Three candidates who support Superintendent John Deasy received a gift of $250,000 from M. Rhee today.

This is added to the $1 million supplied by Mayor Bloomberg, and the $1.5 million raised by Eli Broad and his friends (including Joel Klein).

Clearly there is an all-out effort to make sure that corporate reform policies favored by the Gates Foundation win the day.

DFER called on its friends across the nation to send money to Board President Monica Garcia, the billionaires’ favorite.

Garcia is the choice of Bloomberg, Broad, and DFER.

Question to be answered by the voters of Los Angeles: Is the school board for sale to the highest bidder?

A few days ago, my six-year-old grandson, who attends first grade in a public school in New York City, called to ask a question.

He said, “Ama, I am doing a data analysis. I need to ask you a question.”

I said, “You are doing a WHAT?” He repeated, “I am doing a data analysis.”

Then he asked whether I would rather be a porcupine or a hedgehog.

I thought a minute and said I would rather be a hedgehog.

He was very surprised. I knew he was doing something related to the Common Core, but I still thought he was a little young to get my mini-lecture about Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay about War and Peace.

He asked why I wanted to be a hedgehog, and I said that the hedgehog knows one big thing.

He asked me what the big thing was that I knew.

And I said that you should not be afraid to speak up when you were outnumbered.

It turns out that he was making a bar graph, plotting the number of people who preferred to be either a porcupine or a hedgehog.

I was not sure why he was learning this in first grade.

More on this from the following exchange.

Recently, Edward Miller and Nancy Carlsson-Paige wrote a critique of the K-3 sequence in the Common Core standards, saying they were completely inappropriate for these ages.

Then E.D. Hirsch Jr. responded to them.

Now Miller and Carlsson-Paige respond to Hirsch.

Read the three pieces here.

Would you rather be a porcupine or a hedgehog?

When I was in Austin last September to speak to the Texas Association of School Administrators and the Texas School Boards Association, I scheduled a visit to Eastside Memorial High School.

There I spoke to a rally of hundreds of parents, students, and teachers who were determined to save their school, which had recently been handed over to a charter chain.

After I left, there was an election, and the new school board decided to sever the connection with IDEA.

Now state and local officials are deciding what to do with Eastside.

District officials say they may close the school if they can’t find another charter to run it.

This is unbelievable.

The district doesn’t know how to run its own schools? How about some accountability at the top?

I saw a school with dedicated parents, students, teachers, and community members, eager to work together for their community public high school.

Why doesn’t AISD take responsibility for this school which is filled with so much promise and goodwill?

Why do they need to find a charter operator?

By the way, on the federal NAEP tests, Austin is one of the highest scoring urban districts in the nation.

I revealed the title of my new book yesterday and said the subtitle was a secret.

Then a reader commented that he found the book on a website, so my secret is out.

The full title of the book is

Reign of Error:
The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger for America’s Public Schools

I bet you are not surprised.

The bios now on various websites are dated and contain some errors. Several say I am affiliated with the Brookings Institution but I was kicked out last year after a 19-year association because of my alleged “inactivity.”

The book is being edited now, the jacket is not yet designed, it’s very early.

I believe it will have a big impact on the education debate because it documents the failure of corporate reform and offers a dozen research-based chapters on what we need to do to improve our schools and our society.