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The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, where Obama met Bill Ayers for the first time in 1995, was funded by the Annenberg Foundation. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was part of a $500 million initiative started by Walter Annenberg to improve education throughout the country.
Who was Walter Annenberg? He was a former publisher and a lifelong Republican who had been appointed as an ambassador by both President Nixon and President Reagan.
William Ayers was part of the group of educators that wrote the initial grant seeking funding for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Ayers, at the time, was a professor of education at the University of Chicago and was involved in the efforts to reform Chicago schools.
The board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge included many Chicago business and political leaders, including Republicans.
Former Illinois state representative Diana Nelson - a Republican - said recently, "It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that [Ayers] had led a fugitive life years earlier. It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."
The William Ayers that Obama knows is the professor who was involved in the movement to reform Chicago education in the 1990s, a movement that involved not only Democrats but also Republicans. No Republicans at the time, or any one else, raised any concerns about Ayer's past - the issue in front of them was the state of education in Chicago.
Obama has condemned what Ayers did in the years long before the two met. But both became involved in a bipartisan educational reform project funded by a prominent Republican businessman and diplomat.
But...but....but....they chaired a board together!!! Surely Ayers turned Obama to the dark side and will have him sneaking dirty bombs into the White House!!! Annenburg must be a plant!!! Opps....sorry....I had my tin foil hat on for a minute.......
Nationally, some of the Annenburg projects were successful. In California foir example, the project centered around teacher education and the use of television in the classroom.
Chicago's project designed by one time terrorist bomber William Ayers and directed by Barack H. Obama was considered a failure by both the Superintendant and the Board of Education. It's purpose was a multidirectional approach to improvement of the inner city schools in Chicago.
Part of the problem with Chicago's project was the difficulty of finding directional support, management and assesment. The Board of Education roundly criticized Ayers for creating a "multiheaded medussa" that couldn't be effectively evaluated because it had so many directions, facits and parts.
Barack Obama, the director selected and appointed by William Ayers, managed with a distant, hands off style which angered and drew criticism from the administrators of the schools involved. It was said, according to the Tribune, that if you wanted answers you asked a subordinate because Obama himself would not respond. Even Mayor Daley questioned Obama's management of the project.
The Tribune called the Chicago Annenburg project a "dismal failure".
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