Monday, October 1, 2012

From the Halls of Chicago Schools: Memoirs of a Textbook Salesman

The Chicago teachers strike is over, and Chicago schools are back in session.  The teachers are back to teaching the proverbial "3 Rs," and the students are back trying to learn them.  But is the teaching of the traditional 3 Rs the only thing going on at CPS (Chicago Public Schools)?
For more than 30 years, I was an educational sales representative selling textbooks and workbooks to CPS.  My educational sales experiences included me working with teachers and school administrators -- people who, for the most part, were, and are, overwhelmingly liberal in their thinking.  Unlike most of my customers, I, on the other hand, am a conservative.
My employer, a family-owned schoolbooks publisher in business since the 1930s, is now closing, and I, like so many other Americans living in Obama's economy, have joined the ranks of the unemployed.  Perhaps a silver lining to my unemployed status is that I can now feel free to pen some of my "personally educating moments" while in educational sales.
Consider this the memoirs of a textbook salesman.
Make no mistake: there are many great people at CPS, and over the years, I got to meet many of them.  So if you are hoping for an earth-shattering exposé about systematic CPS corruption, you are going to be disappointed.
Instead, my memoirs are a record of some of my more enlightening personal experiences with CPS and are written from my conservative perspective.  I view them as a compilation of, to steal an educational phrase, teachable moments -- and that is why I am sharing them.

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