Why?

First, I know Linda Darling-Hammond fairly well, as she was involved
in the world of the NYC small progressive schools for many years while
she was at Teachers' College. This portrait is an unrecognizable
caricature of her. Outside of education, she is not even a
particularly political person -- she only has generally progressive
views. And this is not simply my view. Ask people who have spent their
lives on the democratic left like Debbie Meier and they will tell you
the same thing. Yes, she believes that American education has been
defined by stark inequalities, and that children of color and poor
children have been severely shortchanged by those inequalities. [She
is the mother of African-American children, as well as an educator.]
She thinks that should change. So do I. So should everyone on this list.

Second, I know well what the Annenberg initiative was in NYC, since my
work involved me with it. It was a conduit for foundation support for
early school district efforts to transform large high schools serving
inner city kids that were not working well into campuses of small high
schools. This was before the likes of Bloomberg and Klein colonized
these initiatives, and they were still largely a grass roots effort to
make good schools, along the model of Central Park East, Urban Academy
and International HS. The suggestion that in Chicago Annenberg was
some sort of political front for Ayers and his politics is simply not
credible. It was a broad reform effort, whatever you may think of it
as an educational policy. I don't think that the work of foundations
in education is unproblematic by any stretch, but the issues have
nothing to do with the sort of political agenda which is being imputed
to them here.

Third, while I am not an expert on Chicago educational politics, I
know enough to know that the local school councils had wide political
support at their inception, and have some grass roots support to this
day. This was hardly either the creation or the instrument of Ayers.

Fourth, I know how elected officials interact with all manner of
educational reform efforts. It is a resume building venture. At best,
they have a very general and quite superficial grasp of what is going
on, and they have some general idea of how they want to position
themselves. They don't involve themselves in the nitty-gritty of
change efforts, for it is incredibly time consuming and hard, hard
work. The notion that an up and coming political figure in Chicago
like Obama was lending anything to the Annenberg challenge but his
name and his ability to make a couple of telephone calls to get things
done just does not ring true. Anybody who has read the story of
Obama's political career, and how he came back to Chicago and
methodically set about establishing himself understands that he fits
the pattern.

Fifth, Ayers is the son of the Chicago elite -- that is even a
significant part of the explanation why he ended up with the sort of
authoritarian politics he did, with their complete disdain of ordinary
working people. Once he returned to the real world from "the
underground," his father was able to smooth the way for his entry into
the Chicago politics, such that even Mayor Daley speaks well of him.
Should this be such a big surprise, as if we didn't know that for the
same offense rich kids end up in drug rehabilitation programs while
poor kids go to jail? Ayers is clearly now something of a fixture in
the world of Chicago politics, and there is probably nobody in that
world that hasn't had some casual interaction with him. Rail against
the ethos of Chicago politics if you want, but don't pretend that
there is some sort of sinister hidden connection between Obama and Ayers.

In short, as someone who has a long history on the democratic left and
an long involvement in educational politics, none of this rings true.
It is incredible stretch upon leap of logic. It takes the most
innocuous and completely understandable events, like Obama mistakenly
calling Ayers a professor of English instead of Education, and reads
implausible motives into them. It is a house of cards that collapses
if you just look at it.

There are real battles to be fought with real authoritarians who would
assume the mantle of the left. We don't need to create ones out of
whole cloth.






--- In DemocraticLeft@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Pugliese"
<michael.098762001@...> wrote:
>
> Oh, now see what you've gotten us into Ollie! I mean, Pugliese!
The Dr.
> and Jekyll and Hyde aka Pugster.
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Stephen Diamond <sdiamond@...>
> Date: Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 3:57 PM
> Subject: Re: YouTube - Target Of Terror- Ayers - Attack On John Murtagh
> To: Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001@...>
>
>
> Mike: Can you post this in reply to Leo? I am not on DemLeft. Thanks.
>
> *Why does Leo Casey continue to insist that the relationship between
Ayers
> and Obama was casual? For five years they co-led a $110 million
> intervention in the Chicago School Wars through the Chicago Annenberg
> Challenge that was set up by Ayers. I have detailed this on my
blog. The
> effort included millions of dollars spent on propping up the
troubled, and
> troubling, Local School Councils in Chicago in the face of renewed
> opposition by Mayor Daley and Ayers and Obama's erstwhile business
sector
> allies. Why did Ayers recruit Obama to Chair the Annenberg Challenge in
> 1994? He was only a second year lawyer at the time with little
reputation
> except for a get out the vote drive and his single year heading up the
> Harvard Law Review. Why? Because Obama had allied himself with Ayers
in 1988
> to put the Local Schools Councils in place.
