I'm going to do separate posts, probably one per day, about the three finalists for Wake County schools superintendent.

Today's article has an overview of all three finalists. I'm going to start first with Dana Bedden, superintendent of the Irving Independent School District in Texas, as he's the least known locally.

Bedden was also the lone finalist willing to talk Wednesday. He called close to deadline so I was only able to put a fraction of what he said in the print article. Consider this the bonus coverage.

Interim Wake County Schools Superintendent Stephen Gainey is among 10 superintendents who are raising concerns about equation changes being considered by the Republican-led General Assembly.

In a letter to the editor in today's Charlotte Observer, the superintendents of the state's 10 largest school districts object to providing vouchers for children to attend private schools. Various bills in the legislature would provide tax credits or scholarships for some students to attend private schools.

"On nearly every national survey of per-pupil spending (when all funding sources are counted), North Carolina is in the bottom 20 among the 50 states," according to the letter. "In recent years, education funding has been cut. Now that the economy is improving, is this the best and wisest use of money to strengthen our children’s education?"

North Carolina and the Wake County school system continue to lead the nation in the most teachers with national board certification.

New figures released today show that the state now has 19,799 National Board-certified teachers, accounting for almost one-fifth of the country’s total. More than 20 percent of the state’s teachers have this certification, which is considered the highest credential in the teaching profession.

Wake County remains the top district in the nation, with 2,299 National Board-certified teachers. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools system is third with 1,897.

North Carolina teachers who achieve certification receive a salary supplement of 12 percent. With new leadership at the state level, we'll see whether that pay supplement remains in place.

For the first time in more than a month, the full Wake County school board will have a regular meeting today.

Last month's marathon meeting, in which the student assignment directive was passed by the board majority, ended with some bad blood. Now the board will have to deal with issues today like reconciling the 2012-13 budget to reflect state funding.

At the last meeting, the board agreed to put on hold a planned pay raise for teachers until it found out for sure that the state budget had enough money to help pay for the raises. That happened so the board will likely vote to retroactively institute the pay raise.

Is the Wake County school board taking a budget gamble by hopefully only temporarily using up the fund balance to keep a pay raise for teachers?

David Neter, Wake's chief business officer, said that they're expecting to receive enough additional state money to offset getting $4.9 million less than requested from county commissioners. For fiscal purposes, Neter recommended today temporarily pulling a proposed $5.2 million pay raise for teachers and then retroactively restoring it once the state budget with the additional dollars is adopted.

But during the work session, the staff recommendation was rejected 5-4. Board members said it would send the wrong message, even temporarily, to drop the pay raise.

UPDATE

After the motion to use up the fund balance failed at the regular board meeting, the board went back and approved the staff recommendation to temporarily remove the teacher pay raise. Board members reiterated they plan to restore the raise if, as it appears, they get more state funding than expected.

The Wake County school board will go to the cutting board on Tuesday to decide what to do after getting $4.9 million less than it had hoped for from county commissioners.

As expected, commissioners voted today to give the school system a $3.9 million increase in funding. The school board had asked for an $8.8 million  increase.

Staff will brief the board during Tuesday's work session on where to make up the $4.9 million with the vote taking place during the regular meeting. One possible option is to not give the teachers a 1-percentage point increase in their salary supplement, which would cost $5.3 million.

This might not be the only cut that Wake has to make depending on how the General Assembly finalizes the budget.

It looks like, at least in the near term, any use of teacher performance pay in the Wake County school system would be on a limited basis.

Wake County school board members debated the use of merit pay when reviewing the draft strategic plan last week. Some school board members support its use while others are adamantly against it or only support using it in limited cases.

Performance pay is already in limited use in Wake.

Wake County Manager David Cooke is recommending giving less than half of the $8.8 million funding increase requested by the school system.

Cooke's $941.5 million budget presented today would give the Wake County school system $318.3 million, a $3.9 million increase in funding. The school board, working on the budget developed by Superintendent Tony Tata, asked the county for $323.2 million

Cooke's budget would not raise property tax rate. Instead, he'd boost spending by using $22 million in increased revenue in property, sales and other taxes.

The Panther Creek High cheating incident and the school budget proposal dominated much of the discussion today's news conference held by Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata.

Tata said he stands behind how Panther Creek issued short-term suspensions and in-school detentions for the five students who were caught cheating. They were also required to take an alternative exam to see if they knew the material.

Tata was asked how fair it was for Panther Creek to give an alternative exam when some schools would give zeros for cheating. Tata pointed back to the ongoing grading practices review and how principals have autonomy to make decisions within the broad framework of board policy.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Wake NCAE members plan to show up at today's school board meeting "to emphasize the dire need to invest in one of Wake County’s most valuable assets – public school employees."

NCAE members will wear green during the Wake County school board's public hearing on Superintendent Tony Tata's budget proposal, which calls for a 1 percent pay raise for teachers, a $500 one-time bonus for other employees and a $8.8 million funding increase from county commissioners. It's unclear from the NCAE media advisory whether they're supporting Tata's budget or think he's not asking for enough.

The NCAE media advisory is also pointing the recently released Carolina Issues Poll, where 67 percent of respondents said that teachers deserve more pay.

"Educators are counting on the public’s support as they urge the Wake County School Board and County Commission to invest in WCPSS staff with a raise in supplement pay for teachers and bonuses for all other employees," according to the advisory.

UPDATE

NCAE says it supports Tata's budget proposal. But the group would like a larger pay raise and a larger funding increase from the county.