Basking in the warmth of Tuesday's victory

It's another beautiful Chicago morning. Icy cold, ankle deep in snow. The new layer of white on the urban tundra is like a fresh coat of paint on the walls of a grimy apartment. The dog poop and the Starbucks cups and wrappers have vanished. Brother Fred is driving to Springfield, leaving his killer dog, Bruiser and his cousin Rocko behind to guard the house. And I'm still basking in the warmth of Tuesday's election victories by progressives over a rickety Rahm machine. Well, maybe not basking -- shoveling.

I showed Laurent Cantet's film, The Class, in my class last night. Since I've seen it several times, I was going to duck out for a while and read student reflection papers. But the film is still so compelling, I stayed and watched it again. Great discussion followed. I still love when that happens.

Back to Tuesday...If you ever wanted to see a mandate, take a look at the citywide votes for the Elected School Board referendum. Ward after ward came in at around 90% for. It was a dagger to the heart of mayoral control of the schools.

Best quote on this came from KOCO's Jitu Brown.

“I’m tired of going to school board meetings where people who don’t have skin in the game are making decisions.” 

Of course, Jitu's talking about educational skin. But truth be told, Rahm's hand-picked board members do have skin in the game. Take Deborah Quazzo for instance (please), whose companies are raking in millions from CPS contracts. It's no wonder she's opposed to an an elected school board. Skin in the game, you bet.

Meanwhile, the Mayor argues, 

"I don't believe what we need right now is more politics in schools."

Laughable.

The worst quote comes from a dazed and shaken Emanuel. Not knowing how to respond to the whipping he and his cronies took, he's forced to steal an old line from the great Harold Washington, whose spirit hovered all over Tuesday's race. He tells the New York Times: “Politics ain’t beanbag.” C'mon Mayor 1%. You can do better than that.