Obama Looks to Lessons From Chicago in His National Education Plan (Annenberg)

New York Times ^ | 9-9-08 | SAM DILLON

[frankjr]

Senator Barack Obama learned how hard it can be to solve America’s public education problems when he headed a philanthropic drive here a decade ago that spent $150 million on Chicago’s troubled schools and barely made a dent.

Drawing on that experience, Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, is campaigning on an ambitious plan that promises $18 billion a year in new federal spending on early childhood classes, teacher recruitment, performance pay and dozens of other initiatives.

Supporters of Mr. McCain have been trying to taint Mr. Obama by highlighting his ties to William Ayers, a member of the violent Weather Underground in the 1960s, by pointing out that they worked on the Challenge project together. Mr. Ayers was indicted on conspiracy charges that were later thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct.

“The project proposals by and large were awful,” one board member told an evaluation team in 1998.

Relations with school authorities were difficult. Just as the Challenge got under way, the Illinois Legislature gave Mayor Richard M. Daley control of the school district, and he began an improvement campaign based on high-stakes testing and other measures. Annenberg’s let-a-thousand-flowers-bloom approach often seemed at cross-purposes with that strategy.

Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said the reading and math scores of the lowest-achieving students improved in the years when the Challenge was investing in the Chicago schools.

But a final report on the Challenge concluded that the huge effort had brought little change.

“The Challenge’s ‘bottom line’ was improving student achievement,” the report said. “Among the schools it supported, the Challenge had little impact on student outcomes.”

[frankjr]

The article tries to say Obama has learned from Annenberg (good, because the school kids didn't). The article also says "In the two decades since Mr. Obama arrived in Chicago, its public schools have undergone a sweeping turnaround, from an education wasteland to a district that, while still facing major challenges, is among the most improved in the nation."

Obama had nothing to do with any improvement in the schools. In fact Mayor Daley was against the type of local control that was killing the schools: "The Challenge through a multi-million dollar Leadership Development Initiative intervened in the School Council elections in the middle of what was known as the Chicago School Wars. At the same time Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was pushing, successfully, to gut the power of the Councils." Source: http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/08/obama-ayers-top-ten-10-highlights-of-20.html

Annenberg was a total disaster with Obama at the helm. Obama would bring his Chicago failures to the Nation if elected.

[AmericaUnited]

Talk about spin... “I screwed it up so bad that I’m now the leading expert on how to do it right...”

[Blood of Tyrants]

The lesson he learned was that if you are a liberal, you can be a complete a utter failure and waste MILLIONS of dollars and not be held accountable.

[Mikey_1962]

Obama’s answer? More spending!

Tax Tax, Spend Spend, Elect Elect.

Democrats being Democrats.

[what's up]

Obviously, a Pres should be someone elected because he has SHOWN he can do something, not someone who has “learned” from mistakes so may do it better next time.

[popdonnelly]

In other news, there is no famine in the Ukraine and the North Vietnamese are just defending themselves.

[FreedomProtector]

"Supporters of Mr. McCain have been trying to taint Mr. Obama by highlighting his ties to William Ayers, a member of the violent Weather Underground in the 1960s, by pointing out that they worked on the Challenge project together. "

It isn't just Mr. Ayers----also Mike Klonsky and others...

Mike Klonsky, former Communist party chairman, Obama supporter and former best friend of the Weatherman terrorist group founders William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, received a $175,000 grant from the William Ayers/Barack Obama-led Annenberg Challenge to run the Small Schools Workshop.

Klonsky belonged to the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and was best friends with William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who later became famous for their acts of terrorism when the SDS broke up and the Weathermen terror group was formed.

Between 1979 and 1981, Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPML) [not Communist Party USA] chairman and Obama supporter Mike Klonsky was repeatedly feted with state-dinner-level visits to Beijing.

Klonsky was posting a blog on the Obama website:

Comrade Klonsky is no longer on Obama's site for obvious political reasons

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/06/obama-throws-maoist-hardliner-and.html

[SeafoodGumbo]

What Has Been Found In Obama Ayers Annenberg Challenge Documents!

[frogjerk]

Obami got the right guy in Biden to help shore up the Education problem in this country:

In what the Washington Post is describing as a “stumble,” Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said in an interview with the paper Wednesday that Washington’s high minority population is one of the reasons for the city’s education problems.

Explaining why schools in Iowa are performing better than those in Washington, D.C., Biden told the Post, “There’s less than one percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than four of five percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.”Oct 24, 2007

[DrC]

“I screwed it up so bad that I’m now the leading expert on how to do it right...”

Wasn’t that the gist of Hillary’s claim that she had the experience to achieve universal coverage? Instead of her humiliating failure’s being a signal that she was the LAST person who could be trusted with health care reform, she flipped it into a “learning experience” and vowed she now knew what it would take to win that fight. I believe this strategy is called putting lipstick on a pig or something.

[TexasCajun]

Ahhhhhh.... I know what don't work!

[EagleUSA]

This is just a RADICAL SOCIALIST trying to heap on the RADICAL SOCIALISM. He would have your children wearing little grey tunigs and caps with red stars on them....if you let him get away with it.

Karl Marx without the beard....

[RC2]

“early childhood classes” No way. They want the kids in schools this early, at 3-4 years old because they know that at this age, their minds are wide open to learning. They can indoctinate them at this age to believe what they want them to believe. Let the children be children and grow up in the home and not in their schools.

[arkady_renko]

that spent $150 million on Chicago’s troubled schools and barely made a dent.

Where did the money go? They still want MORE money from us. I'm sorry, the Times can put lipstick on a pig, but... You get it. Saying the Chicago School system is improved BECAUSE of Obama and Ayers is rich. Last week we had a state Senator busing students out of the city to the the suburbs just to prove a point.

Then, we had the Chicago Superintendent of Schools blaming the problems in CPS on guns! Guns! This is the dysfunction that Obama will bring to Washington.

To cop a line from Dante, "Abandon hope all ye who enter here..."

[refermech]

Performance pay? How in gods name will he get that passed the teachers unions? The guy is delusional!!

[cookcounty]

FANTASTIC!! Annenberg is finally on the playing field. What an abysmal day for Obama! First the lipstick double-fumble, and now we're finally going to talk about his only executive experience, which was a complete diastser.

[CarryingOn]

American's that have children in government schools, that want them to succeed, understand that more money does not equal a better education. Politicians that make their millions off of the tax-payers use “education” to get their hands on money used to enrich themselves and their allies.

[norwaypinesavage]

I think I understand now. We should elect Obama not because he is a lefty elitist, we should elect him because he is a lefty elitist FAILURE.

[MozarkDawg]

Explaining why schools in Iowa are performing better than those in Washington, D.C., Biden told the Post, “There’s less than one percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than four of five percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.”Oct 24, 2007

STUMBLE??!!

[albie]

WOW! Only 18 billion!? That’s 1/200th of his proposed budget. Plenty left for other BS.