Univ. of Illinois denies their own Education professor, William Ayers, emeritus status while John Goodlad’s NNER honors him as their keynote speaker in October 2010 Conference.
Some would find it ironic that while former terrorist Bill Ayers was denied emeritus status at his own university, he is being honored as the keynote speaker at the 2010 annual conference of John Goodlad’s National Network for Education Renewal (NNER). Ayers was not given emeritus status because of his past socialist revolutionary actions and because he praises radical revolutionaries like Sirhan Sirhan, the murderer of Robert Kennedy, in his book, Prairie Fire.
What does this have to do with Alpine School District (ASD) you ask? The ASD embraces the “Democracy Agenda” of socialist, humanist, John Goodlad. Twenty-five years ago, when BYU’s McKay School of Education (MSE) became a founding member of the NNER, ASD and four other nearby school districts formed a partnership with the university and the NNER.
Alpine’s current Superintendent, Vern Henshaw, and several other top administrators in the district have attended the annual NNER conference where Bill Ayers has been a presenter. They have also served on top executive committees and delivered speeches at the conference. A recurring theme at these meetings is Goodlad’s socialist “Democracy Agenda”. Even more disturbing, 4 out of the 30 Goodlad scholars in the entire nation are from our very own MSE and ASD. Since Ayers is the NNER keynote speaker in October this year, parents should be concerned that our administrators have been so closely tied to an organization which honors and supports the former terrorist.
Ayers, recently retired after 20 years at the University of Chicago, was denied emeritus status by all nine voting trustees. Trustees approved a number of other retirees that day, and it is unusual for anyone to be turned down. In fact, a trustee spokesperson said that “nobody could remember a similar circumstance in the last several decades.”
So while Bill Ayers has been utterly insulted at his own university and banned from speaking about his concept of education and democracy at many other universities, we appear to still have avid supporters of his friend John Goodlad and the NNER right here in Utah County at the McKay School of Education and in the Alpine School District. As parents, where most of our property taxes and 100% of our State Income Tax go to support local education, we need to inquire as to how extensively our children have been indoctrinated with John Goodlad’s philosophy and insist that all Utah schools immediately sever relations with the NNER. This action begins with the School Boards of Education, the administrators and our elected state representatives.
Read more:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2740622,ayers-denied-emeritus-status-092310.article
News Alert: 12/7/10: Ayers says “I never denounced Weather Underground violence”