>
> Today, Ayers advocates as a top priority of the federal government for
> education the "repayment of education debt" accumulated over
centuries to
> people of color. This idea was first trotted out by Gloria
Ladson-Billings
> at the AERA meetings in 2006, then endorsed by Linda Darling-Hammond
in The
> Nation in 2007 and then endorsed by Ayers (and his brother Rick) on his
> blog. Then LDH was picked as Obama's education advisor in late 2007
and in
> February 2008 LDH released a blueprint on education setting repayment of
> "education debt" as the #1 priority of the federal government. At
about the
> same time Mike Klonsky becomes an "education policy and social justice
> teaching" blogger on the Obama website. Oh, and did I mention that
> Obama/Ayers while running the Annenberg Challenge awarded Klonsky's
Small
> Schools Workshop a $175,000 grant? Small world.
>
> All the details and supporting evidence, not conspiracy theory or
> speculation, are on my blog, globallabor.blogspot.com
> *
>
> On 7/3/08 1:18 PM, "Michael Pugliese" <michael.098762001@...> wrote:
>
> *Fire in the Night by John** M. Murtagh, City Journal 30 April 2008
>
<http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0430jm.html><http://www.city-journal.org/20\
08/eon0430jm.html>
> *Apr 30, 2008 *...* The Weathermen tried to kill my family. 30
April 2008.
> www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0430jm.html
>
<http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0430jm.html><http://www.city-journal.org/20\
08/eon0430jm.html>
>
> http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_3_ed_school.html
>
>
> The Ed Schools' Latest—and Worst—Humbug
> Sol Stern (neo-con, former writer for Ramparts back in the day...)
>
> Teaching for "social justice" is a cruel hoax on disadvantaged kids.
>
> In 1980, Bill Ayers and his partner Bernardine Dohrn came up from the
> underground—the Weather Underground, that is. It had been a wild
ride for
> the Bonnie and Clyde of the sixties New Left. They first went into
combat
> during the 1969 "Days of Rage" in Chicago, smashing storefront
windows and
> assaulting police officers and city officials in the fantasy that
they were
> aiding their Vietnamese allies by "bringing the war back home." They
spent
> the next few years planting bombs at government buildings around the
> country, including in restrooms at the Pentagon and the Capitol.
When their
> little war against America sputtered to a halt, the revolutionary couple
> rationalized that at least they had not caused any deaths. But three of
> their comrades had blown themselves up in a Manhattan townhouse while
> preparing a bomb to detonate at a dance at the Fort Dix army base.
>
> Ayers has acknowledged committing crimes during his underground
days—crimes
> that arguably amounted to treason. Yet thanks to procedural
complications
> and a lack of witnesses, he never went to trial or to jail. A few years
> after stepping out of the shadows, Ayers reflected on his odyssey in a
> conversation with journalists Peter Collier and David Horowitz:
"Guilty as
> hell, free as a bird—America is a great country," he exulted.
>
> But that was just half the wonder of it. Ayers would soon go on to
disprove
> thoroughly F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous though mistaken aphorism
that "there
> are no second acts in American lives." Ayers's spectacular second
act began
> when he enrolled at Columbia University's Teachers College in 1984.
Then 40,
> he planned to stay just to get a teaching credential. (He had taught
in a
> "Freedom School" during his pre-underground student radical days.)
But he
> experienced an epiphany in a course taught by Maxine Greene, a
leading light
> of the "critical pedagogy" movement. As Ayers wrote later, he took
fire from
> Greene's lectures on how the "oppressive hegemony" of the capitalist
social
> order "reproduces" itself through the traditional practice of public
> schooling—critical pedagogy's fancy way of saying that the evil
corporations
> exercise thought control through the schools.
>
> It hadn't occurred to Ayers that an ed-school professor could speak
or write
> as an authentic American radical. "There are vast dislocations in
industrial
> towns, erosions of trade unions; there is little sign of class
consciousness
> today," Greene had proclaimed in the *Harvard Education Review*.
"Our great
> cities are burnished on the surfaces, building high technologies,
displaying
> astonishing consumer goods. And on the side streets, in the
crevices, in the
> burnt-out neighborhoods, there are the rootless, the dependent, the
sick,
> the permanently unemployed. There is little sense of agency, even
among the
> brightly successful; there is little capacity to look at things as
if they
> could be otherwise."
>
> Greene told future teachers that they could help change this bleak
landscape
> by developing a "transformative" vision of social justice and
democracy in
> their classrooms. Her vision, though, was a far cry from the democratic
> optimism of the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther
King
> Jr., which most parents would endorse. Instead, critical pedagogy
theorists
> nurse a rancorous view of an America in which it is always two
minutes to
> midnight and a knock on the door by the thought police is imminent. The
> education professors feel themselves anointed to use the nation's K–12
> classrooms to resist this oppressive system. Thus Maxine Greene urged
> teachers not to mince words with children about the evils of the
existing
> social order. They should portray "homelessness as a consequence of the
> private dealings of landlords, an arms buildup as a consequence of
corporate
> decisions, racial exclusion as a consequence of a private
property-holder's
> choice." In other words, they should turn the little ones into young
> socialists and critical theorists.
