Talk:Chicago Annenberg Challenge

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This page contains nothing but lies and misinformation. It's part of the Karl Rove-orchestrated swiftboat campaign to smear candidate Barack Obama by linking him to '60s radical William Ayers through the Annenberg Challenge. I suspect it was all written by Rove attack dog Steve Diamond who has been carrying Rove's water on this for the past six months. Granpamike (talk) 11:43, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you could improve the article by pointing out some "lie" in particular, Granpamike. If there are so many, then this should be an easy task. Freedom Fan (talk) 02:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A spokesperson for the museum - which museum? --84.60.251.60 (talk) 15:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Legacy[edit]

Efforts to quantitatively assess the CAC's efficacy at its stated goals appears to have generated mixed reviews.

Really? The project appears to have been an utter failure in its mission to improve education in terms of any stated, measurable result. Unless someone has a verifiable source to the contrary, this needs to be re-worded to match the statement which follows.

I would suggest: The project appears to have failed to achieve any of its stated, measurable educational goals. Freedom Fan (talk) 02:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Either an additional reference should be adding showing a more positive review of the CAC program, or this line should be rephrased. If this was the only major review of the CAC, then it cannot be characterized as having received "mixed reviews." As it currently stands, it appears to be an attempt to soften the criticism of the CCSR report by implying that more positive reviews exist, without actually referencing them. RK (talk) 14:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Freedom Fan (talk) 23:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Any normal person would measure success based on improvements in education. And by that measure, this program is a failure.

But this program was never about improving education. Instead, it was about spending money, creating bureaucracy, and attending useless meetings. That's why one of the 3 co-autors of the proposal to get the funding claimed the program to be "an extremely positive initiative." I just added that quote, sourced from NPR, a very reliable source, to this section of the article.

If you want to learn about real education reform in Chicago, please see the Marva Collins article, as well the movie based on her. Unlike the supporters of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Marva Collins really does care about improving education. And she did it by spending less money, not more. But she had to quit teaching in the public schools and start her own school, because the public school bureaucrats would not allow her to use her ideas in the public school where she had been a teacher. Grundle2600 (talk) 23:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

March 1995 Catalyst article[edit]

Who is eligible to receive Annenberg grants?
Networks of schools that are hooked up with an outside partner, such as the Coalition of Essential Schools or the Algebra Project. "No school can apply alone," says William Ayers, an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and one of the three main architects of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge program. The outside partner "could be anything from a school reform group to a teachers union to a community organization to a university to a local business," Ayers says.

What do school networks have to do to get funds?
They have to propose initiatives that will do at least two things:

  • Create a "more personal, intimate" setting for education, by, say, creating schools-within-schools.
  • Provide time for teachers to meet.

How many schools will receive funding?
For 1995–6, the project will fund about 10 networks, with five to 10 schools each. Additional networks may be funded in subsequent years, and networks that get funded may be expected to recruit more schools as the program goes on.

Who will decide which schools get funded?
Two new groups will guide the process. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge Board of Directors will approve grants, hire project staff, and determine which funds can count towards the required $98.4 million match. In addition, a group of 25 local reformers, called the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, will design the grant application and work with the project's staff.

Who will be in these groups?
The Board of Directors will be made up of nine representatives of organizations that have no vested interest in Annenberg money. The Collaborative will include Chicago parents, teachers, activists, administrators, local school council members and academics who are involved in school reform.

How will they be chosen?
The Board of Directors is being hand-picked by Adele Simmons, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Simmons says Annenberg advisors asked her to "work with foundation leadership to create a board that would be diverse, including people from the community, business interests and civic leaders, and include no more than nine people."

Members of the Collaborative are being chosen by the dozens of local reformers who met over a 10-month period last year with the architects of Chicago's Annenberg proposal. Here's the process they are following:

  • In January, members of this loosely knit group generated 250 names.
  • A 10-person committee that includes the chief proposal writers—Ayers, Warren Chapman of The Joyce Foundation and Anne Hallett of the Cross-City Campaign for Urban School Reform—are narrowing that list to about 40 names, which will be mailed to the larger group.
  • The top 20 vote-getters will become members of the Collaborative; those members, in turn, will pick an additional five nominees to ensure representation for all constituencies.

How do the local matching funds figure in?
$98.4 million is required over five years—$49.2 million in private donations and $49.2 million in public money. Current philanthropic spending on school-reform projects outpaces the requirement, but not all of it will count as matching funds. Project leaders hope the Annenberg grant will spur even more private giving. The public match may include some state Chapter 1 funds, which currently total about $300 million a year. Project leaders say they are trying to steer other public funds, including federal Empowerment Zone money, to Annenberg-related projects. In order to count, matching funds, at a minimum, will have to support programs with goals compatible with the Annenberg Challenge; it hasn't been decided yet whether matching funds will have to be spent specifically on projects funded by Annenberg money.

