CAC Doc Drop: Obama Has More Than Ayers To Worry About Now

Continuing to follow up on what can be learned of Barack Obama's tenure as the Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), evaluations of the program during his tenure available on line demonstrate that in his only real executive test, Barack Obama was a dismal failure squandering millions of dollars on education programs which had basically no real effect. They also strongly suggest Obama's claim that un-repentant terrorist Bill Ayers is just a teacher who lived down the block is an outright lie. The structure and tone of the CAC, addressed in the documents, leave a strong impression the two men had to work together closely over a number of years. Also, as copies of CAC internal documents were given over to the evaluators, any notion that they now shouldn't be immediately shared with the public is an absolute farce.

Given Obama's significant lack of experience, aside from any Ayers connection which Stanley Kurtz continues to pursue, it's doubtful he'd want America to learn any details behind his obviously failed performance during the one time he was expected to perform as an executive in the real world.

From Stanley Kurtz's on going work we know this:

Obama began his CAC board chairmanship in early 1995, and stepped down from the chairmanship in late 1999, though he remained on the board until CAC phased itself out of existence in 2001.

These evaluations cover precisely that period of time. At some points the criticism of the organization Obama led is scathing, particularly as it was primarily tasked with giving away millions of dollars. Available at links below but locked to copying, I made screen caps to share just some of the text: (all images clickable to enlarge)

Reading through the documents gives the impression that as Chairman, Obama did little more than assist the most Leftist of activists in shuffling around millions of dollars, often to themselves in their own misguided initiatives, few if any of them producing real results. In fact, in many people's minds, they were never even designed to.

One of the criticisms from a businessman and board member at right.

Obama as chair didn't even have the foresight to appoint an Executive Director until some two years on - and then it was only done in response to concerns from others, including the Annenberg Foundation itself. One portion of the document claims they gave money away so fast and so early, the effort may have been doomed from the start - all while Obama was Chair.

Another portion of the document demonstrates that a full two years in, relevant independent, concerned members of the education, political and business communities in Chicago didn't even have an effective idea what the challenge was about when asked by evaluators. But that didn't stop Obama and CAC from handing out cash to someone, apparently.

When those independent interested parties were asked what it was they believed the Chicago schools needed most, they generally responded in practical terms - improved test scores, better grades and improved overall performance. But the CAC didn't see those things as relevant. It was more focused on fuzzy-headed, presumably liberal ideals expressed as "time, size and isolation" - yet, said ideals were never more properly defined, making it impossible to even know what it is they set out to accomplish through spending all that cash. Is it a wonder Obama and his fifty million had absolutely no impact at all?

How's that for fifty-million dollars worth - ultimately under Obama's control? One can only imagine how much he might have squandered were the US treasury involved - God forbid.

And as for documents being available - the text at right indicates many were copied at least once for the mid-project evaluation. So, why is it that the man who wants to be the next president doesn't appear to want the American public to view them now?

It cannot be emphasized enough that these evaluations speak directly to the only real world executive  experience of a gifted rhetorician with incredibly light political experience, hardly any of it at the national level. That he suddenly somehow fancies himself ready and able to become the chief executive of the United States is a bad joke. Based on these evaluations, it's doubtful he is qualified for a mid-level administrative position within a school district in a mid-sized town. If the mainstream media doesn't follow up on this and the work of Stanley Kurtz and Steve Diamond, it's they who will be playing the worst of jokes on the American people. Now, Diamond has begun posting some of the internal CAC documents he already has - be sure and check it out here.

Evaluations relevant to Obama's apparently incompetent work as Chair are available on line through the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago.

The program is summarized at The Annenberg Challenge - Chicago. You are eventually brought to this page which has the evaluations in pdf. The documents can be downloaded via the following links:

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: The First Three Years

Scroll to the very bottom here to download parts 1 and 2 of the final report:

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: Successes, Failures, and Lessons for the Future

Comments

[SacTownMan]

This is a great snapshot of "the One". The great uniter and Community Organizer at work. It has taken over a year for anything concerning his real background to escape the control of the Chicago political machine.

There is much more at work here than just the deception of hiding these public documents. The MSM is dead in this country.

If it were not for internet bloggers how would the story of "Rathergate" or the fake Ambulance missle attack or the staged bodies from the rubble in Lebanon have ever seen the light of day?

The ability of a complete nobody to be crafted and shoved down the throats of the American people should make every citizen in this country wake up and smell the coffee!

Keep up the good work Dan you and others are the only real investigative journalists left in this country!

