If Wright Should Be Mercifully Silent...

If Jeremiah Wright falls silent and folks start feeling withdrawal pangs, I think we had a good story brewing with Obama's other friend, unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers.

The gist - Bill Ayers was instrumental in setting up the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Fund in 1995, a foundation committed to public school reform.  Ayers then set up and co-chaired a companion group, the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, which worked closely with the Challenge Fund.  And did I mention the chairman of the Challenge Fund?  Barack Obama himself.

So, Barack's first foray into the very important problem of public education reform.  Did he bring people together and deliver real change?  Not exactly - the project was widely viewed as not successful, and the final report said it had "little impact".

Well, did he work closely with Bill Ayers on this vital topic for several years, only to go blank and remember Ayers only as " guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago" when he was asked about Ayers in a nationally televised debate?  His website is also a cipher on this relationship.  Seems odd - since education reform is always a hot topic, why isn't Barack touting his experience in the field?

Well, maybe this wasn't really a major foray by Barack into the public policy arena; maybe he was just a figurehead whose lack of executive or political experience led to his being pushed to one side and left him with no notable memories.  Hmm, hard to see Barack admitting during his Presidential run that he lost interest in education reform years ago, but it has been an odd campaign. 

I am not quite sure how Barack would hope to spin this, but it would be nice if he could start by describing his relationship with Ayers and his time on the Challenge Fund honestly.  Lots of links at the long version here.

Comments

[Ranger]

As we used to say on the firing range...

Targets Are Up!

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

And, it wasn't like there wasn't a lot for a Chicago community organizer to work on back in the day. From, Reclaiming Our Schools: The Struggle for Chicago School Reform, by
Maribeth Vander Weele:

"Richard Haley in June 1987...stopped by Garvey Elementary School where his father was assistant principal....when he reached to open a window he was electrocuted. Faulty wiring from a heating unit below sent a current through the metal frame...Richard died in his father's arms.

"The heating unit and others throughout the building were not properly grounded...."

and:

"At Clay Elementary School...a six hundred-pound piece of concrete crashed through the roof one day...."

and:

"At Calumet High School...a rain soaked chunk of thick ceiling plaster crashed between two students sitting only three feet apart...."

and:

"On election day at Graham Elementary School in 1984, poll watcher Kenneth Thompson walked out of the wrong second story door and onto an unlit landing with no railing....He kept walking and ultimately fell to his death."

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

More from former Sun Times reporter Vander Weele (with my bold) on what the problem was in Chicago:

"Aldermen routinely used civil service examinations to control school jobs."

and:

"The close relationship between school jobs and the Democratic political machine continued throught the years. 'The main problem with the Chicago public school systems is it has never been about education. It's been more about employment than education. It's been a place that people made money, got contracts, and landed jobs', declared Kenneth McNeil, who worked on education issues for the Chicago Urban League before becoming staff attorney for Illinois Lieutenant Governor Robert Kustra."

and:

"The Chicago Teachers Union gained bargaining right during the 1960s and became closely entwined with the Democratic machine. In 1968, the late Mayor Richard J. Daley began a practice that outsiders said jeopardized the system's financial stability for years to come. He intervened during labor strikes and forged settlements favorable to the unions by using financial gimmicks, such as borrowing from future years' receipts."

and:

" 'The waste is so rampant it breaks my heart,' said one teacher in a letter to Chicago Sun-Times columnist Raymond R. Coffey in 1991. 'There are hundreds of teachers and administrators getting paid for doing absolutely zero. Useless Mickey Mouse programs abound. Pershing Road [CPS headquarters] is a standing joke' "

and:

"...wrote one school council chairman who unsuccessfully sought an audit. 'We are concerned that it appears to be more cushion jobs opening up for a small special interest grooup of people'....'We believe that our budget is sufficient to educate our children if allocated properly.' "

[clarice]

Apparently O did throw Wright under the bus today:
"Fox News, by Staff Original Article
Posted By: Photoonist - 4/29/2008 2:28:21 PM Post Reply
Barack Obama appeared to disown his former pastor Tuesday, saying he was ''outraged'' and ''angered'' by Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.’s appearance the day before at The National Press Club. In a press conference in North Carolina, the Illinois senator used his strongest language to date to denounce Wright’s controversial sermons (Snip) ''The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive but I believe they ended up giving comfort to those who prey on hate'' "

OTOH It's now Wright's move and I understand he's got a lot of missiles in his quiver.

[clarice]

Patrick, that rather well describes most urban school systems, I think. Surely, it describes D.C's though Mayor Fenty really is doing an outstanding job at ending this, including putting a Ms Rhee in charge of it all and backing her up as she fires padded payroll loungers at HQ, closes schools, eliminates teaching staff and works toward a lean, accountable and well-functioning system rather than a payoff to unions scheme.

[Veeshir]

I am not quite sure how Barack would hope to spin this,

Shouldn't that read, "I am not quite sure how The NYTimesWashPostCNNABCCBSNBCetc. would hope to spin this,?

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Here's the side of the story from the man with whom Ayers/Obama would have been butting heads, Paul Vallas:

As for the Chicago school system, let me give you a little background on it as well. We are a system of 569 schools. We have 433,000 students. Ninety percent of our children are minority, and 84 percent of them live in households that fall below the poverty level. We have most of Illinois’s special-ed kids and 80 percent of the children in the state who are enrolled in bilingual education. Our school system, in short, is probably one of the most segregated in the country, whether you look at it racially or economically.

