"On behalf of the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children, we would like to thank the Wake County Board of Education members who voted to bring change in the 2013-2014 Student Assignment Plan. Your willingness to take this courageous move is to be applauded by all who believe in equal education for all children. Initiating this new directive is a mammoth undertaking, and we are extremely proud of having the five board of education members represent the educational needs of all Wake County Public School students.

This new directive will help improve equity/academic achievement while giving all students a base school assignment. All students deserve equal educational opportunities. A high quality education is the key ingredient needed for all students to compete and succeed in our global society.

Again, thank you for your courageous and audacious leadership shown by voting to implement this new directive."

How much weight should be given to the disapproval coming from the business community over the Wake County school board's approval of the student assignment directive?

As noted in today's article, the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership both expressed disappointment Wednesday over the vote. During the board discussion, the Republican board members had pointed to the support both groups had provided to the choice plan, including paying to bring Michael Alves to Raleigh.

"I’m just suggesting that the option of tabling it for 60 days to allow the staff to show us potential impact, to allow the community to have greater conversation in depth on that impact would be reasonable considering the amount of turmoil we as a community have gone through over the last couple of years, the amount of investment the staff and the system has already made both financially and with time, the amount of investment the community has made with the hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Ed Partnership and other community partners," said GOP board member John Tedesco. "To move in this direction asking for 60 days I think is very reasonable."