This is a sampling of The Education Report, Katy Murphy's Oakland schools blog. Read more atwww.IBAbuzz.com/education. Follow her at Twitter.com/KatyMurphy.
Oct. 18: As we reported today, this Oakland school board election is a departure from past cycles -- and not just because every race is contested.
The Oakland Education Association revived its political action committee after 20 years, throwing its weight behind Thearse Pecot (District 1), Richard Fuentes (District 3), and Mike Hutchinson (District 5).
But the roughly $20,000 the OEA expects to spend on those candidates is dwarfed by that of another new PAC, Great Oakland Public Schools. It had raised more than $123,000 as of Sept. 30.
About 80 percent of that sum came from two people: Former Dreyers CEO Gary Rogers, whose son Brian ran for school board in 2008 against Jody London (District 1), and Arthur Rock, a well-known venture capitalist based in S