>
> All music to Bill Ayers's ears. The ex-Weatherman glimpsed a new radical
> vocation. He dreamed of bringing the revolution from the streets to the
> schools. And that's exactly what he has managed to do.
>
> In record time Ayers acquired an Ed.D. with a dissertation titled "The
> Discerning 'I': Accounts of Teacher Self-Construction Through the Use of
> Co-Biography, Metaphor, and Image." There wasn't much biography,
metaphor,
> or image in the 180-page text. Ayers's research consisted solely of
a few
> days spent interviewing and observing the classroom practices of three
> nursery school teachers he knew personally. (In Ayers's own
autobiographical
> section of the text—*de rigueur* for Teachers College dissertations—he
> reminisced about growing up in a wealthy Chicago suburb, about his warm
> family, and about having been arrested in campus antiwar
demonstrations. Of
> his bomb-making skills or his ten years in the underground he said not a
> word.)
>
> With his Teachers College credential in hand, Ayers landed an ed-school
> appointment back in Chicago, where his father was CEO of
Commonwealth Edison
> and nicely plugged in to the city's political establishment. These days,
> Ayers carries the joint titles of Distinguished Professor of
Education and
> Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
One of
> his several books on the moral imperative of teaching for social
justice is
> a bestseller in ed-school courses. Like many other tenured and
well-heeled
> radicals, Ayers keeps hoping for a revolutionary upheaval that will
finally
> bring down American capitalism and imperialism. But now, instead of
planting
> bombs in bathrooms, he has been planting the seeds of resistance and
> rebellion in America's future teachers, who will then pass on the
lessons to
> the students in their classrooms.
>
> Future teachers signing up for Ayers's course "On Urban Education"
can read
> these exhortations from the course description on the professor's
website:
>
> "Homelessness, crime, racism, oppression—we have the resources and
knowledge
> to fight and overcome these things."
>
> "We need to look beyond our isolated situations, to define our problems
> globally. We cannot be child advocates . . . in Chicago or New York and
> ignore the web that links us with the children of India or Palestine."
>
> "In a truly just society there would be a greater sharing of the
burden, a
> fairer distribution of material and human resources."
>
> For another course, titled "Improving Learning Environments," Ayers
proposes
> that teachers "be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit
and . .
> . be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, a
teacher
> teaching for social justice and liberation."
>
> The readings that Ayers assigns are as intellectually stimulating and
> diverse as a political commissar's indoctrination session in one of his
> favorite communist tyrannies. The reading list for his urban education
> course includes the bible of the critical pedagogy movement, Brazilian
> Marxist Paolo Freire's *Pedagogy of the Oppressed*; two books by Ayers
> himself; another by bell hooks, a radical black feminist writer and
critical
> race theorist; and a "Freedom School" curriculum. That's the entire
spectrum
> of debate.
>
> For students who might get bored with the purely pedagogic approach to
> liberation, Ayers also offers a course on the real thing, called "Social
> Conflicts of the 1960's." For this class Ayers also posts his
introduction
> to the soon-to-be-published collection of Weather Underground
agitprop that
> he edited with Dohrn—called, with no intended parody, *Sing a Battle
Song:
> The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements and Communiqués of the Weather
> Underground, 1970-1974*. "Once things were connected," Ayers's
introduction
> recollects, "we saw a system at work, we were radicalized, we named that
> system—imperialism—and forged an idea of how to overthrow it. We were
> influenced by Marx, but we were formed more closely and precisely by
Che,
> Ho, Malcolm X, Amílcar Cabral, Mandela—the Third World
revolutionaries—and
> we called ourselves small 'c' communists to indicate our rejection
of what
> had become of Marx in the Soviet Block [sic]. . . . We were
> anti-authoritarian, anti-orthodoxy, communist street fighters."
>
> Ayers makes clear that his political views haven't changed much
since those
> glory days. He cites a letter he recently wrote: "I've been told to
grow up
> from the time I was ten until this morning. Bullshit. Anyone who salutes
> your 'youthful idealism' is a patronizing reactionary. Resist! Don't
grow
> up! I went to Camp Casey [Cindy Sheehan's vigil at the Bush ranch in
> Crawford, Texas] in August precisely because I'm an agnostic about
how and
> where the rebellion will break out, but I know I want to be there
and I know
> it will break out."
>
> America's historical ideal of public schooling as a means of
assimilating
> all children (and particularly the children of new immigrants) into
a common
> civic and democratic culture is already under assault from the
> multiculturalists and their race- and gender-centered pedagogy. Now
Ayers
> and his social justice movement, by dismissing the civic culture
ideal as
> nothing more than "capitalist hegemony," subvert the public schools even
> further—while subsidized by the taxpayers, including the capitalists who
> supposedly control the schools.
