The Chicago Annenburg Challenge, Obama's ties, and speaking to schoolchildren...?

The CAC is a brainchild of Bill Ayers, and Obama was on the board. Ayers beliefs were as follows:



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.



If you KNOW that Obama was friends with Ayers, served on the board of the CAC, was a community organizer, and these are the philosophies of the group in which Obama has his community organizing links, why do you think parents are upset about him speaking to our children? I don't have a problem with him giving an uplifting speech to kids, but when they start "infusing radical politics" into children, you better be worried.



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.



Why do people not speak about the Chicago Annenburg Challenge, the community organizers "beliefs", and Obama in schools systems.The Chicago Annenburg Challenge, Obama's ties, and speaking to schoolchildren...?
You've got it exactly right as to why conservatives have expressed reservations about Obama addressing school children. It's as plain as day to those who want to inform themselves. This is the kind of reporting the media should be doing. The media is supposed to hold the powerful to account. They mostly don't, and Obama is trying to shut down the few that do.