Opinion: Unfair Reviews of Annenberg Foundation’s School Effort

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, chaired from 1995 to 1999 by the presidential candidate Barack Obama, is being unfairly cast by some as an attempt to push radicalism into schools, writes Dakarai I. Aarons, a columnist for Education Week.

The goals of the program, for which the Annenberg Foundation provided almost $50-million, were to encourage collaboration among teachers and push for better professional development; improve relationships between schools and their neighborhoods; and reduce school size to improve learning.

William Ayers wrote the proposal for the grant, and his relationship with Senator Obama, as well as the program itself, is now under close scrutiny by John McCain’s presidential campaign and by individuals such as Dick Morris, a political consultant and pundit, who said the program was a means to “pass the money out” to “extremist community groups” to “infuse students with “radical ideology.”