PrintOctober 8, 2008
Is Ayers really a "reformer" as the MSM paints him? (updated)
The New York Times whitewashed Bill Ayers as someone engaged in "school reform". Tom Brokaw referred to Ayers as an educational reformer on Meet the Press. How accurate is this moniker? Not very.
Scott Johnson of Powerline notices how absurd this characterization and draws upon the work of Sol Stern -- easily the most knowledgeable person about Bill Ayers:
Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer. (If you find the metaphor strained, consider that Walter Duranty, the infamous New York Times reporter covering the Soviet Union in the 1930s, did, in fact, depict Stalin as a great land reformer who created happy, productive collective farms.)In fact, Ayers looks at schools as nurseries to create a new cadre of children filled with an ideology that is anti-free enterprise and anti-American. To this end he has long been engaged in efforts to change the curriculum of our graduate schools of education so as to train teachers to spread his message and ideology to young children (think of the Pied Piper, clad in revolutionary red). Why should we be concerned? Barack Obama has a goal to "overhaul" our graduate schools of education.
For instance, at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for "the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane." Ayers concluded his speech by declaring that "Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education-a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation," and then, as in days of old, raised his fist and chanted: "Viva Presidente Chávez! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta la Victoria Siempre!"
Overhaul does not mean tweaking; it means a radical change in the way we go about training the teachers who we entrust with our children. Since when does a President focus on changing "graduate schools of education"? Why would Barack Obama lay this down as a plan? What does this indicate about the future goals of both Bill Ayers and Barack Obama? What does this indicate about the future of our children?
Update from Thomas Lifson:
Investor's Business Daily makes the same points today in an excellent editorial, asking if Bill Ayers may be the next Secretary of Education.
The McCain/Palin campaign must switch gears on Ayers and focus on his radical stance that schools must indoctrinate children as revolutionaries rather than teach them skills. The Annenberg Challenge was explicitly designed to do this, and Obama was the man handing out the bucks for this program. Thgere is every reason to expect that as president he would implement a similar program.
The fact that Obama has never been asked if he embraces the changes he and Ayers foisted on the Chicago schools, with no discernable improvement in outcomes, is further evidence of the incredible lack of press scrutiny of this radical candidate for president. This is about policy, not "guilt-by-association."
