Ex-Weatherman calls for radical reform

20th March 2009, 12:00am

The educationist and Sixties radical at the heart of a scandal that rocked Barack Obama’s election campaign last autumn has written his first article for a British newspaper since the controversy.

Bill Ayers, who writes in today’s TES, became well-known in the 1970s as a ringleader of the radical left-wing organisation Weather Underground and spotted Obama’s potential early on. His living room was the location for the president’s first political fundraising event. It was this link that Sarah Palin referred to when she accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists”.

In his article for The TES, Professor Ayers calls for whole-sale reform of education in the West. “Teachers, students and citizens should press for an education worthy of a democracy,” he writes.

The professor of education at the University of Chicago is considered a leading light in the progressive education community.

Glorified clerks, pages 40-41.