>
> And it's not just from his government-funded outpost at the
University of
> Illinois that Ayers is spreading the word about radical social justice
> teaching. He maintains a busy lecture schedule at other ed schools
around
> the country, and he does teacher training and professional
development for
> the Chicago public schools. All that still leaves him enough time to
give
> nostalgic lectures on college campuses about his Weather Underground
> experiences.
>
> He also turns up from time to time as a guest lecturer at Teachers
College,
> where he gets a hero's welcome. In describing one of those events, the
> official college publication, Inside TC, turned as ecstatic as a
groupie at
> a rock concert: "A man sporting sunglasses, an earring in each earlobe,
> khaki pants, a sweater and tweed jacket strode purposefully past the
entry
> and down the hallway toward the auditorium. . . . His intensity and
passion
> were tangible in the way he walked through the crowd. He was the
speaker for
> the evening, William Ayers. . . . A former leader of the radical
Weathermen
> organization in the 1960s, Ayers not only believes in the obligation to
> assist people on the bottom, he acts on it."
>
> In 1997, Ayers and his mentor Maxine Greene persuaded Teachers
College Press
> to launch a series of books on social justice teaching, with Ayers
as editor
> and Greene serving on the editorial board (along with Rashid
Khalidi, loyal
> supporter of the Palestinian cause and the Edward Said Professor of Arab
> Studies at Columbia University). Twelve volumes have appeared so far,
> including one titled *Teaching Science for Social Justice*.
>
> Teaching *science* for social justice? Let Teachers College
professor Angela
> Calabrese Barton, the volume's principal author, try to explain: "The
> marriages between capitalism and education and capitalism and
science have
> created a foundation for science education that emphasizes corporate
values
> at the expense of social justice and human dignity." The alternative?
> "Science pedagogy framed around social justice concerns can become a
medium
> to transform individuals, schools, communities, the environment, and
science
> itself, in ways that promote equity and social justice. Creating a
science
> education that is *transformative* implies not only how science is a
*political
> activity* but also the ways in which students might see and use
science and
> science education in ways transformative of the institutional and
> interpersonal power structures that play a role in their lives." If you
> still can't appreciate why it's necessary for your child's chemistry
teacher
> to teach for social justice, you are probably hopelessly wedded to
reason,
> empiricism, individual merit, and other capitalist and post-colonialist
> deformities.
>
> The series doesn't yet have a text on mathematics, but it's sure to
come,
> since the pedagogy for teaching social justice through math is even more
> fully developed than for science. One of the leading lights of the
genre is
> Eric Gutstein, a Marxist colleague of Ayers's at the University of
Illinois
> and also a full-time Chicago public school math teacher. Gutstein's new
> book, *Reading and Writing the World with Mathematics: Toward a
Pedagogy for
> Social Justice*, combines critical pedagogy theory and real live math
> lessons that Gutstein piloted with his predominantly minority
seventh-grade
> students.
>
> Like Ayers, Gutstein reveres Paolo Freire. He approvingly quotes
Freire's
> dictum that "there neither is, nor has ever been, an educational
practice in
> zero space-time—neutral in the sense of being committed only to
> preponderantly abstract, intangible ideas." Gutstein takes this to
mean that
> since all education is political, leftist math teachers who care
about the
> oppressed have a right, indeed a duty, to use a pedagogy that, in
Freire's
> words, "does not conceal—in fact, which proclaims—its own political
> character."
>
> Accordingly, Gutstein has relentlessly politicized his math classes for
> years, claiming that this approach has improved his students' math
skills
> while making them more aware of the injustices built in to capitalist
> society. One lesson, for example, presents charts showing the U.S.
income
> distribution, aiming to get the students to understand the concept of
> percentages and fractions, while simultaneously showing them how
much wealth
> is concentrated at the top in an economic system that mainly
benefits the
> superrich. After the class does the mathematical calculations, Gutstein
> asks: "How does all this make you feel?" He triumphantly reports
that 19 of
> 21 students described wealth distribution in America as "bad,"
"unfair," or
> "shocking," and he proudly quotes the comments of a child named
Rosa: "Well
> I see that all the wealth in the United States is mostly the wealth of a
> couple people not the whole nation."
>
> Gutstein's book will likely sell very well, not because all math
teachers
> will thrill to his Freirian dialectics or Chomskyite denunciations of
> American foreign policy, but because they may find his lesson plans and
> classroom projects useful. After all, they are under intense
pressure from
> the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics to move away from the
> traditional emphasis on computational skills like multiplication
tables and
> algorithms—a teaching method that university mathematicians still
favor but
> that many K–12 math teachers dismiss as "drill and kill." Teachers
> (particularly liberal and left-leaning teachers) who instead use a
> "constructivist" or "discovery-based" pedagogy, sometimes called "fuzzy
> math," in which students learn mathematical concepts by trying to solve
> real-life problems, will see Gutstein's social justice lessons on how
> military budgets for the war in Iraq deny poor Americans their fair
share of
> resources as an advance beyond problems about baseball statistics,
shopping,
> or building.
