>P.J.:
An interesting article about journalist Stanley Kurtz’s experience in spelunking through the recently-released records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, founded by Bill Ayers, and chaired by Barack Obama, can be found at https://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/obama_campaign_confronts_wgn_r.html
The reason I’m bringing it to your attention is the point raised in the following comment left by a reader of the article:
“Missing from the comments so far is any discussion of what Stanley Kurtz talked about finding in his search of the archives. One item he mentioned concerned an organization that applied for money to fund a program promoting the celebration of the Juneteenth holiday. Apparently Juneteenth is an event that began in 1865 to mark the end of slavery. This request was approved and funds were provided from the Annenberg money. Another request for money from an organization dedicated to improving math skills of its participants was turned down. According to Dr. Kurtz many other academically oriented applications were also rejected. This information was taken directly from documents in the archive. Now I don’t have a problem with people celebrating and remembering their cultural heritage but if your goal is to improve academic performance it seems funding programs to improve math skills would be far more important. It is also apparent that Senator Obama was instrumental in determining which requests for grants were accepted and which were rejected. His priorities in this example do little to inspire confidence in his message about hope for a better future.”
You would think that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge would leap at the chance to fund projects designed to improve the math skills of public school children. Unfortunatlely, to read the above comment is to conclude that Bill Ayers and his ilk only assume roles in an education-related organization if they think it will be an easy mark to pilfer money to fund their radical political priorities.
Fast forward to this year, and we learn, upon reading this blog, that Bill Ayers was recently elected vice president for curriculum of the 25,000-member American Educational Research Association (AERA), the nation’s largest organization of education-school professors and researchers.
Surely the AERA knew what it was getting in electing Bill Ayers to such a position. Since Ayers was “elected”, there must be a majority of people in that organization who share his radical outlook, which as we now know, does not coincide with the best interests of public school children.
The official State of New Jersey Education websites have links to only two national education-related organizations, namely: Bill Ayers’ American Educational Research Association (AERA), and Assistant Superintendent Botsford’s Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).
Guilt by association?
Not necessarily, but readers of this blog are also aware of the radical positions held and tactics used by the ASCD to advance their agenda, which seems to have very little to do with improved educational outcomes, and much more to do with social engineering. Unless I’m shown otherwise, I will lump CAC, AERA, and ASCD together as radical political organizations masquerading in education-related clothing.