Here We Go Again In a Good Way

Just a few days ago I published a piece, “The Harlem Miracle and Conservative Values”, which told of a school in a poor black neighborhood that was producing and graduating top students by following principles and values that prevailed in public schools before they were taken over by liberals.

Over the four years that I have published this weblog, there have been many similar stories. Here, below, is another one. Conservatism is hard, but it works; liberalism is easy, but it always fails. Why is this so hard to see and accept?

Oppression Liberators Need not Apply

George Joyce May 31, 2009 American Thinker

This is a job announcement from the website of one of America’s top inner-city public charter schools located in Oakland, California (no kidding):

“AIPCS is always in search of teachers and staff who are smart, ambitious, and motivated to teach inner-city youth. We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism to join our family at AIPCS.

“AIPCS believes in setting a high standard for ALL students regardless of race, ethnicity, language, economic standing, etc.”

“Multi-cultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots, and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply.”

“If you believe ‘hard work’ is the key to academic success for minority students, poor students, and all other students, we encourage you to submit the following documents by fax or email.”

Let me get this straight. An inner-city public charter school job announcement specifically discriminates against the following applicants: socialists, multiculturalists, “ultra liberal zealots, and college-tainted oppression liberators.”

Takes your breath away doesn’t it? In a time when white conservatives have been viciously abused for merely thinking along these lines, the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland openly and courageously protects its young students from America’s mostly harmful liberal educrats. The result is a flourishing academic environment that produces some of California’s top scores and manages to send its students to places like MIT and Cornell.

Although AIPCS started out in the late 90’s with a multicultural and Native American motif its lagging performance changed when the school was taken over in 2000 by Ben Chavis, a Lumbee Indian who tossed out the “basket weaving” in his words and decided to go traditional. In a recent Los Angeles Times story, Chavis demonstrates little patience for teachers who make the classroom an ideological bully pulpit instead of a place where the kids come first:
"You think the Jews and the Chinese are dumb enough to ask the public school to teach them their culture?"

Chavis, in other words, has exposed a nasty little secret the liberal educrats would like to keep well-hidden. Here it is: compassionate teachers are those who are hard on their students and who train the kids to be independent and successful. Selfish teachers are those who arrest the development of young minds by using the classroom to affirm their own political beliefs. In short, one group thinks about others and the other group thinks about power.

Thomas Hobbes, in his great work Leviathan, once explored in chilling detail the relationship between self-interest and what some might claim is “compassion.” In the Age of Obama, it might behoove Americans of all colors to think about the two sides of this very volatile and often destructive coin.