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Title: Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools
Source:
WSJ
URL Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122 ... 367.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
Published: Sep 23, 2008
Author: STANLEY KURTZ
Post Date: 2008-09-23 21:13:36 by Jethro Tull
Keywords: None
Views: 337
Comments: 22
Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists. The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama's first run for the Illinois State Senate was launched at a 1995 gathering at Mr. Ayers's home. The Obama campaign has struggled to downplay that association. Last April, Sen. Obama dismissed Mr. Ayers as just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," and "not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis." Yet documents in the CAC archives make clear that Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama were partners in the CAC. Those archives are housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago and I've recently spent days looking through them. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was created ostensibly to improve Chicago's public schools. The funding came from a national education initiative by Ambassador Walter Annenberg. In early 1995, Mr. Obama was appointed the first chairman of the board, which handled fiscal matters. Mr. Ayers co-chaired the foundation's other key body, the "Collaborative," which shaped education policy. The CAC's basic functioning has long been known, because its annual reports, evaluations and some board minutes were public. But the Daley archive contains additional board minutes, the Collaborative minutes, and documentation on the groups that CAC funded and rejected. The Daley archives show that Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers worked as a team to advance the CAC agenda. One unsettled question is how Mr. Obama, a former community organizer fresh out of law school, could vault to the top of a new foundation? In response to my questions, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying that Mr. Ayers had nothing to do with Obama's "recruitment" to the board. The statement says Deborah Leff and Patricia Albjerg Graham (presidents of other foundations) recruited him. Yet the archives show that, along with Ms. Leff and Ms. Graham, Mr. Ayers was one of a working group of five who assembled the initial board in 1994. Mr. Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval. The CAC's agenda flowed from Mr. Ayers's educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Ayers taught at a radical alternative school, and served as a community organizer in Cleveland's ghetto. In works like "City Kids, City Teachers" and "Teaching the Personal and the Political," Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? "I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," Mr. Ayers said in an interview in Ron Chepesiuk's, "Sixties Radicals," at about the same time Mr. Ayers was forming CAC. CAC translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice. Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with "external partners," which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn). Mr. Obama once conducted "leadership training" seminars with Acorn, and Acorn members also served as volunteers in Mr. Obama's early campaigns. External partners like the South Shore African Village Collaborative and the Dual Language Exchange focused more on political consciousness, Afrocentricity and bilingualism than traditional education. CAC's in-house evaluators comprehensively studied the effects of its grants on the test scores of Chicago public-school students. They found no evidence of educational improvement. CAC also funded programs designed to promote "leadership" among parents. Ostensibly this was to enable parents to advocate on behalf of their children's education. In practice, it meant funding Mr. Obama's alma mater, the Developing Communities Project, to recruit parents to its overall political agenda. CAC records show that board member Arnold Weber was concerned that parents "organized" by community groups might be viewed by school principals "as a political threat." Mr. Obama arranged meetings with the Collaborative to smooth out Mr. Weber's objections. The Daley documents show that Mr. Ayers sat as an ex-officio member of the board Mr. Obama chaired through CAC's first year. He also served on the board's governance committee with Mr. Obama, and worked with him to craft CAC bylaws. Mr. Ayers made presentations to board meetings chaired by Mr. Obama. Mr. Ayers spoke for the Collaborative before the board. Likewise, Mr. Obama periodically spoke for the board at meetings of the Collaborative. The Obama campaign notes that Mr. Ayers attended only six board meetings, and stresses that the Collaborative lost its "operational role" at CAC after the first year. Yet the Collaborative was demoted to a strictly advisory role largely because of ethical concerns, since the projects of Collaborative members were receiving grants. CAC's own evaluators noted that project accountability was hampered by the board's reluctance to break away from grant decisions made in 1995. So even after Mr. Ayers's formal sway declined, the board largely adhered to the grant program he had put in place. Mr. Ayers's defenders claim that he has redeemed himself with public-spirited education work. That claim is hard to swallow if you understand that he views his education work as an effort to stoke resistance to an oppressive American system. He likes to stress that he learned of his first teaching job while in jail for a draft-board sit-in. For Mr. Ayers, teaching and his 1960s radicalism are two sides of the same coin. Mr. Ayers is the founder of the "small schools" movement (heavily funded by CAC), in which individual schools built around specific political themes push students to "confront issues of inequity, war, and violence." He believes teacher education programs should serve as "sites of resistance" to an oppressive system. (His teacher-training programs were also CAC funded.) The point, says Mr. Ayers in his "Teaching Toward Freedom," is to "teach against oppression," against America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation. The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago. Mr. Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center
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#1. To: Jethro Tull (#0)
(Edited)
And he did not go to jail? The only evidence of said Pentagon bombing was in his memoirs which he said were partly fiction as far as I can tell that is the only source I can find for this claim. "We have oil. We have Putin - all that Russians think they need." - Vladimir Dubin, senior researcher at the Moscow-based Levada Centre.
Well gee.....if the test of guilt is jail time, I suppose there are tons of scumbags out here who are really alter boys, rather than dregs.
A sure way to lose credibility is to post propaganda by Israel first kike hebes like Kurtz. The guy is a disgusting "American troops should die in wars to protect Israel and so Israel troops don't have to die" carp. He's right in there with Kristol and the other radical beenie wearing atheists.