Will foundations shift money to programs that promote Annenberg goals?
Chapman of The Joyce Foundation says a shift likely will happen only if schools and education groups seeking grants tailor proposals to fit the Annenberg match requirements.

"I don't think foundations will set aside a bunch of money and say, "This is for Annenberg," he says. "But they may say, 'These proposals [along Annenberg lines] are coming in, and they seem to be good proposals."

Newross (talk) 00:18, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]


"Ayers, however, was known to have been key in launching Obama's political career even holding Obama's first meet-the-candidate event at his own home when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s. In addition, there has been strong speculation that Obama was hand-picked by Ayers to head the CAC, a charge vehemently denied by Obama." Strong speculation? From whom? Is this original research? This article does seem very one sided. Stanley Kurtz is not known for his objectivity. Sorry if I messed this up. For some reason i have a mental blank when it comes to editing wiki correctly. Gingervlad (talk) 05:26, 5 October 2008 (UTC)gingervlad[reply]

Rewrite[edit]

I have done a substantial redraft (without attempting to add any significant new material). The article was a terrible mess, uncited, full of outdated stuff, redundancy, coatracking over the supposed Obama/Ayers connection, and mostly outdated recentivism of the brief political dispute regarding the release of its papers. Please do not add things without proper citations, and if there are matters to discuss involving the 2008 election they really ought to be raised in the election-related articles. Thanks, Wikidemon (talk) 02:45, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See also[edit]

I inserted a "See also" to the Obama–Ayers controversy‎, which was reverted by User:Newross , who commented "the August 2003 final technical report of the Chicago Annenberg Research Project was a technical "evaluation", not a "criticism"; remove Obama-Ayers controversy see also". This doesn't seem to make sense; a "See also" is simply a reader-friendly feature, since readers interested in the Annenberg program are likely to also be interested in the current controversy. Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:46, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the group raised and disbursed $100 million, and was active for many years on schools. That's a rather large charitable organization. By contrast, it is one of about 5-10 contexts in which Bill Ayers and Barack Obama crossed paths, a fact that has been used for several months in a dubious negative campaign strategy by the Clinton and now the McCain campaigns. The current controversy is a very small thing next to the overall life of the institution, and linking a lot of things to a controversy could create a neutrality issue. On the other hand a "see also" link is not a heavy weight on an article and as you say, some people may be assisted in navigating from one article to the other. I do not have a big concern one way or the other. Wikidemon (talk) 20:07, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The CAC did not "raise and disburse $100 million."
Please see: "How do the local matching funds figure in?" in the q-and-a's quoted above from the March 1995 Catalyst article.
The CAC Board of Directors identified and certified—as a condition of continuing to receive the $49.2 million over five years from the Annenberg Foundation—"matching":
  1. private donations by foundations and businesses spent on school reform programs with goals compatible with the Annenberg Challenge
  2. public money, chiefly state Chapter 1 antipoverty funds given to school principals and overseen by local school councils, to be spent on supplemental education programs with goals compatible with the Annenberg Challenge
The CAC did not raise or have control over the spending of the "matching" foundation, business, or state Chapter 1 funds given to schools for school reform programs.
The CAC only had control over the spending of:
  1. $49.2 million over five years received from the Annenberg Foundation as the CAC identified and certified the required matching private and public donations
  2. $3.5 million raised by the CAC to fund the Chicago Annenberg Research Project of the Consortium for Chicago School Research
  3. $2 million raised by the CAC as seed money for its successor, the new Chicago Public Education Fund.
reference: Rolling, Ken (2004). "Reflections on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge." (pp. 23–28) in Russo, Alexander (ed.) School reform in Chicago: lessons in policy and practice. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press. ISBN 1-891792-18-0.
Newross (talk) 07:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Philanthropist[edit]

  • Ogden, Christopher (1999). Legacy: a biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-63379-8, pp. 543–544:

    Gregorian oversaw everything involved in the Challenge, which by 1998 involved more than two thousand schools with nearly 1.5 million students. He ensured it was nonpartisan; that the ideas considered ranged from community-led reform to change directed by school superintendents; that the voices of diverse educators were heard; that teacher education was included; that collegial exchanges between schools and teachers were encouraged.

    There were two things he did not have to worry about: Walter did not second-guess him, nor did Gregorian have to meet specific educational benchmarks, such as dispensing funds on the basis of schools' raising their reading or math levels by certain percentage points. That was reflection of Walter's trust in him and the philanthropist's vision of the project as a catalyst, not a yardstick. Carping from within the philanthropic and education worlds that the Challenge was misguided, directed by too many visionaries and not enough detail-conscious specialists, or that after five years it had failed to prompt measurable reform was to Walter so much water off a duck's back. He also ignored criticism from conservatives who charged he was wasting money by directing it through a public school system so encumbered by government bureaucracy that real reform was impossible. "One does not do the philanthropic work as the ambassador has for years with a view to the bottom line," said Gail Levin, program director of the Annenberg Foundation. "He is affecting lives and you don't affect lives this way in terms of cost-effectiveness."

