Considering how much supporters of the diversity policy made Charlotte-Meckkenburg schools a boogeyman during the school board campaign, the new board members arguably are having the last laugh now.

As noted in today's article, the new 2009 state report cards show that Charlotte's black and low-income students are outperforming their peers in Wake on state EOG and EOC exams.

"We're not saying that Charlotte is the right way, but the fact that they're doing better than us shows how poorly we've been doing," said new school board member John Tedesco in the article.

It's going to be an unhappy holiday season for some school district employees.

The school board voted today to lay off eight people whose jobs are at least partially funded by the construction program. Two other vacant positions are being eliminated.

It's the second round of what's expected to be three waves of cuts to construction program management.

The new N.C. School Report Cards are out with 2008-09 school year data.

Since these report cards have been used in the past to compare Wake and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, let's revisit the issue again. Wake gets less money and does better overall than CMS, but CMS does better among several subgroups.

Let's start with test results.

CORRECTED CMS OVERALL PASSING RATE ON BOTH EOGS. 

Chalk this up as another example of how things are changing on the school board.

The Wake County Taxpayers Association is announcing that school board candidate John Tedesco and the three newly elected school board members will speak at the group's monthly meeting on Thursday.

They'll be joined by current school board member Ron Margiotta, called "our hero" by the WCTA, and Allison Backhouse of the Wake Schools Community Alliance.

School board member Lori Millberg makes a direct pitch for for the candidates she's endorsing while taking a shot at others in a letter to the editor in today's newspaper.

In the letter, Millberg claims "much of the data published by some of the candidates" are "misinterpreted and in many cases are completely wrong." She argues that going to a system of neighborhood schools, such as in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, will be more expensive and less cost effective.

Millberg says that "to get the best value for your tax dollar, vote for Rita Rakestraw, Horace Tart, Karen Simon and Lois Nixon."

Millberg is echoing a position that's being repeatedly made, especially in the closing days of the campaign, that maintaining the diversity policy is cheaper financially.

A new television ad appearing on WRAL is attacking three of the school board candidates, warning that backing neighborhood schools will lead to higher property taxes.

The ad, from a group called Wake Citizens for Good Government, attacks three of the four candidates backed by the Wake Schools Community Alliance: Chris Malone, Deborah Prickett and Debra Goldman. But it doesn't go after John Tedesco, who is also backed by the WSCA but isn't facing a Democratic Party endorsed opponent.

Here's the text of the ad:

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST ON WHO'S BEHIND THE AD

Wake County school officials announced today that the school system’s official enrollment grew by 1,893 students from last year’s total.

School officials say the enrollment on the 20th-day of classes was 139,599 students, compared to 137,706 students at that same time last year. School districts use the 20th-day figures to report an official enrollment to the state for funding purposes.

The school district based the budget on having 140,012 students. Whether county commissioners ask for money back from the school system for those 413 students is debatable.

Does the school system need more money or should it just work with what it now gets?

That's a key dividing point in the District 9 school board race. Lois Nixon argues that Wake is underfunded while Debra Goldman says that's not the case.

Similar arguments are being made in the other school board races.

UPDATE

Click here for today's District 9 article by Thomas Goldsmith.

With the Wake school board elections two weeks away, add Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce President Harvey Schmitt to those warning about the potential dangers of abandoning the diversity policy.

In an interview this morning on WPTF, Schmitt praised the academic quality of the Wake school system as helping the economic health of the region. While Schmitt said he understands why people would want neighborhood schools, he warned that abandoning the diversity policy would lead to the creation of pockets of economic decay and inequalities in property values.

UPDATE

Click here to listen to the interview.

One of the charges raised during the school board campaign is that abandoning the diversity policy will require a sharp increase in taxes to pay for a system of neighborhood schools such as what's used in Charlotte.

Well, the funding gap this year between the Wake and Charlotte-Mecklenburg school systems is a lot smaller than normal because of the recession. The previously large gap is now down to $3.9 million.

UPDATE: CORRECTED SIZE OF CURRENT GAP