Why haven't black and Hispanic families been vocal about the new student reassignment plan?

As noted in today's article, it depends on whom you ask. Is it a case of minority families being satisfied with the plan? Or do they not know about the plan or feel intimidated about speaking out?

"We need to keep schools healthy so we'll acede to the assignment proposal," said Calla Wright, president of the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children.

Since you guys want to vent so much about the recent editorial page columns on student reassignment, have at it.

Click here for today's column by Burgetta Wheeler. Click here for Thursday's column from Jim Jenkins.

Once again, please remember that the editorial and news departments are separate entities.  

You guys may want to consider speaking at the reassignment hearings at Fuquay-Varina or East Wake high schools instead of on Monday at Millbrook High.

Rosa Gill, chairwoman of the school board, said Thursday she's not leaning toward extending the Millbrook hearing past 9 p.m. That could become an issue as the list of speakers grows.

As of Thursday afternoon, 78 people had signed up to speak at Millbrook with plenty more expected to register over the weekend.

Thursday's reassignment public hearing wasn't a normal one.

As noted in today's article, nearly half of the 16 speakers spoke in support of the reassignment plan. Some speakers backed the conversion of Leesville Road Middle School to a year-round calendar. Ohers praised the reassignment of Lacy Elementary students to Stough Elementary.

The Stough parents argued that the school would become healthier if it got the Lacy students. They also said it would ease crowding at Lacy.

Thanks go to shank56 for posting the link on the video of the reassignment hearings.

Click here to watch Monday's meeting at Apex High. The district's web site says the video for the other four hearings will be posted about two days after the event.

Here's a second chance for those (like me) who missed most of or all of this afternoon's State of Things radio broadcast on Wake County student reassignment.

The audio should be posted online, according to the show's web site, this afternoon. It will also be rebroadcast tonight on WUNC-91.5 FM at 9 p.m.

According to the show's blurb:

An e-mail heckler styling himself as Albert Einstein sent around a blast to Wake County commissioners and school board members venting his frustration with the school system's reassignment plan. A copy came in this direction as well. Suffice it to say that the gentleman doesn't think much of any plan that has diversity of students as one of its criteria.

Kevin Hill, school board vice chairman, took it upon himself to respond. He didn't argue. Hill (who also included us on the distribution list) simply wrote,

"Dear Mr. Einstein,

"Please read the attached."

What he attached was an article from Education Week, published last June. The article is titled, "Socioeconomic Integration: It's Legal, and It Makes Sense." The authors are identified as Angela Ciolfi, attorney for the JustChildren Program of the Legal Aid Justice Center, Charlottesville, Va., and James E. Ryan, a University of Virginia law professor. It's a concise piece with this point at the core: Socioeconomic integration promises "more academic benefit for less money than under alternative policies. More than 40 years of social science research shows that the socioeconomic composition of a child's school has an effect on academic performance over and above that of the socioeconomic status of the child's family." (Find the piece here.)

Socioeconomic diversity, or integration, is one of the Wake school system's goals as it prepares to shuffle several thousand students over the next three years (the need to divvy students among new schools that will be coming online also is driving the process). The school board's majority believes that keeping any school's student body from being drawn mostly from families who are poor is a way to promote academic success. The Education Week article is the sort of thing that reinforces their commitment to stay the course. Check it out. There's even a comment posted by a reader that will warm the heart of the board's critics, such as the distinguished Mr. Einstein.

It's no mistake that the North Harrison Avenue families are slated to wait until 2010 to be reassigned to Cary High.

In the draft plan, those nodes were slated to be reassigned from Panther Creek High to Athens Drive High in 2009-10. Administrators said they'd recommend moving them to Cary HIgh instead, as urged by the parents, in the revised plan.

But what surprised those nodes when the plan came out last month is that they won't go to Cary High until 2010.

It's not a shock that Apex Mayor Keith Weatherly took shots at Wake's diversity policy at Monday's reassignment hearing.

But what about Cary Mayor Harold Weinbrecht? As noted in today's article, Weinbrecht criticized the diversity policy while speaking on behalf of the parents trying to avoid being reassigned from Apex High to Athens Drive High.

Weinbrecht, normally a strong supporter of the school system, prefaced his remarks to the school board. He said that he has tried to work as a lobbyist rather than speak out publicly.

There are plenty of speaking spots open at the reassignment public hearings, especially at Southeast Raleigh and East Wake high schools.

There are now 37 speakers signed up tonight for Apex High, not including those who will register at the door. There are 64 speakers for next Monday's hearing at Millbrook High and 26 for the Jan. 14 hearing at Fuquay-Varina High.

But only six people have signed up so far for Thursday's hearing at Southeast Raleigh. Four have signed up for the Jan. 15 hearing at East Wake.