>
> Even more important, Gutstein's book comes with the imprimatur of
two of the
> nation's most influential ed profs, Gloria Ladson-Billings of the
University
> of Wisconsin and William F. Tate of Washington University in St.
Louis—the
> outgoing and incoming presidents of the American Education Research
> Association. The 25,000-member AERA is the umbrella organization of the
> ed-school professoriate, and over the past two decades it has moved
steadily
> left, becoming more multicultural, postmodernist, feminist, and
enamored of
> critical race theory and queer theory.
>
> And now the organization has just hired its first national Director of
> Social Justice. In fact, Ladson-Billings and Tate have coedited
their own
> volume of essays on educational research and social justice, wherein
they
> argue for a critical race theory approach, based on the idea that
> institutionalized "white supremacy" remains pervasive in American public
> education. Left unexplained is how these two particular critical race
> theorists, both black, could have been elected by their
overwhelmingly white
> peers to preside over the education establishment's premier
organization.
>
> One by one, the education schools are lining up behind social justice
> teaching and enforcing it on their students—especially since they expect
> aspiring teachers to possess the approved liberal "dispositions," or
> individual character traits, that will qualify them to teach in the
public
> schools. The National Council on the Accreditation of Teacher
Education, the
> main accreditor of education schools, now monitors how well the schools
> comply with their own social justice requirements.
>
> With the caveat that not all education schools have yet joined the
trend,
> here is a sampler, going from east to west.
>
> Brooklyn College of the City University of New York recently declared:
> "Because democracy requires a substantive concern for equity, the
faculty of
> the School of Education is committed, in theory and practice, to social
> justice. . . . We believe that an education centered on social justice
> prepares the highest quality of future teachers. . . . Our teacher
> candidates and other school personnel are prepared to demonstrate a
> knowledge of, language for, and the ability to create educational
> environments based on various theories of social justice."
>
> The teacher education program at Marquette University in Milwaukee
proclaims
> that it "has a commitment to social justice in schools and society"
and to
> using education "to transcend the negative effects of the dominant
culture."
> It requires that all education degree candidates demonstrate a
"desire to
> work for social justice, particularly in an urban environment."
Similarly,
> the University of Kansas ed school declares that "addressing issues of
> diversity includes being more global than national and concerned
with ideals
> such as world peace, social justice, respect for diversity and
preservation
> of the environment."
>
> On the West Coast, the highly regarded Claremont Graduate University not
> only requires teacher candidates to commit to social justice
teaching but
> screens applicants to make sure they have that essential "disposition."
> According to a recent university publication, "CGU's recruitment efforts
> focus upon individuals who have an understanding of societal
inequities. . .
> . By reflecting the cultures and languages of the student populations in
> area K–12 schools and by caring about issues of social justice, CGU's
> teachers are role models to their students in a variety of ways."
>
> At Humboldt State University in northern California, the social studies
> methods class required for prospective high school history and social
> studies teachers best demonstrates the school's commitment to social
justice
> teaching. The professor, Gayle Olson-Raymer, states the course's purpose
> right up front in her syllabus: "*It is not an option for history
teachers
> to teach social justice and social responsibility; it is a mandate*.
History
> teachers do their best work when they use their knowledge, their
commitment,
> and their courage to help the students grapple with the important
issues of
> social responsibility and when they encourage them to direct their lives
> towards creating a just society."
>
> How does your average, traditional-minded future teacher cope in an
> education class taught from a social justice or critical race theory
> perspective? Such students are well-advised to bite their tongues or
risk
> career-threatening penalties. For all their talk about teaching for
"freedom
> and democracy," the professors often run their own classes like leftist
> political indoctrination sessions.
>
> Brooklyn College and Washington State University, according to recent
> published reports, have denied students the right to become teachers
after
> they ran afoul of their ed schools' social justice dispositions
> requirements. Then there's the notorious case of Steve Head, a
50-year-old
> Silicon Valley software engineer who decided to make a career switch
a few
> years ago and obtain a high school math teaching credential. In a
rational
> world, Head would be the poster boy for the federal government's new
> initiatives to recruit more math and science teachers for our high
schools.
> Instead, his story sends the message that education professors would
rather
> continue molding future teachers' attitudes on race and social justice
> issues than help the U.S. close the math and science achievement gap
with
> other industrialized nations.
