Obama, Ayers , Chicago Annenberg Challenge(CAC) +$140 Million = Educational FAILURE
Barack Obama and William Ayers were entrusted with 140+ Millions dollars and they failed badly.
Here is a brief introduction of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge: The Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001 that worked with half of Chicago's public schools and was funded by a $49.2 million, 2-to-1 matching challenge grant over five years from the Annenberg Foundation. The grant was contingent on being matched by $49.2 million in private donations and $49.2 million in public money so it went from $49.2 - $140+.
It has been reported that money was funneled into many projects, including one grant made to Michael Klonsky who used to run a blog on Obama's website and claims to be a "professor of education". He was given $175,000 from the CAC to run his Small Schools Workshop that he and Ayers had started to push their school reform agenda. It has been reported that Klonsky was one of the most hard line Maoists in the SDS in the late 60's. He went on to form a pro-Chinese sect called the October league Click Here that later became the Beijing- recognized Communist party who Klonsky was chairman of.
We might add that once questions began to arise about Klonsky and his association with Ayers and Obama he was removed from Obama's blog and it was wiped clean, not a comment or quote left from Klonsky.
Shouldn't we look into the influence that Ayers/Klonsky might have had on Obama's Education policy? According to an article in the City Journal Click Here
Ayers still boasts about working full-time to bring down American capitalism and imperialism. This time, however, he does it from his tenured perch as Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Does this make it any less radical? Obama's relationship has been downplayed by himself and others yet really the more pressing of issues is not what Ayers did 40 years ago, as despicable as it was it is the far greater harm he might inflict upon the nations school children by his leading role today in the political and educational movement.
Ayers writes in his course descriptions for future teachers this:
“be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and . . . be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, a teacher teaching for social justice and liberation.”
One of Ayers’s major themes is that the American public school system is nothing but a reflection of capitalist hegemony. Thus, the mission of all progressive teachers is to take back the classrooms and turn them into laboratories of revolutionary change.
People, this is the man that Obama describes as a "person who lives in my neighborhood" and who is a "professor of English". If that were true then the concern might be less, because in that role his anti- American teaching would be limited to a few hundred college students in the liberal arts but it is not true, he is not simply an english professor, he is responsible for the indoctrination of many K-12 teachers and therefore he has been able to influence what happens in hundreds and even perhaps thousands of classrooms all across this country.
So be careful America, when you hear Barack Obama refer to himself as an "Education President" think twice and wonder, what exactly that means based on the people he has associated with and has been influenced by in regards to education.
In addition to that think about this, The Chicago Annenberg Challenge had over $140 million dollars in grant money. We know Obama and Ayers were deeply rooted in this board, just what did they accomplish with all that money? Are we not giving them proper credit? Did they do wonderful things with all that money and make a huge difference in the lives of many children?
You can judge yourself because they themselves paid for a team headquartered at the University of Chicago to assess the impact of the more than $140 million they spent in Chicago public schools over that six year period,1995-2001. Their conclusion in a 250 page 2003 report can be read here in its entirety Click Here
We can save you some time though and cut to the final conclusion of the report:
"the money had no impact at all: test scores in schools that received money from Annenberg went up, but at the same rate as all other schools in Chicago." There was, in the words of the report, “no Annenberg effect.”
Hmmmmm get $140 Million dollars, spend it in 6 years and be classified at the end as having NO effect? Imagine what $140 million dollars could do in our schools if used effectively! Not only should Barack Obama be ashamed of his association with Ayers, he should be downright apologetic to the thousands of school children in Chicago during his tenure on the CAC board for failing them. Failing to use the $140 million dollars entrusted to him to make a difference in the lives of children instead he wasted it on programs, initiatives and funneled projects to benefit his future political career.
There is much sought after information wanted by the documents that make up the Chicago Annenberg Challenge but these documents which were at one time public record and then they became sealed. Was there a coverup ?
Stanley Kurtz of the National Review online in an article dated August 18, 2008 7:45 AM says this:
"Unfortunately, I don’t yet have access to the documents. The Special Collections section of the Richard J. Daley Library agreed to let me read them, but just before I boarded my flight to Chicago, the top library officials mysteriously intervened to bar access. Circumstances strongly suggest the likelihood that Bill Ayers himself may have played a pivotal role in this denial. Ayers has long taught at UIC, where the Chicago Annenberg Challenge offices were housed, rent-free. Ayers likely arranged for the files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to be housed in the UIC library, and may well have been consulted during my unsuccessful struggle to gain access to the documents."
At first Mr. Kurtz was told by Ann Weller a professor and special head at the Special Collections Department that the reason access was denied was because
" it has come to our attention that there is restricted material in the collection. Once the collection has been processed it will be open to any patron interested in viewing it.”
