While Mayor Bloomberg is in the process of breaking his campaign promises to end “social promotion” of failing children to higher grades, tens of thousands of school children in the city are reading the latest volume of J.K. Rowling’s great adventures, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” It takes place at Hogwarts, Harry Potter’s mythical boarding school. As it happens, Hogwarts depicts education ideals that are not universally accepted by education policy people in places like New York. For one thing, it is elitist. Only genuine wizards get in, and they dine like lords in a great hall.

Uniforms? Absolutely — a mere dress code of khakis would not do; Hogwarts scholars wear robes. Tough teachers? Harry and pals conjure hard, and they routinely run into trouble with their wizard instructors. A meritocracy? Certainly: There is no limit to what a good wizard can achieve, no matter what his ethnicity, “Muggleborn” or “wizard blood.” Think Stuyvesant, think Townsend Harris, think Regis. But the main thing about Hogwarts is that it is magically independent; no Department of Education or board of regents dares mess with its charismatic and principled principal, Albus Dumbledore.

Until this latest volume. For in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” something awful is happening. Wizardom’s big bureaucracy, the Ministry of Magic, is focusing on education reform. Or, to put things more precisely, as Harry does, the ministry is “trying to interfere at Hogwarts.” With her depiction of this dread drama, Ms. Rowling leaves no doubt as to the damage she reckons a dumbed-down curriculum and arbitrary public offices can work on institutions. Her analysis should be required reading for the chancellor of New York City Schools, Joel Klein, and, especially, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Consider, for starters, Ms. Rowling’s sendup of what could be an analog of the New Math, the sort of fuzzy constructivist curriculum currently seen in, say, our own District 2. The aims of this curriculum, known in the book as a course in “Defensive Magic,” are beyond banal: “understanding the principles,” “learning to recognize situations” in which the principles can be applied, and “placing the use of defensive magic in a context for practical use.” The Riverdale Review caught the spirit in the cartoon we reprint above.

Bureaucratic pedagogy doesn’t sit well with Harry’s celebrated friend, Hermione Granger, who is always raising her hand in class and in this chapter waggles her hand to ask the obvious: What about actually performing the task to be learned? Surely, she goes on, “the whole point of Defense Against the Dark Arts is to practice defensive spells?” It reminds of our own perplexed pupils, who wonder when they will actually get the opportunity to do long division, instead of talk about it. Hermione’s instructor will have none of it. “Are you a ministry-trained educational expert, Miss Granger?”

And the reforms don’t stop here. Veteran Hogwarts instructors are on probation, or out with their wands because they don’t have ministry approval, that is, they don’t meet teacher certification. Underperforming teachers are in because they conform on paper. The students at Hogwarts have plenty of tricks up their capacious sleeves to deal with the Ministry of Magic and its intrusion on their beloved school. We don’t want to spoil the fun, so we’ll leave it to the book. And, of course, there is a lot going on in the story that has nothing to do with curricula. But when Mr. Klein heads for the beach this summer, or Speaker Silver for Sullivan County, we suggest they take “The Order of the Phoenix.” The part starts on page 239.