>
> Head was smoothly completing all his math-related course work at
> taxpayer-supported San Jose State University. Then in the fall of
2003, he
> enrolled in the required "Social, Philosophical, and Multicultural
> Foundations of Education," taught by Helen Kress, whose main scholarly
> interest appears to be "critical whiteness studies," a noxious branch of
> critical race theory that posits that white racial identity is a
socially
> constructed characteristic and must be confronted and purged to overcome
> America's institutionalized system of white supremacy. The foundations
> course functions as a sort of military checkpoint to guarantee that
every
> student who passes through toward a teaching credential has properly
imbibed
> the pedagogies of multiculturalism, critical race theory, feminism,
and, of
> course, social justice teaching.
>
> The easy way out would have been for Head to spew back the expected
answers
> on racial and gender oppression and move on, as most traditional-minded
> education students do. But something about Steve Head—a Christian and a
> libertarian—made him gag at the big lies and logical absurdities about
> American race relations and immigration issues that he was being
asked to
> regurgitate. So he turned the tables and deconstructed the hegemony of
> anti-Americanism in the classroom.
>
> In a sworn legal document, Head recounted that when his professor
showed the
> class a videotape purporting to reveal institutional racism against
> immigrants, he responded by suggesting that most immigrants actually
came
> here because they realized they would be better off, including
benefiting
> from healthier race relations. Professor Kress responded that anyone
holding
> such opinions was clearly "unfit to teach." Head further infuriated the
> professor by suggesting that the class be allowed to read black social
> scientists like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams to provide some
> intellectual balance on the issues of race and education.
>
> After turning down Kress's offer to reeducate him on these issues
> personally, Head received an F for the class, even though a grade
below B
> for a student who has completed all assignments is almost as rare in ed
> schools as serious intellectual debate. The school wouldn't let Head
enroll
> in the student teaching class, and so, for the time being, it has
blocked
> him from getting his teaching certificate. After exhausting his
appeals to
> the university, he filed suit earlier this year, charging that the
school
> was applying a political litmus test to become a teacher and had
violated
> his First Amendment rights.
>
> "I could have lied about my beliefs in class, but what is the point
of that
> in America?" Head told me. "We are not free unless we choose to
exercise our
> freedoms without fear of reprisals. I choose freedom, and I choose
to defend
> my beliefs against state indoctrination."
>
> Though no one has as yet surveyed how far social justice teaching has
> pervaded America's 1,500 ed schools, education researchers David Steiner
> (now Hunter College ed-school dean) and Susan Rozen did a study two
years
> ago on the syllabi of the basic "foundations of education" and "methods"
> courses in 16 of the nation's most prestigious ed schools. The
mainstays of
> the foundations courses were works by Paolo Freire, Henry Giroux (a
leading
> critical pedagogy theorist), and the radical education writer
Jonathan Kozol
> ("America's Most Influential—and Wrongest—School Reformer
>
<http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_americas_most.html><http://www.city-journ\
al.org/html/10_1_americas_most.html>,"
> Winter 2000). For the methods courses, Bill Ayers's
> *To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher* tops the bestseller list.
Neither list
> included advocates of a knowledge-based and politically neutral
curriculum,
> such as E. D. Hirsch Jr. or Diane Ravitch.
>
> An ed-school system that bars math teachers like Steve Head, who want to
> teach without bringing politics into the classroom, while
celebrating Eric
> Gutstein's Marxist indoctrination of future math teachers, is
fundamentally
> corrupt. And this travesty is now reaching beyond the ed schools to
local
> school boards and district superintendents, who are setting up entire
> schools dedicated to social justice. Not only do these schools
infuse social
> justice throughout the curriculum, but they also often require
students to
> engage in "community activism" outside of school hours.
>
> New York City teems with many more of these schools than any other
district
> in the country. A handful have been around for years, including El
Puente
> Academy for Peace and Justice, with its wacky hip-hop curriculum
("An F for
> Hip-Hop 101
<http://www.city-journal.org/html/8_3_a2.html><http://www.city-journal.org/html/\
8_3_a2.html>,"
> Summer 1998). But Mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools chancellor Joel
> Klein's project to break up many of the system's dysfunctional large
high
> schools and replace them with new small schools has spawned many
more. The
> Department of Education's website lists at least 15 of the new small
high
> schools that either are explicitly named as social justice schools
or whose
> mission statements declare that their curricula center on social justice
> concerns. Curiously, while left-wing community organizations, including
> ultraradical Acorn, helped create some of these schools, some have also
> received funding from über-capitalist Bill Gates's charitable
foundation.
> Lenin quipped that "a capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him
with."
> Now it seems he just gives it to you.
>
> Chancellor Klein sees no problem with social justice schools. "Giving
> schools 'leadership' or 'social justice' themes is fine with me, as
long as
> the teachers and principals do not bring politics and ideologies
into our
> classrooms," he told me—though of course that's just what ed schools
> instruct social justice teachers to do. "Themes don't drive school
programs;
> state standards do. Our small secondary schools are academically
rigorous.