Ayres is disgusting and the black bastard politician you adore is also disgusting, so it's your credibility that actually needs a check up.
who is Ayres. And what black bastard politician? You an Israel first, screw America, Jesus was the anti-Christ Hebe?
I'd take Obama or almost anybody over an Israel first Christian hater.
The following is the 2007 winning entry from an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term. This year's term: Political Correctness.
I know you'd take the black Marxist bastard, you've been bellowing his "achievements" for months. It's a shame you can't point to one substantial difference bet. either of the bags of shit the establishment is offering, but that's a minor point lost on a voter eager to comply with his civic duty.
Ayers was not even charged - or considered a suspect and his claim that he bombed the Pentagon is based on a tongue and cheek book he wrote that he admits was mostly made up. I am not defending him -I am his ideological enemy but this claim of Pentagon bombing sounds fishy.
"We have oil. We have Putin - all that Russians think they need." - Vladimir Dubin, senior researcher at the Moscow-based Levada Centre.
Like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin: one to pen the revolution and another to implement it. Obama: change from da streets!!!
A most perfect definition of the trance-like state our otherwise erstwhile comrades have fallen under with their Obongo adoration. Sick puppies.
Marxist? And you will trust and believe those who spy on us and trade/sell our nuclear secrets to Russia and China, who teach their children to spit on Christians, who sell sophisticated and conventional weapons to countries like commie China knowing that they supply those weapons to the Taliban and other terrorists who kill Americans and who created the USSR and were responsible for the deaths of more than 20 million Christians? Let's see.. you spew racist crap mostly about blacks and support those who have done more damage to our country than anybody else? You must be a Zionist kike aren't you? Busted.
Given our nation's history, Michelle should opt for a mega insurance policy with a double indemnity clause. And my oh my how the PILES will weep...(and then riot)
Russia first much?
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Like watching those novelty perpetual 'drinking birds'.
Political pods kneeling before a black icon called a Democrat (aka = socialist). Who the eff are they kidding. The guy is a black radical who will put their lillywhite kids in chains. Asshats.
Tools.
Stupid American much?
"We have oil. We have Putin - all that Russians think they need." - Vladimir Dubin, senior researcher at the Moscow-based Levada Centre.
I only hope you're standing directly behind mccarthy, America hater. 2 fer.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
I'm safe - Americans have thick skulls and fat bodies.
"We have oil. We have Putin - all that Russians think they need." - Vladimir Dubin, senior researcher at the Moscow-based Levada Centre.
I pray this comment doesn't confound you, but, here it comes anyway; both McCain and the black bastard are walking pieces of dung. If I said this once, I said it a thousand times. Further both are controlled by the boys from AIPAC, so neither places America first. Yes, Obama is a Marxist whose connection w/Ayres should make an intelligent reader recoil in horror but instead you chose to question the motives of author of the article. Take his words for what they're worth and prove him wrong if you can. Finally, for you to turn to politician for leadership and help at this time in our nation's history shows me the high degree of political naivete you walk around with daily.
Let's see. Because I say the author of the post lacks credibility and is an enemy of Americans and an Israeli first liar that means I am an Obama supporter. I wonder what kind of logic you used to come to that conclusion? Go read more of his writing and what he has said in public and you might understand why I said you should not use his propaganda to support your position. From you comments I have no doubt you are a racist which has no place in all this. And finally, unlike you, I am not ignorant enough to buy into "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" propaganda. That is the Hegelian dialectic.
Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon
#2. To: Destro (#1)
#3. To: Jethro Tull (#0)
#4. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#3)
#5. To: Jethro Tull (#4)
#6. To: Jethro Tull (#4)
#7. To: Jethro Tull (#4)
Thought this definition was right on.
"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."
#8. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#6)
#9. To: Jethro Tull (#2)
Well gee.....if the test of guilt is jail time,
#10. To: Jethro Tull (#0)
(Edited)
The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association."
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#11. To: nikki (#7)
#12. To: Jethro Tull (#8)
#13. To: X-15 (#10)
#14. To: Destro (#9)
Ayers was not even charged - or considered a suspect and his claim that he bombed the Pentagon is based on a tongue and cheek book he wrote that he admits was mostly made up. I am not defending him -I am his ideological enemy but this claim of Pentagon bombing sounds fishy.
#15. To: Jethro Tull (#11)
A most perfect definition of the trance-like state our otherwise erstwhile comrades have fallen under with their Obongo adoration. Sick puppies.
#16. To: nikki (#15)
#17. To: Jethro Tull (#16)
(Edited)
Political pods kneeling before a black icon called a Democrat (aka = socialist). Who the eff are they kidding. The guy is a black radical who will put their lillywhite kids in chains. Asshats.
#18. To: Rotara (#14)
#19. To: Destro, ferretmike (#18)
Stupid American much?
#20. To: Rotara (#19)
only hope you're standing directly behind mccarthy, America hater. 2 fer.
#21. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#12)
Let's see.. you spew racist crap mostly about blacks and support those who have done more damage to our country than anybody else? You must be a Zionist kike aren't you? Busted.
#22. To: Jethro Tull (#21)
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