The system also has a history of labor and financial problems. In the 15 years before the mayor took responsibility for the schools, there were eight teachers’ strikes. And when there were not teachers’ strikes—or work stoppages or delays in the opening of school—there was the system’s perennial financial crisis.

The state legislature used to bail out the Chicago schools by allowing the system to issue deficit financing bonds to close the holes in its budget. In 1979, when the system was in meltdown, the legislature let the school system issue bonds to be serviced by its own education-fund levy. In 1993, when the system again faced financial collapse, they did it again. That money was long spent, of course, by the time I came on board, but I’ll be paying off those bonds till the year 2011.

And how was this system performing educationally when I took office? It had a dropout rate of over 50 percent. On any given day, the attendance rate was just 86 percent or so. And on the standardized math and reading exams, about 75 percent of the kids were scoring below the national average. In addition, over a period of 20 years, the system had lost 180,000 students—going from 584,000 in the mid-1970’s to 404,000 when we walked in the door three years ago.

And what has happened in the last three years? Let me give you some irrefutable numbers pointing to our success.

For three years running, we have had rising test scores in every single category, at virtually every grade level. National standardized tests, state standardized tests, ACT’s—all of them are up. The test scores are still low, of course. But we now have about 40 percent of our kids computing at or above the national average and about 35 percent of them doing the same in reading.

Our attendance rate is over 90 percent for the first time in fifteen years. Our truancy rate has been cut in half. And enrollment is up 30,000—people are voting with their feet and coming back to the system.

Under a new contract that will carry us through the year 2003, we have had labor peace for the last four years. The system’s budget is balanced, we have embarked on a two-billion-dollar school construction program, and we have made major repairs to 517 schools.

Whether you look at academics, at labor relations, at finance, or at capital investment, the system is improving. Yet I have had to spend the last three years trying to explain to many of the so-called reformers out there why our kids are finally doing better.

They are determined to rationalize away our success. We are just teaching kids to take tests, they say. (Or giving them sugar donuts right before test time.) Or they claim that all we’ve done is scare the teachers, the principals and the kids. Or that the children we’ve kept from advancing to the next grade are somehow inflating the test scores (which, by the way, has been proved absolutely false). Or, I don’t know, maybe the gravitational pull of the Hale-Bopp comet has raised children’s IQ’s.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Let's repeat that (because Vallas is talking about Obama's ally Ayers):

Yet I have had to spend the last three years trying to explain to many of the so-called reformers out there why our kids are finally doing better.

They are determined to rationalize away our success. We are just teaching kids to take tests, they say. (Or giving them sugar donuts right before test time.) Or they claim that all we’ve done is scare the teachers, the principals and the kids. Or that the children we’ve kept from advancing to the next grade are somehow inflating the test scores (which, by the way, has been proved absolutely false). Or, I don’t know, maybe the gravitational pull of the Hale-Bopp comet has raised children’s IQ’s.

And, eventually they did manage to get rid of Vallas.

[Neo]

As I predicted, now comes the Sister Soulja moment.

[Pofarmer]

Gonna plant some Arugula in the garden today. I just couldn't resist.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

The lovely Maribeth has dropped out of sight--the last entry on her blog was December 2005--but the research is going to be cheap at these prices

[Danube of Thought]

Sister Souljah couldn't fight back. The Reverend Wright can--and hard. If he's pissed at Obama, he has it in his power to put an end to his campaign in a matter of days.

[Jane]

Boy I can hardly wait. Go Wright Go! But first, give him a call and tell him your intention -

Wait, shouldn't we be worried about blackmail? Reverend Wright's silence in exchange for all sorts of things - separate black schools where they clap with the proper timing; all tests given in hip-hop language; free rides for life for all black people; disbanding of the military; the vice presidency? It could be a long list.

Okay, okay, I've descended into moonbatville. I think it's the weather.

[LindaK]

One can only hope that Rev Wright will fire off a jeremiad at his erstwhile mentee. "Outraged" and "appalled" indeed. This has really changed since the Philadelphia story. If I were Rev. Wright, I would be outraged and appalled by BO turning turncoat. Hopefully, we'll see Rev. Wright again, soon.

BO's latest Wright stance shows us that the Clintons aren't the only ones willing to do anything to capture the presidency. Bo has been throwing so many of his close friends and family off his bus that it makes Hillary look good.

[bio mom]

Just another political hack from Chicago. Just like that guy Bill Cunningham said last month and got lambasted for.

[Danube of Thought]

Here's Tom Bevan:

"Here's the big question, and it's one that Barack Obama simply can't answer effectively: what did Reverend Wright say yesterday that was any different from what he's said before? For Obama to be so 'outraged and saddened' now, and to suggest that the man he saw yesterday was somehow different from the man we saw in the clips on YouTube simply strains credulity.

"It doesn't help matters that Obama seemed significantly less outraged last night by Rev. Wright's tour de force at the National Press Club than he was today, which would lead any thinking person to conclude that today was less an expression of sincerity than one of political expediency."

[Tom Maguire]

"Here's the big question, and it's one that Barack Obama simply can't answer effectively: what did Reverend Wright say yesterday that was any different from what he's said before?

The actual answer is, there is no answer. The Obama answer answer is that Wright claimed Obama was just posturing in his earlier denunciations. So now Obama is outraged that Wright didn't believe him when he said that, after sitting quietly and saying nothing for twenty years, he was horrified to learn of Wright's divisive outlook in the March of 2008.

Gee, can't figure why Wright figured that.

[battery]

Whooops!!!

Posted on wrong thread.

[sophy]

Please do not hesitate to have knight gold . It is funny.