> We cannot afford to vilify schools that help us accomplish our top
goal as a
> school system: boosting our students' achievement and academic success."
>
> Of course, the social justice schools have hardly been "vilified,"
or even
> scrutinized. They're worth a close look. With Chancellor Klein's
approval,
> for example, Héctor Calderón recently became the new principal of El
Puente
> Academy. Calderón immediately told an interviewer from the leftist
education
> publication Rethinking Schools that he is a dedicated follower of—you
> guessed it—arch-anticapitalist Paolo Freire. His school, he says,
now fully
> incorporates "the Freirian idea of education for liberation" through a
> comprehensive social justice curriculum that embraces all academic
subjects,
> including math and science. Calderón declined to invite me to visit
to see
> how his school teaches those subjects.
>
> Another Freirian, Nancy Gannon, was recently recruited from the
Leadership
> Academy, the city's training program for new principals, to start up the
> School for Democracy and Leadership, a Gates-funded school in Brooklyn's
> Crown Heights section. In announcing the school's opening in
September 2004,
> Gannon declared that it "fulfills a long held belief that
empowerment is the
> foundation of democracy. . . . In the words of Paolo Freire, an
> internationally acclaimed author and educational thought-leader, our
goal is
> to create a 'pedagogy of hope.' "
>
> Gannon, a Williams graduate in her late thirties, told me that she
had seen
> the relevance of Freire's theories of a "liberating education"
during her
> Peace Corps experience teaching in a poor village in northern
Thailand and
> then later in a Baltimore school for former dropouts. All the members of
> Gannon's school-planning committee—parents, some prospective
teachers, and
> community activists—read Freire's books on pedagogy during their
> deliberations about the school's mission and then decided to infuse the
> school with social justice projects. "We are incredibly steeped in
> activism," she says. "We encourage the students to pick something in the
> world or the community they want to change and then act on it
together." She
> gave prospective teachers the same message. "Stop sitting on the
sidelines
> feeling nauseous about the state of our world," she urged in a
recruiting
> e-mail. "Jump in. Make a difference. . . . We're political, we're
smart, we
> believe in the voice of youth and the power of activism and the need
for us
> all to be the change we want to see in the world."
>
> Accordingly, students in the school's Education Activism group have
put out
> a brochure saying that they are "committed to fighting against the
injustice
> and inequality within our education system." They therefore support the
> Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit against the state to secure more
funding
> for New York City schools, and they call for "mandatory African-American
> history classes in all New York City public schools." And ninth-grade
> science teacher Jhumki Basu, inspired by Freire and by the teaching
science
> for social justice approach of Teachers College's Calabrese Barton,
told me
> that, as one way of making her students attentive to political and
social
> justice issues around the world, she devised a three-week project in her
> physics class on the international controversy over Iran's nuclear
program.
>
> Another Gates-funded social justice high school, the Leadership
Institute on
> Webster Avenue in the Bronx, illustrates some of the perils inherent in
> turning over schools to community groups with a political agenda. Three
> years in the making, the school is the brainchild of the radical
Northwest
> Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and its youth branch, Sistas and
> Brothas United. Almost inevitably, the school's mission statement is
> thoroughly Freirian in its pedagogy, assuming that teachers can
enhance the
> academic achievement of disadvantaged children by giving them a voice
> through "leadership, community action and social justice." The
school opened
> last September with 100 poor minority students and great hopes. When I
> visited recently, though, it was already clear that the idea of
democratic
> empowerment for the students was subverting any hope for a rigorous
> education.
>
> Principal Ron Gonzalez told me that the students learned at their first
> weekly Town Hall meeting this year that they could pick some policy or
> institution in the community that they believed should be changed
and then
> work together on a "social action" project to bring about the
change. Using
> the school's democratic decision-making process, the students
decided that
> the most oppressive thing they could think of was the school's dress
code
> (students initially had to wear brown or black slacks and a shirt with a
> collar) and other classroom regulations, and they quickly achieved
the goal
> of changing the code. The school, having established that student
democracy
> and engagement was its prime mission, was instantly hoist with its own
> petard.
>
> The street culture of the students' tough Bronx neighborhoods seemed to
> pervade almost every class I visited. Kids wore ghetto garb, chewed
gum, ate
> potato chips and drank soda pop, talked whenever they wanted to.
Girls and
> boys sometimes snuggled up to each other. Students addressed one
teacher as
> "hey mistah." The sense of order and decorum necessary for any serious
> academic effort had unraveled, and teachers and administrators seemed
> powerless to repair it. But students did engage in one other major
social
> action this year, thus partially fulfilling the school's mission.
They were
> bused up to Albany to participate in a day of lobbying organized by the
> teachers' union to persuade the legislature to appropriate the
additional
> billions in school funds ordered by the courts in the CFE school finance
> case.
