Fred Klonsky’s PREA Prez Blog

It’s a three day weekend. Four for the kids. Tuesday is a staff development day and the less said about that the better.

But in Chicago, it is the calm before the storm. Sunny and thirty degrees today. But tomorrow more snow. More snow? Yes. More snow.

New York Hillary backers steal lots of Obama votes. Oops. I mean there was human error.

In one precint in Harlem, the unofficial tally on primary Tuesday had Hillary winning 140 to 0. In 80 voting districts in Harlem, Brooklyn and other African-American neighborhoods in NY city, the tally showed Obama receiving not a single vote.

Hmmmmm.

“It looked like a lot of the numbers were wrong, probably the result of human error,” said Marcus Cederqvist, who was named executive director of the Board of Elections last month. He said such discrepancies between the unofficial and final count rarely affected the raw vote outcome because “they’re not usually that big.”

Look, I’m from Chicago. We have a long history of “human error” when it comes to voting. But no votes for Obama in Harlem?  I mean, the man won in Idaho! Don’t tell me he didn’t get one vote in a precinct in Harlem.

Gordon J. Davis, a former New York City parks commissioner and an Obama poll watcher in the district, remained skeptical, even after being informed of the corrected count.

“First it was reported at 141 to 0, now it’s 261 to 136 in an Assembly district that went 12,000 to 8,000 for Barack,” Mr. Davis said on Friday.

“I was watching like a hawk, but how did I know the machine had a mind of its own?” he added. “And I speak as one who grew up on the South Side of Chicago where we delivered the margin of victory for John F. Kennedy at 4 in the morning.”

Rotherham’s pal, Fred Hess plays full court press against union contracts.

Fred Hess of the neo-con American Enterprise Institute and Fordham Foundation pens a polemic blaming teacher contracts for everything from incompetent principals to sink holes in Florida. I know, Russo. That’s just me being irascible.

In the era of No Child Left Behind, principals are increasingly held accountable for student performance. But are teacher labor agreements giving them enough flexibility to manage effectively? The Leadership Limbo: Teacher Labor Agreements in America’s Fifty Largest School Districts, answers this question and others.

Park Ridge Education Association publishes new issue of Teacher Talk.

Every year the PREA, our local Association, illustrates quality teaching by publishing Teacher Talk. By agreeement with our Board of Education, it is included in one of the weekly Take-Homes that reaches every Park Ridge family.

Here is the link to the new issue.