    Walter hoped that good would come from the process, but his expectations were realistic. He doubted he would ever see any concrete results. For him, that was not the point. And for all its bureaucratic flaws, he was not worried about working within the public school system. Private, parochial and charter schools should all be part of the educational brew, he believed, but because the government had a responsibility to educate its citizens, the nation could not walk away from public schools. There had to be a way to improve them. What he hoped to see was his gift awakening communities and other donors into action.

    And he was not disappointed. Five years after he stood in the White House and announced the gift, the Challenge had raised an additional half-billion dollars from businesses, foundations, universities and individuals.

Newross (talk) 16:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What did CAC money fund?[edit]

CAC gave away $150 million and achieved no improvement in student scores. What did the money fund? According to an investigative report by Stanley Kurtz, CAC "funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared (Rev. Jeremiah) Wright’s anti-Americanism." Kurtz writes: "Obama and his very small and divided board kept the money flowing to ideologically extremist groups like the South Shore African Village Collaborative, instead of organizations focused on traditional educational achievement." [1] It seems to me these facts should be mentioned in the article. RonCram (talk) 19:39, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So what? Kurtz is a conservative operative who has been pumping out a large volume of anti-Obama propaganda in the run-up to the election. He is far from a reliable source. Bringing up his scandal-mongering is not likely to result in improving the article. Wikidemon (talk) 20:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Since we're trying to centralize the discussion here, I just wanted to reiterate the link I posted on the Talk:Barack Obama page from Politifact.com. Not saying Politifact qualifies as a WP:RS, but this article does a good job of outlining the holes in Kurtz's argument. In a nutshell: Yes, CAC funded a few projects some might consider "left wing". It also funded a few projects some might consider wildly pro-business. It mostly funded totally mainstream, unremarkable projects. CAC was founded by a staunch Republican, and had participants from all over the political spectrum. Kurtz makes his case by cherry-picking a small minority of the group's initiatives and acting like these are representative of the whole. --Jaysweet (talk) 20:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the intro should have one sentence to mention the actual results.[edit]

I added the following sentence to the intro, but someone else erased it:

"A study of the results showed that there were no statistically significant differences between Annenberg and non-Annenberg schools in rates of achievement gain, classroom behavior, student self-efficacy, and social competence."

As an example of another article about reform of Chicago schools, I'd like to point out that the intro to the article on Marva Collins does mention the results of her actions.

Grundle2600 (talk) 23:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's a good idea to mention some results rather than only stating that research took place. It helps to give a source, though. I found one by searching for the given phrasing. -- SEWilco (talk) 00:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. The source is in the article. I remember hearing that the intro doesn't necessarily need sources if it's summarizing a sourced part of the article. Grundle2600 (talk) 01:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm rather dubious of citing in the lead a single study that supposedly invalidates the organization's reason for existing. The study itself may be legitimate, but it is just one data point and it has has been repeatedly trumpeted in the off-Wikipedia world by anti-Obama partisans. It seems a little weird, and pushy, to put in the lead of an organization a claim that the organization's entire mission is a failure. Wikidemon (talk) 06:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Results matter too, not just intentions. The intention of the program was to make the schools better. Whatever the results were, they should be mentioned in the intro. Grundle2600 (talk) 13:38, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that we know the results (we just have a single study) or we should include commentary on the results of an organiation's efforts in the lead of an article about the organization. We don't put "..but there seems to be no dent in poverty and homelessness" in the lead of Salvation Army, or "but carpets are just as dirty as ever" in the lead of an article about carpet cleaners. This seems like an effort to discredit the organization, which again ties into Barack Obama. Wikidemon (talk) 18:14, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A single study is what has been done, so that is the result which we can use. If other studies have been done, we can report their results. Surely if this project was a success there are numerous studies, as educational improvement has long been sought so improvement would be studied. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the study should be mentioned in the intro. The study sponsor, Consortium on Chicago School Research, seems to be a collaboration between the University of Chicago-- where Obama was a law professor-- and the public schools of Chicago. It doesn't seem to be a biased source in any way, except perhaps for public schools and for Chicago-- and for Obama! In other words, it seems like it wasn't fudging the study results to meet an agenda, and since it's the only study that's been done, it's important to include. And if a study has been done evaluating the success of the Salvation Army, I would want it included in that article, too.--Gloriamarie (talk) 21:40, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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