>
> These schools are a perversion of an already misguided idea. Paolo
Freire
> developed his liberation pedagogy out of his experiences teaching
illiterate
> peasants in northeastern Brazil, whom he saw, understandably, as
victims of
> an oppressive, semifeudal society. The traditional "banking" approach to
> education, as he called it, in which the teacher "deposits" socially
> approved knowledge into the minds of the oppressed but passive
students, is
> the mechanism that "reproduces" that oppression. In response, Freire
> proposed instead a liberatory pedagogy, in which the poor students
become
> democratic participants with their teachers as they learn a critical
> literacy that enables them to analyze the causes of their own
oppression.
>
> Whatever might be said about this theory in the context of rural
Brazil in
> the 1950s, it is educational malpractice to apply it to the problem of
> educating minority children in New York City schools in the twenty-first
> century. Throughout most of the twentieth century, the bad and
oppressive
> "banking" approach that the city's public schools used somehow
managed to
> lift millions of children out of poverty—something the social justice
> schools of today seem unlikely to do.
>
> It cannot be repeated often enough: ideas have consequences, and bad
ideas
> have bad consequences. The Freirian theories that carry over to social
> justice teaching are incapable of "liberating" the children of America's
> so-called oppressed. As E. D. Hirsch has exhaustively shown, the
scientific
> evidence about which classroom methods produce the best results for poor
> children point conclusively to the very methods that the critical
pedagogy
> and social justice theorists denounce as oppressive and racist. By
contrast,
> not one shred of hard evidence suggests that the pedagogy behind
teaching
> for social justice works to lift the academic achievement of poor and
> minority students.
>
> Social justice teaching is a frivolous waste of precious school hours,
> grievously harmful to poor children, who start out with a disadvantage.
> School is the only place where they are likely to obtain the academic
> knowledge that could make up for the educational deprivation they
suffer in
> their homes. The last thing they need is a wild-eyed experiment in
education
> through social action.
>
> So why do education professors who claim to care for the poor
continue to
> agitate for instruction that holds back poor children? Either the
professors
> are stupid (possible), or (more likely) they care more about their own
> anti-American, anticapitalist agendas than they do about the actual
> education of children. The literature of social justice education is
> obsessed with the allegedly "dark" side of American political,
social, and
> economic life. Thus in a book about teaching for social justice, Arizona
> State University ed prof Carole Edelsky whines that she "thinks a
lot about
> dark times—the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the period of the Third
Reich,
> the McCarthy years. Times when certain knowledge was banned and certain
> knowers were banished, persecuted, incarcerated, even killed." In
one essay
> alone Maxine Greene writes that "We live after all in dark times,"
that this
> is a "peculiar and menacing time," and that "These are dark and shadowed
> times." A collection of essays edited by Bill Ayers and dedicated to
Greene
> is called *A Light in Dark Times: Maxine Greene and the Unfinished
> Conversation*. In their ideologically induced paranoia about
America, the
> radical education theorists, like most ideologues, cannot see what
is right
> in front of their eyes—that America and democratic capitalism are
actually
> doing very well, thank you, but that the children of the minority
poor are
> getting a lousy education because of the education establishment,
and that
> teaching for social justice provides no solutions.
>
> Unfortunately, there is little chance that the hegemony of social
justice
> teaching in the education schools can be challenged from within that
> hopelessly closed thought world. That being the case, elected
officials will
> have to address the issue. After all, state legislatures are
> constitutionally empowered to regulate and oversee almost every
aspect of
> K–12 education, including curriculum and the professional standards for
> teachers. At the very least, legislatures should be holding hearings to
> determine the extent to which the radical ideology of the education
> professors is leading to political indoctrination in public school
> classrooms and undermining the rights of all children to a solid
academic
> and politics-free education.
>
> They then ought to do something the critical pedagogy theorists
accuse them
> of doing anyhow—reestablishing the hegemony of our open democratic
society
> in the classroom. Bill Ayers has the academic freedom to say and write
> anything he wants about America and its schools. But academic freedom
> protects neither him nor the teachers he trains when they bring their
> leftist version of social justice into the schools. Legislators
should ask
> their state education boards to write a new set of guidelines that
> discourage teaching for social justice and social justice schools
and that
> forbid teachers from indoctrinating students with their own politics,
> whether left or right. This ought to be the teacher's Hippocratic
Oath: to
> do no harm.
>
> EMAIL
>
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is%20a%20cruel%20hoax>
>
> On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Michael Pugliese <
> michael.098762001@...> wrote:
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMOtNHyejrU
> > Ayers ever own up to this attempted murder by fire bombing of an
> > entire family?
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> _____________
> Stephen Diamond
> Associate Professor of Law
> Santa Clara University School of Law
>
> *http://www.scu.edu/law/faculty/profile/diamond-stephen.cfm
> *
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Michael Pugliese
>