I won’t go into the baggage associated with Bill Ayers. During the campaign of 2008, his name came up again and again and was hurled as an accusation against candidate Barack Obama.
I recall Sarah Palin saying that Obama was guilty of “palling around with terrorists,” or words to that effect.
I did not approve of or condone what he did in the 1960s.
Bill Ayers is not the same person he was forty years ago. Today, he is a respected education thinker. But then, none of us is the same person we were 40 or 20 or even 10 years ago.
People grow and change. If they are willing, they learn.
Ayers has written a letter to President Obama that expresses the views of many educators today.
He calls on the President to rethink his policies.
He reminds him of the great advantages that the University of Chicago Lab School offered to the Obama children, the Ayers children, the Duncan children, and the Rahm Emanuel children even now.
Isn’t this what we should want for all children?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I can’t believe you just wrote this. Well, one thing is for sure, 4 more years of stabbing teachers in the back and destroying public education courtesy of Obama. Congrats on the win!
Is Ayres such a socialist radical that you can’t believe this???
People do change. I was a little one but I have some vivid and environmental (DC protests and secondary tear gas due to situations beyond my control and that of my mom) memories of that era. There are a few interesting things about Bill. He’s been passionate about education since 1968 and he was instrumental in developing some of Daley’s Chicago reforms. He’s seen it inside and the out. Now he’s decided to share his thoughts and wisdom. I hope O listens.
O don’t listen to no one unless they are neoliberals.
But like Jesse said in 1984…keep hope alive!
Why should Obama listen? He has learned that teachers will support him even when he runs roughshod all over them. He can disregard teachers entirely with no consequence. I expect four more years of the privatization blitzkrieg with the president’s consent and support.
Who speaks for the red and blue together American what President Obama hopes to lead? Bill? Not all the baggage is old:
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0423ss.html
“The next time Obama-the candidate who purports to be our next ‘education president’-discusses education on the campaign trail, it would be nice to hear what he thinks of his Hyde Park neighbor’s vision for turning the nation’s schools into left-wing indoctrination centers.”
“The ex-Weatherman is now a radical educator with influence.”
Oh give me a break. Radical? The idea that every child should get the education that Sasha and Malia Obama are getting is radical?
And, sheesh, I only wish Ayers had any influence with the president. Just once I’d like to see Obama actually do something that even remotely approached the “radical” label the Right tries to smear him with. If he’s going to have the name, I wish he’d get the game.
This is a great piece that was in today’s WaPo.
A call for President Obama to change course on education
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/07/a-call-for-president-obama-to-change-course-on-education/
I hope public schools stay right were they are being led. It is about raising to the top. And a good challanging program is what is needed. But for most 40percent is good enough. I know we need high school that look like small southern collages but still have a 35 present drop out rate or higher. The only thing that will fix that is to pay more money per kid. We sould try to hang in the middle of the pack. That way or kids can live in a different country just to have a job to pay someone else mortgage. I vote no new choice the one we have is good enough.
He changed? That’s why he stated in an interview on 9/11/2011 that he never regretted anything from the 60s. He’s still the same Marxist revolutionary that we was in the 60s, just without the violence. Ms. Ravitch, you are officially dead to me, your thoughts on public ed no longer carry any value or weight. Bye-bye!