[seekeronos]

Scary thing, if "the One" indeed is fated to be POTUS. He would all but assure the end of the US.

I have to wonder (just a wee bit) if the GOP has a little silent payola/quid pro quo thing with Putin going on in terms of the developing October Surprise... to scare the sheep into voting for McCain?

...Nah, I didn't think so either. Methinks ol' Vlad will have to be put in his place sooner rather than later.

[JM Hanes]

The Annenberg gift required matching funds, so I believe you're talking about something more like $100 to $150 million dollars, not $50 million. I'm sure Tom Maguire has posted the details somewhere over a Just One Minute.

[jharp]

"Keep up the good work Dan you and others are the only real investigative journalists left in this country!"

I suspected you were smoking the funny stuff the other night but now I am certain.

And from a rich Sacramento area homeowner. It is no wonder why our country is nearly bankrupt. Clearly many of our citizens are.

[BobInStamford]

I take comfort that the patriot from the Golden State's house is nearly worthless. Meanwhile, on the topic of houses, splotchy ole Grandpa McSame doesn't even know how many houses he owns!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12685.html

What a confused old man. Thank you for your service, John! Your gold digging skills are what this country needs!!

[Spartan112]

So the guy isn't qualified because he had a failed executive venture...didn't W fail as an exec like 3 times? Including once as a texas oilman?

[Rob Crawford]

Interesting to see how the left reacts to this -- insults, unrelated attacks on McCain, and an attack on Bush. Almost as if they can't respond to the details of Obama's record, and desperately want to change the subject.

[Spartan112]

Actually I'm culling through the report right now and it's not nearly as bad as Dan makes it out. There were a number of successes and one thing that's made clear is that it shows there were not ENOUGH resources. In other words, if you want to improve schools, spend more money. In fact some schools labeled as "break through schools" received greater funding for an extended time and as a result they showed greater improvements.

Additionally the report makes clear that school improvement needs to be a long term sustained effort.

It's a dense report and I've only done a slow skim at this point, but unlike what Dan might suggest, it's not all negative and fingers aren't pointed at the administrators of the challenge in terms of their management of money.

Did they have failings? Sure. The biggest looks to have been trying to help too many schools, a noble goal.

Another failing appears to have been vagueness in strategies and goals, this could be considered a failing of the educators involved in administering the program.

The basic tenants of the program were strong. The notion of developing strong community/family/professional relationships. Teacher professional development, collegiality among faculty, dedication to school and strong student centered learning are all things that are in place at our nations most successful school.

[JustOneMan]

Follow the money..I bet these millions were given to Dumnocratic supporters and unqualified minority owned companies....its the cover up that always brings down politicians...

JOM

[Spartan112]

Oh lord...it's always those "unqualified minority owned companies" isn't it?

There's no cover up, there's no "there" there. Get over it. It was a program that was designed to help schools bridge the achievement gap that was overly ambitious and didn't achieve the success it had hoped for. Despite Dan's characterization it wasn't an abject failure and the report he touts says as mush. There were some successes, some failures and mush to be learned from the effort. In the grand scheme of things it dodn't cost a ton of money. Individual schools received less than 50k per year at the highest level of funding and for the vast majority of them that lasted one year.

What do you think a school could reasonably be expected to do with an additional 50k in their budget? The sad part is that many of these schools saw that as a large amount of money. At the school I teach at that's two additional students. A drop in the bucket.

To address real change in our schools we need long term commitments in cash and infrastructure as well as community outreach, teacher/leadership development, etc.

[PA]

Hope and Change == Mediocrity

[Spartan112]

McCain = failure

[carol in Illinois]

Very good post, Dan. Keep on digging.
It's ironic that for all CAC work on behalf of the children of CPublicSchools, they are worse off. Right now, the big controversy is Rev. Meeks, (ya, that Rev. Meeks, friend of Obama)trying to hijack the students for gain by asking them not to attend the first day of school in order to bus them to New Trier High to bring attention to plight of urban education.

Kurtz would not have been able to find as little information as he has were if not for Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R). The senator was a one termer, independently wealthy, preceded and followed by 2 AA senators. Carole Moseley Braun and Barack Obama respectively. Sen Fitzgerald was soley responsible for bringing in Patrick Fitzgerald, no relation, to investigate the 'pay to play' schemes which subsequently gave up Rezko.

Daley Machine put the kibosh on retrieval of the CAC documents.

Abandon all hope if these folks of the Chicago persuasion infect the nation and take over the Justice Department.