When Mr. Kurtz pressed on letting Ms. Weller know that he knew there was unrestricted material and that she could simply pull the five folders that contained no restricted material. Mr. Kurtz was very detailed in his insistence that in fact after doing so Ms. Weller then changed the reason why he could not have access she now said that
"the donor of the CAC records “has alerted us to the fact that we do not have a signed deed of gift.” According to Weller, this means that UIC’s library has no legal right to make the material available."
The question seems to have become who is the donor? Access to these documents would provide a clear and concise knowledge of what the CAC did with the $140 million dollars and it will clear up Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers in which he has been less than honest about. Perhaps that is precisely why these documents have now become closed to the public?
Documents or not, we clearly know that Ayers is more than someone from his neighborhood as we have learned that Obama began his CAC board chairmanship in early 1995, and stepped down from the chairmanship in late 1999, though he remained on the board until CAC phased itself out of existence in 2001. At that time, CAC handed over its remaining assets to a new institution, the Chicago Public Education Fund. Obama served on this Fund’s “Leadership Council,” from 2001 through 2004, overlapping with council service by Bill Ayers’s father, Thomas, and Ayers’s brother, John. Bill Ayers, as noted, was a CAC founder, its guiding force, and co-chaired CAC’s powerful “collaborative.”
Oh a family affair now.....it just keeps getting better.
Wake up America, this is not something that happened when Barack Hussein Obama was eight. His connection with Bill Ayers and the likes of Michael Klonsky reach well into his adult life and we surmise the relationships to still be there simmering on the "back burner" until the election is over.
On November 4th America let Barack Obama know loud and clear what you think about this association with terrorists and criminals. VOTE MCCAIN/PALIN 08.
Here is a brief introduction of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge: The Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001 that worked with half of Chicago's public schools and was funded by a $49.2 million, 2-to-1 matching challenge grant over five years from the Annenberg Foundation. The grant was contingent on being matched by $49.2 million in private donations and $49.2 million in public money so it went from $49.2 - $140+.
It has been reported that money was funneled into many projects, including one grant made to Michael Klonsky who used to run a blog on Obama's website and claims to be a "professor of education". He was given $175,000 from the CAC to run his Small Schools Workshop that he and Ayers had started to push their school reform agenda. It has been reported that Klonsky was one of the most hard line Maoists in the SDS in the late 60's. He went on to form a pro-Chinese sect called the October league Click Here that later became the Beijing- recognized Communist party who Klonsky was chairman of.
We might add that once questions began to arise about Klonsky and his association with Ayers and Obama he was removed from Obama's blog and it was wiped clean, not a comment or quote left from Klonsky.
Shouldn't we look into the influence that Ayers/Klonsky might have had on Obama's Education policy? According to an article in the City Journal Click Here
Ayers still boasts about working full-time to bring down American capitalism and imperialism. This time, however, he does it from his tenured perch as Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Does this make it any less radical? Obama's relationship has been downplayed by himself and others yet really the more pressing of issues is not what Ayers did 40 years ago, as despicable as it was it is the far greater harm he might inflict upon the nations school children by his leading role today in the political and educational movement.
Ayers writes in his course descriptions for future teachers this:
“be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and . . . be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, a teacher teaching for social justice and liberation.”
One of Ayers’s major themes is that the American public school system is nothing but a reflection of capitalist hegemony. Thus, the mission of all progressive teachers is to take back the classrooms and turn them into laboratories of revolutionary change.
People, this is the man that Obama describes as a "person who lives in my neighborhood" and who is a "professor of English". If that were true then the concern might be less, because in that role his anti- American teaching would be limited to a few hundred college students in the liberal arts but it is not true, he is not simply an english professor, he is responsible for the indoctrination of many K-12 teachers and therefore he has been able to influence what happens in hundreds and even perhaps thousands of classrooms all across this country.
So be careful America, when you hear Barack Obama refer to himself as an "Education President" think twice and wonder, what exactly that means based on the people he has associated with and has been influenced by in regards to education.
In addition to that think about this, The Chicago Annenberg Challenge had over $140 million dollars in grant money. We know Obama and Ayers were deeply rooted in this board, just what did they accomplish with all that money? Are we not giving them proper credit? Did they do wonderful things with all that money and make a huge difference in the lives of many children?
You can judge yourself because they themselves paid for a team headquartered at the University of Chicago to assess the impact of the more than $140 million they spent in Chicago public schools over that six year period,1995-2001. Their conclusion in a 250 page 2003 report can be read here in its entirety Click Here
We can save you some time though and cut to the final conclusion of the report:
"the money had no impact at all: test scores in schools that received money from Annenberg went up, but at the same rate as all other schools in Chicago." There was, in the words of the report, “no Annenberg effect.”
