Sunday reads.

 

Mayor Preckwinkle?

Twelve powerful images of women in the labor movement.

PBS is still hiding their cozy financial dealings with the pension thieves.

Ex-guerrilla favorite to win El Salvador’s presidential election.

Billionaires are bullying teachers in California.

Five bad ideas about education.

I’ll call this teacher Coffy—in honor of the lead character from that epic Pam Grier flick, which I happened to see yet again just last week. ‘Cause only a badass like Coffy would have the guts to blow the whistle on such bullshit.

As Coffy explained, it was a consulting class put together by the Office of Strategic School Support Services—or OS4, as it’s lovingly nicknamed. It’s a central office entity created by Mayor Emanuel even as he was supposedly cutting central office spending to the bone.

In this case, CPS paid grammar school teachers about $20 an hour to attend four hours of professional development training on how to lead test prep sessions for the ISAT. I’m sure the consultant made much more than that.

Essentially, the consultant is teaching the teachers what they will eventually teach their kids.

“I think most of the teachers were going along and repeating what the consultant said out of politeness,” says Coffy. “But I didn’t repeat it. I’m not much of a person for repeating things like that.”

At one point, Coffy surreptitiously took out her cell phone and recorded about two or three minutes. “I couldn’t believe what was going on. I thought—people have to see this.”

Coffy posted the tape on YouTube on February 4, and it’s drawn almost 200,000 hits. Here, watch it yourself.

Think of it as education—Mayor Emanuel style. Ben Joravsky