One should vote accordingly.

Read above link for John Kass.

[Fred Beloit]

"The basic tenants of the program were strong. The notion of developing strong community/family/professional relationships. Teacher professional development, collegiality among faculty, dedication to school and strong student centered learning are all things that are in place at our nations most successful school."

Good Lord, Spart, these are just meaningless generalities. I've been listening to this crap for decades. Why not just write, "Hope, change, and more and more money for our schools" and have done with it.

[Jake]

"There were some successes, some failures and mush to be learned from the effort."

I know it's a typo - 'mush' - but it's Freudian. Check out the big picture here, Spart. This isn't about bringing test scores higher in a public school. This is about the ability of The One to be president of the United States. Do we want to elect someone who requires on-the-job training for 'some successes, some failures, and 'mush' '? We've had enough of that over the decades, and The Chosen One has promised to make it all better. Mush - that's all it is.

By the way, do your yearly teacher evaluations mention 'some success, some failure'? Would you accept that? Would your administrators?

[JustOneMan]

Spartan,

How much do you get paid by the Obama campaign to post the talking points every where you can? From what Ive read on other sites its obvious that you are cutting and pasting the same thing verbatim without event editing the mistakes the rest of the Obama loons are posting..pretty funny!!!...

JOM

[templar knight]

Fantastic job, Dan. When you get the Obama ass-kissers like Spartan112 objecting to exposing these cockroaches to the light of day, you can be assured you are accomplishing something. The libs claim to be all for fighting and exposting corruption, until it is on the Democratic side. Hypocrite is the term that best fits these liberals who post here.

As an aside, I feel sorry for parents who have children in Sparty's classroom. He is an obvious propagandist, and probably does his best to indoctrinate children to his philosophy. Pathetic.

[JustOneMan]

Spartan writes - "The basic tenants of the program were strong." but he leaves off the most important and damaging facts...THE GOALS WERE NEVER ACHIEVED. Illustrating the fact that Obama is all about image and apperance but not about accomplishments,,,

JOM

[chris]

"As an aside, I feel sorry for parents who have children in Sparty's classroom. He is an obvious propagandist, and probably does his best to indoctrinate children to his philosophy. Pathetic."

Maybe your kids would have turned out better if he was their teacher. Private school didn't seem to get them very far.

[Fred Beloit]

chris/Boob has an unbecoming habit of gratuitously attacking people's spouses and children. That is because chris/Boob is a POS.

[Tom Maguire]

Obama as chair didn't even have the foresight to appoint an Executive Director until some two years on - and then it was only done in response to concerns from others, including the Annenberg Foundation itself.

I don't know the source for that, but the history of the first three years says that Ken Rolling was appointed "within the first year" (p. 3, center column).

A defense of Obama has been that he was a mere figurehead. I think Diamond has documents disproving that, but even if true, "Hey, who cares about school reform" won't be a winning defense.

http://globallabor.info/Annenberg%20Documents/Assessment%20of%20CAC%201999.pdf

Oh, Annenberg required a 2-1 matching gifts; eventually the CAC had about $160 million to disburse.

[Worst President Ever]

"chris/Boob has an unbecoming habit of gratuitously attacking people's spouses and children. That is because chris/Boob is a POS."

Here's a joke from John McCain. Apply Fred's statement to it.

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."

[Dan Riehl]

Tom - see page 15 same document - 1/3 of way down right column. Rollins was hired only after the first round of grant making. It was monies given out in that preliminary phase w/o Rollins that were cited as having established CAC's direction, leading, in part, to it's failure. - Dan

[Anon]

Is this a surprise to anyone? That an ivory tower organization would waste million on closing the achievement gap, fail to make any positive impact on the gap and then claim success and the need for more money???????? Dan, where you have been for the last 30 years while the American publicl school system was being dismantled and destroyed in an attempt to close the achievement gap?

As for Ayers, it goes to show how crazy the Democratic leadership has become that they think Obama can be friends with a person who has actively advocated BOMBING targets in the U.S. and this will be overlooked by the Republicans.

[David M]

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 08/21/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
http://thunderrun.blogspot.com/2008/08/web-reconnaissance-for-08212008.html

[davod]

Check out Bill Ayers November 2006 blog entry to see why he is in the education business: http://billayers.blogspot.com/ WORLD EDUCATION FORUM, Centro Interncional Miranda, Caracas, Venezuela,November , 2006

"President Hugo Chavez, Vice-President Vicente Rangel, Ministers Moncada and Isturiz, invited guests,comrades. I’m honored and humbled to be here with you this morning. I bring greetings and support from your brothers and sisters throughout Northamerica. Welcome to the World Education Forum! Amamos la revolucion Bolivariana!