Hmmmmm get $140 Million dollars, spend it in 6 years and be classified at the end as having NO effect? Imagine what $140 million dollars could do in our schools if used effectively! Not only should Barack Obama be ashamed of his association with Ayers, he should be downright apologetic to the thousands of school children in Chicago during his tenure on the CAC board for failing them. Failing to use the $140 million dollars entrusted to him to make a difference in the lives of children instead he wasted it on programs, initiatives and funneled projects to benefit his future political career.
There is much sought after information wanted by the documents that make up the Chicago Annenberg Challenge but these documents which were at one time public record and then they became sealed. Was there a coverup ?
Stanley Kurtz of the National Review online in an article dated August 18, 2008 7:45 AM says this:
"Unfortunately, I don’t yet have access to the documents. The Special Collections section of the Richard J. Daley Library agreed to let me read them, but just before I boarded my flight to Chicago, the top library officials mysteriously intervened to bar access. Circumstances strongly suggest the likelihood that Bill Ayers himself may have played a pivotal role in this denial. Ayers has long taught at UIC, where the Chicago Annenberg Challenge offices were housed, rent-free. Ayers likely arranged for the files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to be housed in the UIC library, and may well have been consulted during my unsuccessful struggle to gain access to the documents."
At first Mr. Kurtz was told by Ann Weller a professor and special head at the Special Collections Department that the reason access was denied was because
" it has come to our attention that there is restricted material in the collection. Once the collection has been processed it will be open to any patron interested in viewing it.”
When Mr. Kurtz pressed on letting Ms. Weller know that he knew there was unrestricted material and that she could simply pull the five folders that contained no restricted material. Mr. Kurtz was very detailed in his insistence that in fact after doing so Ms. Weller then changed the reason why he could not have access she now said that
"the donor of the CAC records “has alerted us to the fact that we do not have a signed deed of gift.” According to Weller, this means that UIC’s library has no legal right to make the material available."
The question seems to have become who is the donor? Access to these documents would provide a clear and concise knowledge of what the CAC did with the $140 million dollars and it will clear up Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers in which he has been less than honest about. Perhaps that is precisely why these documents have now become closed to the public?
Documents or not, we clearly know that Ayers is more than someone from his neighborhood as we have learned that Obama began his CAC board chairmanship in early 1995, and stepped down from the chairmanship in late 1999, though he remained on the board until CAC phased itself out of existence in 2001. At that time, CAC handed over its remaining assets to a new institution, the Chicago Public Education Fund. Obama served on this Fund’s “Leadership Council,” from 2001 through 2004, overlapping with council service by Bill Ayers’s father, Thomas, and Ayers’s brother, John. Bill Ayers, as noted, was a CAC founder, its guiding force, and co-chaired CAC’s powerful “collaborative.”
Oh a family affair now.....it just keeps getting better.
Wake up America, this is not something that happened when Barack Hussein Obama was eight. His connection with Bill Ayers and the likes of Michael Klonsky reach well into his adult life and we surmise the relationships to still be there simmering on the "back burner" until the election is over.
On November 4th America let Barack Obama know loud and clear what you think about this association with terrorists and criminals. VOTE MCCAIN/PALIN 08.
wow!
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Well put WOW! I think that way just about everyday when I learn things about Obama. He is well educated, he is an eloquent speaker and he is turning out to be a master liar as well.
His character alone scares me never mind his socialist policies.
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Smear groups and now the McCain campaign are trying to connect Obama to acts Ayers committed 40 years ago - when Barack was just eight years old. Here's what the New York Times reported on the connection (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04ayers.html)
But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8."
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The New York Times is one of the most liberal newspapers ever. You are misinformed, read our newest article today it is factual about the relationship and if you are an Obama supporter you also know that Obama has changed his story no less than four times on his relationship with Ayers. He himself because he was pressed has admitted he is more than a guy in the neighborhood.
We have them at speaking engagements and seminars, as well as serving very closely on the CAC and Woods Fund. We have backed up our information with documentation. Barack Obama has shown himself to be a liar and he is only willing to tell the truth when confronted and even then he tells the partial truth.
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The closeness of the association is not important. It is the collaboration in pursuit of a common goal that is most transparent. Ayers has proclaimed himself to be anti-American and pursues his own ambitions to power through the vehicle of a fragmented society.
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So true Dave and further he sends his message of hate and anti- America through every student who passes through his class. Why this man and so many of his radical friends were able to become professors is just scary. We wonder why our education system is what it is. Come back later, one of our editors are doing a story on a similar subject today.
I cannot understand myself where people can be so blindly accepting of Obama's associations.
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