RALEIGH – If there was ever any doubt about the political salience of education issues, the last few days of news headlines would eradicate it. Consider recent developments:

• In Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the defeat last month of a $427 million school-bond package continues to reverberate. A citizens’ task force on school operations, previously formed under the auspices of business leaders and co-chaired by former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, came out last week with a surprisingly daring set of reform proposals. They included dividing the state’s largest school district into three “sub-systems,” managed in a quasi-autonomous fashion by their own administrators, along with a fourth “choice” system of magnets and alternative schools. The task force also proposed a smaller school board, with one member appointed directly by the county commission (why not all?) And it suggested that the school system form partnerships with private firms and nonprofits to build and operate new schools, an idea that sounds vaguely familiar.

Meanwhile, on the buildings side, former Gov. Jim Martin has agreed to chair another citizens’ committee to fashion a new capital plan for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Assuming the idea gets a sign-off from the commissioners, Martin will appoint additional members and get started by March. The committee is based on a similar panel formed after Wake County voters said no to a $650 million school bond in 1999. That panel cast so large a net in selecting members that it ended up with some truly questionable rogues.

• Whatever the Wake County committee accomplished years ago, it didn’t extend to straightening out the school system’s controversial approach to student assignment. Many Wake parents are up-in-arms about the latest plan, which would shift nearly 11,500 students to different schools in the fast-growing county. While this debate rages, Wake officials and politicians are out taking the pulse of the community about the prospect of a $1 billion school bond in 2006, which would raise taxes dramatically.

• In Guilford, school officials threw in the towel after battling parents for a couple of years about high-school assignment in High Point. The district had set racial and income quotas for the high schools in question, attempting to meet them via magnet programs and a lottery, but parental demands for stable, neighborhood assignment won out. The plan had been called a “choice” plan, unfortunately, but it became clear early on that it had little to do with true parental preferences.

• Terry Stoops, JLF’s education policy analyst, reports that the National Education Association released its latest teacher-pay comparisons earlier this month. It purports to show North Carolina’s teachers falling to 27th in the nation in average pay, though more careful analysis shows otherwise. Our public-school teachers remain far better compensated than most of their peers are when appropriately adjusted for cost-of-living and other factors.

• And today, Wednesday, the Public School Forum is scheduled to release its latest Local School Finance Study. If history is any guide, it will prove to be another well-meaning but fundamentally flawed effort that will prompt newspapers to write another series of earnest editorials calling for action to combat funding disparities – despite the fact that North Carolina doesn’t have significant funding disparities. You can read more about the issue in a North Carolina Education Alliance publication from last year.

On education, the news just keeps coming – as does the political rhetoric.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.