Posted on 09/10/2008 8:22:26 AM PDT by 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.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Obama’s Answer The running story of Obama’s jack booted attempts to conceal the attempts to find out where those Chicago Annenberg Challenge funds went. And the unbelievable complicity by MSM to do so. While we’re diverted with pig sty entertainment http://www.theusmat.com/
You misunderstand. The liberal mindset is this: we know the reforms didn’t work this time - even though billions were spent - but this time we’ve figured out what went wrong; now, lets spend more money on our new and improved plan.
L
Bingo!
"One of the biggest lessons Mr. Obama drew from his experiences in Chicago, associates said, is that student achievement is highly dependent on teacher quality."
It took Obama $150 million to figure out what the rest of the world already knew!
Last man in America to figure out that Jeremiah Wright was a hater.
Last man in America to figure out that the Surge is working.
Last man in America to figure out that educational success is highly dependent on teacher quality.
No wonder he chose Slow-Joe Biden.
.....he needed somebody he could keep up with.
“The lesson he learned was that if you are a liberal, you can be a complete and utter failure and waste MILLIONS of dollars and not be held accountable.”
For recent example by Obama his overblown ‘greek temple’ stage setting at the DNC, which his campaign contributors paid for I’m sure. Perfect example of how he spends money.
Excellent example!
Bravo Sierra about Chicago education. A very close person to me is an adjunct professor at one of the private colleges in Chicago while working on his PhD at another University. He teaches remedial English — three classes so I asked how many classes there were and he said 53 and they are adding a few more. Looks like teaching remedial English is big business in Chicago, home of ZERO!
This is an example of the Annenberg Education Plan by Obama and Ayers. The reason they graduate more from High School is that they are not allowed to fail them even when they don’t show up to class. The Junior Colleges don’t want anyone flunked either so they can keep getting student aid and why he wouldn’t teach at them. You were not allowed to flunk for any reason.
Performance pay? I’d like to hear exactly what king of performance pay the Alinsky organizer would propose. You and I both know that Obama would not propose merit pay for teachers. So, is he proposing to pay schools more money if the perform well? If that money would not go to the teachers, then where would it go?
I think that the writer of this article should have consulted Obama before he wrote the article.
obe doesn’t send HIS kids to the CPS which he “organized” to “change”. 0be can point to NO success he has had in effecting “change”.
Is the NYT admitting that the entire Annenberg Challenge was drawing on Maoist inspiration?
Or is that just their cute, "nuanced" description?
In fact, the Annenberg Challenge under Obama and Ayers did give money to Maoist friends of Ayers.
The Times is getting out in front of this story with favorable spin for Obama, because in the next week or two, Stanley Kurtz is going to publish his account of what he found in the Annenberg Challenge documents, and it's not going to be pretty for Obama.
What happens to a society (or an individual) that fails to learn from experience?
” 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. “
Which then entitles you to be crowned President so you can be a complete and utter failure and waste BILLIONS of dollars and not be held accountable.
Actually, it brought a lot of change ($) to his marxist friends Ayers and Klonski.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.