U.S. Department of Education Partners with George Soros and Avowed Socialists

WASHINGTON DC – The Department of Education and billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute have partnered to promote Open Educational Resources. According to the Open Society Institute, O.E.R is a global education initiative that seeks “a world where each and every person on Earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge.”

Department of Education Secretary, Arne Duncan announced a “Why Open Education Matters” competition which will award of $25,000 for the best video highlighting the benefits of O.E.R., for students, teachers and schools. The “Why Open Education Matters” competition is sponsored three groups –Soros’ Open Society, a group known as Creative Commons and the U.S. Department of Education.

At the launch of “Why Open Education Matters”, Duncan said O.E.R. “can not only accelerate and enrich learning – they can also substantially reduce costs for schools, families and students.”

The non-profit organization, Creative Commons was founded by Lawrence Lessig in 2001. Lessig was a technology adviser to President Obama and has worked closely with Marxist activists calling for the end to capitalism in the United States. His group, funded by George Soros, has also petitioned for increased government control of the media.

Lessig has reportedly known Obama since they both taught law at the University of Chicago. He now teaches at Harvard. Lessig is a close associate of Robert W. McChesney, also an avowed Marxist who is in favor of dismantling capitalism.

It is reported that Lessig is being considered as a future candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission. He is an outspoken proponent for reduced legal restrictions on copyright material and was an advisor to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

An Open Educational Resources forum in 2007 announced the group’s mission of creating “a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge.” O.E.R leaders expressed the goal of using the education initiative to balance what they called the digital divide between the “global North” and the “global South.”

Robert W. McChesney, a close associate of Lessig, heads up another Soros-funded organization with close ties to the White House. His organization, ironically named Free Press, lobbies for more government control of the news media.

Free Press recently published a study advocating the development of a “world class” government-run media system in the U.S. Its director, Ben Scott, was named in May 2012 as a policy adviser for innovation at the State Department.

McChesney is a professor at the University of Illinois and former editor of the Marxist journal Monthly Review. He is an advocate for the dismantling of U.S. capitalism. Writing in a column he said, “In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick-by-brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”

The board of Free Press has included the likes of the president’s former “green jobs” czar, Van Jones, who resigned after his founding of a communist organization was exposed. Susan P. Crawford, former “Internet czar,” was a featured speaker at a Free Press May 14, 2009, “Changing Media” summit in Washington, D.C. She and Kevin Werbach (co-director of Obama’s transition Federal Communications Commission review team) are also advisory board members at Public Knowledge, yet another George Soros-funded public interest group.

So why are openly active socialists and Marxists receiving funds from the U.S. Department of Education? Why are groups funded by George Soros so involved in matters of the media and education? Connecting these dots doesn’t require a degree from Harvard, even though many of those dots appear to have been created there.