This is my fourth visit to Venezuela, each time at the invitation of my comrade and friend Luis Bonilla, a brilliant educator and inspiring fighter for justice. Luis has taught me a great deal about the Bolivarian Revolution and about the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution, and I’ve come to appreciate Luis as a major asset in both the Venezuelan and the international struggle---I look forward to seeing how he and all of you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane. Thank you, Luis, for everything you’ve done."

[templar knight]

"We share the belief that education is the motorforce of revolution..."

Enough said, right there. That should be all we need to know about these clowns, and that includes Obama. He is one of them, but has been put forth as a stealth candidate, since it is much easier for him to hide behind his race. But the truth will come out, in fact, it has already started. The whole bunch of them are worthless trash.

And Boob, according to you, my children are failures. My oldest son is a mechanical engineer, my youngest son is in the US Army, and my daughter is in junior high school. None of the three have ever given me any problems. The two who vote are Republicans, I guess that makes you sad and angry. Good.

[sigh]

"In other words, if you want to improve schools, spend more money."

Wow, so liberals really do think that way. Thanks for the laugh. I won't embarrass you with a 3 second google search to disprove that silliness.

[anon]

The media can only cover for Obama for so long, they will claim the Ayers stuff is 'swiftboating' even though its absolute fact that he socialized with the guy, that the guy held a 'meet the candidate' event for him and served on the board with him....a real, true actual terrorist, not some poor stooge who got fingered by some Afgan bounty hunter and sent to Gitmo, but an admitted terrorist. When you add in the Rev. Wright, I don't see how you can come up with anything other than a radical left wing semi socialist.

The only thing that will prevent McCain from winning the election is if he totally bombs out in the debates.

[templar knight]

sigh, they mean they want more money spent on themselves in the process, the more money for schools is just cover for their selfish motives. Again, hypocrite is the appropriate term for these liberals.

[JBean]

Here's another study:

Can Philanthropy Fix Our Schools? Appraising Walter Annenberg's $500 Million Gift to Public Education

http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=41pubsubid=620#620

"As we read these case studies, we imagined going on a treasure hunt, carefully following the map one is handed, and eventually arriving at the location marked with an X. Yet there's no treasure to be found. For it turns out that one was handed the wrong map. It was said to lead to a stash of diamonds but in fact it led to a picnic table, a bicycle repair shop, or the road out of town."

Ouch.

[seekeronos]

Want to spend money on educations? Home school and private school vouchers or tax breaks to that same effect might be a good start.

[PA]

"In other words, if you want to improve schools, spend more money."

The US public school systems already spend about 3X per pupil more than other industrialized nations do on education.

[Fred Beloit]

Worst, you are comparing chris/Boob to McCain? How about staying away from the Nitrous oxide tank?

[Spartan112]

"As an aside, I feel sorry for parents who have children in Sparty's classroom. He is an obvious propagandist, and probably does his best to indoctrinate children to his philosophy. Pathetic."

Temp, your kids couldn't get in to the school I teach at.

"Want to spend money on educations? Home school and private school vouchers or tax breaks to that same effect might be a good start."

Vouchers would cover the vast majority of private schools.

[Fred Beloit]

"... your kids couldn't get in to the school I teach at."

Do you teach at The Dalton School, Spart? I believe they would prefer you to say "...into the school at which I teach."

[Fred Beloit]

"Tuition Rates
Tuition for the 2007-2008 academic year is as follows:

First Program (Grade K-3) $30,650
Middle School (Grades 4-8) $31,200
Upper School (Grades 9-12) $31,200

The full cost of books and lunch is included in the annual tuition. Depending on a student's interests and needs, there may be some additional incidentals with an extra cost.

General Information
An independent school education is a significant investment in your child's future, and we realize that affording a Dalton education can be a challenge for many families. Dalton recognizes..."

[Spartan112]

No, I do not teach at the Dalton School.

"Do you teach at The Dalton School, Spart? I believe they would prefer you to say "...into the school at which I teach."

Posted by: Fred Beloit "

Clearly the space bar is not my friend. As for the "At which" v. "At" argument... it depends on how you feel about passive voice.

[Doug Ross]

Dan, check this out:

http://blog.cleveland.com/openers/2008/08/adhousing.html