Despite Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and Rupert Murdoch's big contributions, LAUSD board member Steve Zimmer was re-elected to the board, defeating their hope that Los Angeles would become the next big pathway to privatized education.

Not that they aren't already trying to spin it with the usual tired "both sides spent a lot of money" lines. Yes, both sides did, but one side actually had an interest in the outcome. Not so much for the other.

Or the spin that goes like this: The "real victory" for everyone is how the reformers stepped up and made themselves heard:

Yet the fact that Zimmer will now have to do more on the reform front in order to stay in office (and avoid a recall attempt), along with Garcia’s re-election victory as well as the run-off between the reform-minded Sanchez and Ratliff should hearten the school reform movement. Why? Because the real impact of this year’s election lies not so much with the results, but in what the effort means for the evolution of the school reform movement itself. The fact that so many reformers stepped up to finance and provide cover for reform-minded candidates is a clear sign that the movement is no longer just concerned with working the corridors of statehouses and gaining the backing of federal policymakers.

Um, no. That is the wrong lesson to take away from this election. It turns out that people raise their eyebrows when big money is tossed into a school board race where there is no obvious vested interest. Rupert Murdoch threw $250,000 into the race just days before the vote. Many others were backing Kate Anderson against Zimmer much earlier, and all of them had big money and an interest in their bottom line.

They spent that big money on a large-scale smear campaign, sending out mailers claiming Zimmer was going to cut the arts programs in schools and other lies in order to bolster their reform efforts. Parents saw through it. Via Diane Ravitch, one parent speaks out:

As a random mother of 2 teenagers, I awoke to this school board race when 4.5 million industrialist’s dollars poured into my little, local, school district, preempting attention from commonplace travesties such as sluggish fundraising and understaffed schools. In short order it became clear that this is an end-game for a massive, national power struggle in the dismantle-and-privatize-our-government game. Including an assault on the bulwark of labor unions, checks & balances and free thinking, this is a campaign of Herculean scale. And it’s been going on a long time; where have I been?? Without ever noticing it I was moved into a constituency camp termed “parent”, consigned to a group I never knew was conscripted, and ascribed a whole host of concerns and partisan viewpoints I never knew were mine.

Yes, this. Dropping all of that outside money into this election woke people up. I wish it had awakened even more, because there is another lesson to take away from this election: Real-time disclosure makes a difference. The reason people were able to wake up was because Los Angeles requires disclosure of campaign contributions, particularly when they're made this close to the actual election.

All of the posts I've written about national campaign funding over these few years have been my way of saying that we don't have to let Big Money defeat us if we only know who is giving it, because people will make a judgment about the sincerity of the candidate based upon what interests are backing that candidate.

Now there's proof: When people understand who is paying to defeat another candidate and their motives behind it, voters reject it.

There's a message for Congress there. If you want money to matter less in campaigns, force real time disclosure. Not disclosure 14-18 months after the fact, but real time, in-the-moment disclosure.

As far as the "school reform" movement itself goes, our anonymous Los Angeles mom has that pegged too:

However there is no offer to direct the massive funds of this recent election toward present day under-resourced institutions. While those campaign dollars could have significant effect on our school campuses directly, instead they are devoted to closing down what was. Rather than working with teachers and administrators and the other components that compose the scaffolding of our social fabric, the agenda of the School Reform Movement is to remove the incumbent and install a challenger instead. This election silhouettes how reform never was part of the agenda at all; revolution is.

Paid revolution, even. With puppets like Michelle Rhee and company leading the charge.

Campaign disclosures for the last month have just been filed for the current elections to the Los Angeles Unified School District board and the numbers are obscene. Worse yet, the donors have no vested interest in Los Angeles schools, but they're ponying up the money anyway.

After Michelle Rhee's disingenuous claim that she was just marching "for the children" last week, she tossed $250,000 into the kitty for Kate Anderson, the "reform" candidate looking to oust Steve Zimmer.

LA Times:

A group led by former District of Columbia schools chancellor Michelle Rhee donated $250,000 Wednesday to contests for seats on the Los Angeles Board of Education, adding further political fuel to a battle over the direction of reform efforts in the nation's second-largest school system.

The support of StudentsFirst, which is based in Sacramento, will benefit an independent campaign on behalf of school board President Monica Garcia as well as Kate Anderson and Antonio Sanchez, who are seeking to join the seven-member body.

That's not all. Michael Bloomberg tossed in a million last week, and News Corp has tossed in $50,000 too. Then there's Netflix chairman Reed Hastings with his donation of $100,000, Jeffrey Katzenberg with $50,000, and Laurene Powell Jobs, who has given $112,500 between a foundation she runs and her own personal funds.

But wait! There's more! Venture capitalists don't want to be left in the dust, so they're digging into their pockets, too, giving a collective total of $200,000.

Since January 1, 2013, $2.8 million dollars in outside money has been given to three candidates backed by the Coalition for School Reform, which supports Kate Anderson, Antonio Sanchez, and incumbent school board president Monica Garcia.

As usual, Michelle Rhee has her own agenda first, rather than students:

Rhee said her involvement in Los Angeles could advance school reform statewide.

"We think it's important that John Deasy be able to continue on the job to finish the work he started," she said.

Deasy is developing an evaluation system that incorporates the use of student standardized test scores as one measure of an instructor's effectiveness. Last week, he directed principals to count test results as 30% of an evaluation. He also has altered district rules so that layoffs are not based strictly on seniority.

As a reminder, that "evaluation system" was used to humiliate Los Angeles teachers by using their students' performance on standardized tests which don't account for underfunded facilities, poverty, and other barriers to student learning.

Laura Clawson at Daily Kos:

This is the kind of money that's behind corporate education policy, with its attendant privatization, teaching to the test, and union-busting. And when you look at the players giving six and seven figures here, you realize how much more money is coming down the pike.

The election is March 5th. Who knows how many other billionaires will pony up to buy Los Angeles schools by then. Voters, beware.