>The New Jersey Department of Education provides a web page containing a list of links relating to “Language Arts Literacy”.
While the list is admittedly alphabetical, it is nonetheless at least a little funny (ha-ha, “isn’t that sweet justice” funny) to this observer that Chicago-based Mr. Bill Ayers’ AERA organization and Ridgewood-based Ms. Botsford’s ASCD organization are listed together at the top of the official links page (found at https://www.state.nj.us/education/aps/cccs/lal/assoc.htm).
Note the innocuous descriptions of the two organizations, each of which has its own rather aggressive public agenda not necessarily in line with the best interests of New Jersey’s school-age children, IMHO.
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American Educational Research Association (AERA)
AERA is concerned with improving the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results.
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)
ASCD is an international, nonprofit, nonpartisan education association committed to the mission of forging covenants in teaching and learning for the success of all learners. ASCD provides professional development in curriculum and supervision; encourages research, evaluation, and theory development; and disseminates information on education issues.
It seems Mr. Obama’s friend Bill Ayers of Weather Underground fame is now seeking revolutionary change by another means.
Query whether people like Bill Ayers will expect the White House doors to be thrown open to them in the event Mr. Obama is elected.
Putting national implications to one side, though, the following information and related open-ended question also seems relevant to the Ridgewood district’s current struggles with a certain willful, inscrutable administrator currently populating Cottage Place. Enjoy!
(Found today, Monday, April 28, 2008, on https://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/. For information about the AERA organization that recently elevated Mr. Ayers to the upper echelon of its leadership, see
https://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/search/label/AERA.)
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Bill Ayers is not a “professor of English”
In fact, he is a tenured Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
I haven’t heard if Obama has corrected himself on this. However, this is what I’m interested in:
The more pressing issue is not the damage done by the Weather Underground 40 years ago, but the far greater harm inflicted on the nation’s schoolchildren by the political and educational movement in which Ayers plays a leading role today.
[…]
Instead of planting bombs in public buildings, Ayers now works to indoctrinate America’s future teachers in the revolutionary cause, urging them to pass on the lessons to their public school students.
[…]
Ayers’s influence on what is taught in the nation’s public schools is likely to grow in the future. Last month, he was 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. Ayers won the election handily, and there is no doubt that his fellow education professors knew whom they were voting for. In the short biographical statement distributed to prospective voters beforehand, Ayers listed among his scholarly books Fugitive Days, an unapologetic memoir about his ten years in the Weather Underground. The book includes dramatic accounts of how he bombed the Pentagon and other public buildings.
(Sol Stern in the City Journal)
Maybe the media should be questioning Obama and McCain about their views on Ayers in this influential position. Some readers might believe doing so would be a demonstration of “gotcha” politics, but I really would like to hear their answers.
Posted by Tex at 7:23 AM 6 comments Links to this post
Labels: AERA, ed schools, education research
