Edweek looks at Annenberg

Today Edweek’s Dakarai Aarons offers up a balanced and accurate portrayal of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

You mean it wasn’t a left-wing conspiracy, led by Barack Hussein Obama to radicalize our schools and students, as claimed by McCain’s blogger brigade? Nope, sorry Kurtz, Corsi, Hannity, Steve Diamond, Checker Finn, Sol Stern and the rest of you wing-nuts.

In fact, writes Aarons,

…the project undertaken in Chicago as part of a high-profile national initiative reflected mainstream thinking among education reformers. The Annenberg Foundation’s $49.2 million grant in the city focused on three priorities: encouraging collaboration among teachers and better professional development; reducing the isolation between schools and between schools and their communities; and reducing school size to improve learning.

Was the CAC effective? Like most reform initiatives it depends how you measure it, reports Aarons. Did Obama and Ayers conspire to funnel millions of Mr. Annenberg’s dollars to left-wing groups? No, but they did run into each other from time to time and even sat in some board meetings.

Here’s a quote from ME:

“You can’t work in school reform in this community without coming across Bill Ayers. He’s been involved in every area of Chicago reform going back 30 [should be 20] years now,” said Michael Klonsky, who has known Mr. Ayers since their days in the leftist group Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s.

The ‘60s—get it? That’s when Obama was 8 and I wasn’t much older. Was I?

Aarons’ piece makes an interesting connection. He interviews Warren Chapman, who co-chaired the Chicago School Reform Collaborative with Ayers and also served as a program officer at the Joyce Foundation. Yes, that’s the very same foundation on whose board sat Obama and Deborah Leff, who along with Pat Graham from the Spenser Foundation, recruited Obama to the Annenberg Board.

No, it wasn’t Bill Ayers. Are you listening, Gov. Palin?

As Aarons points out, Edweek also receives funding from Joyce and Spenser, thereby making them, in my humble opinion, part of the Obama/Ayers/Annenberg terrorist conspiracy from hell.

Welcome Edweek--and buckle up.