Vallas blasts Obama, Ayers

Because the Chicago newspapers have gone to sleep on covering Barack Obama, we'll have to rely on a New York paper to perform basic reporting tasks.

The Chicago Tribune didn't even know or care that Obama's only executive experience was at the helm of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a "school reform" foundation founded by unrepetentant terrorist Bill Ayers.

The New York Post contacted Paul Vallas about the foundation and he blistered the Obama-Ayers led group.

"There was a total lack of accountability. If you went back and asked, you'd be hard-pressed to find out how the money was spent," said Paul Vallas, the city's school superintendent when Obama chaired the Chicago Annenberg Foundation from 1995 to 1999.

Annenberg spent $49.5 million, mostly on grants to 211 public schools that partnered with community-based groups. But despite collecting millions, those schools performed no better than other public schools, a study found.

Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois and an ex-Weather Underground bomber, wrote the grant that won the Windy City funding from the national Annenberg Challenge. He was a key adviser to the Chicago Annenberg board.

He also said Obama and company were trying to roll back academic reforms.

Most frustrating, Vallas said, was that Annenberg under Obama and Ayers funded groups that fought his mission, under Mayor Richard Daley, to impose uniform standards and stricter accountability in low-performing schools.

Many of Vallas' goals were later adopted by Mayor Bloomberg in Big Apple schools.

"Many of the school-reform groups viewed greater accountability as an infringement of local control. Some opposed ending social promotion and grade retention," Vallas said.

Either the Tribune or Sun-Times could have picked up the phone and got the same story if they weren't in Obama's pocket.

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2008 election, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Illinois, John McCain, journalism, liberals