Ding Dong! Apple Ballot Handler Out!

The majority of MCPS Board of Education members, with the notable exception of Rebecca Smondrowski, were picked for their seats by a MCEA staff member named Jon Gerson.  For years Mr. Gerson would pick candidates and then bring them to the MCEA Board (Teachers' union) for "approval" prior to any other candidates even filing to run. It was impossible for the MCEA Board to evaluate all the candidates for any BOE seat when they were only offered one "choice".  

The Jon Gerson choice would then be placed on the "Apple Ballot" and citizens from all over the county "thought" they were voting for the teachers' picks.  MCEA would hire staff to stand at the polling places to hand out the "teachers' ballot". Again, citizens believed that all of the people handing out these ballots were MCPS teachers and they wanted to support their local teachers.  

Mr. Gerson was also privy to the discussions at the MCPS Secret Budget table and, for example, knew about the 2008 behind closed doors purchase of $14 million+ in Promethean Boards while teachers lost pay. 

According to this article in Center Maryland, Mr. Gerson will no longer be running the Apple Ballot for the teachers' union. 

Josh Kurtz: Union Powerbroker Taking New Role

A major power in Montgomery County politics is stepping aside this campaign season.
Jon Gerson, the longtime – and controversial – political director of the county teachers’ union is no longer serving in that capacity. While he remains employed by the union, serving on its School Assistance Team, focusing on new teachers, he will no longer be part of the political operation...
...A shrewd political operator, Gerson, 55, knows where all the political bodies are buried in Montgomery County and how to work the levers of power...

...But Gerson became an increasingly divisive figure during his time at the union, with an enemies list topped by, but not limited to, the editorial writers at The Washington Post, which has a long history of hostility to organized labor – and to public employee unions especially.
Despite MCEA’s occasional hardball tactics, a recommendation on the union’s “Apple Ballot,” which Gerson trademarked, remains highly coveted in Montgomery County races – rivaled only by the Post’s endorsement – and the union’s preferred candidates always prevail at an admirable rate (44 of 47 endorsed candidates won their primaries in 2010)....