The Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) (also referred to as the Annenberg Challenge to Chicago) was a public-private partnership founded in 1995 to improve school performance by what it called "on the ground" investments in the form of professional development and technical assistance. Sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation, the CAC received a charter grant of $49.2 million in 1995.[1] The CAC was formally dissolved in January, 2002. It handed over its remaining assets to its successor, the Chicago Public Education Fund, on whose board sit Obama supporter Susan Crown and Obama Finance Chair Penny Pritzker. The CAC donated its records to the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago to be made available for public research.
The CAC's successful grant application was written in 1993 by William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.[2][3] After extensive community-based discussions also involving Anne Hallett of the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, and Warren Chapman of the Joyce Foundation. At its founding, the Annenberg Challenge was made up of three constituent parts: The Chicago School Reform Collaborative, co-chaired by William C. Ayers; a Board of Directors initially recruited by the Collaborative, which was chaired from 1995 to 2000 by Barack Obama[4], at the time a practicing attorney. The Chicago Schools Research Consortium, a research arm of the Challenge. The Collaborative was the operative on the ground body of the Challenge. It was made up of representatives of various constituencies in the Chicago school reform movement. That reform movement had begun in 1987 in the wake of an unpopular strike by Chicago teachers. Bill Ayers was active in that reform effort through a group called the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, or ABCs. ABCs was an alliance of various activists and reform groups that included the Developing Communities Project which Barack Obama headed up at the time as well as Chicago United, a business sector group, that was headed up by Thomas Ayers, father of Bill Ayers. A key accomplishment of the reform movement was the passage in 1988 of a new state law that established local school councils in every school in Chicago as a competing center of power relative to the teachers union and the Chicago school administration. The Collaborative's responsibility was to help identify potential grant recipients, prepare requests for proposals and develop other means for the Challenge to intervene in supporting the local school council-led reform process in Chicago. In 1995 the mayor of Chicago succeeded in the first of several efforts to undermine the power of these councils. But the Challenge fought back by funneling millions of dollars into the councils and associated reform groups, including $175,000 to the Small Schools Workshop. The Workshop had been established in the early 1990s by William Ayers who hired Mike Klonsky, a Chicago cab driver who had earned a Ph.D. in education from the University of South Florida, At times the attempt by the Challenge was controversial. An effort to funnel $2 million to the Local Schools Councils was criticized by one Challenge board member, Arnold Weber, a business sector representative and former President of Northwestern University, who saw the Councils as a potential "political threat" to school principals. Of course, the councils were formed precisely to provide parent and political activists with the power to influence schools. Board chairman Obama offered to meet with the Collaborative to resolve the concerns raised by Weber. The Board would engage in fundraising and approval of grants. The Board also hired a Executive Director, Ken Rolling, from Woods Fund of Chicago. The Research Consortium was responsible for assessing the impact of the expenditure of the Challenge's grant money. Ironically, they concluded that the $110 million spent in Chicago over six years had little or no impact on outcomes for students. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge received a grant of $49.2 million from the national Annenberg Challenge based at Brown University. The grant was to be matched 2:1 by private donors. By 1999 the Chicago Challenge succeeded in raising an additional $60 million. Other CAC board members were prominent Chicagoans from both the private and non profit sectors. On Sep 23, 7:05 am, Cold Water <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools > By STANLEY KURTZ 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. > AP > Bill Ayers. > 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. > > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212856075765367.html?mod=rss_opini... > > ED-AI268_kurtz_DV_20080922190134.jpg > 32KViewDownload --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. 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