Posted on 07/22/2010 7:58:13 AM PDT by Titus-Maximus
One of the most compelling conservative books I have had the fortune to read is “Crazy Like A Fox” One Principal’s Triumph in the Inner City, by Dr. Ben Chavis and Carey Blakely. Ironically it was not written as a “conservative” book but conservative principles naturally erupted throughout this memoir of a brave educator that spun trash into gold. I found myself cheering as this politically incorrect America Indian pioneer took over the American Indian Charter Public School in Oakland, California, that was failing in every measurable aspect, a cesspool of illiteracy, and single-handedly brought it to the fifth ranked public school in the state – based on standardized tests! In that process Ben Chavis slashed and burned every stupid liberal idea, from unions to multiculturalism and their decades long ‘soft bigotry of low expectations’ – all to the abject horror of the Oakland liberal educational establishment. He was attacked by many leftist-liberal educators but he would turn their criticism into an attack on how they have failed minority education for generations. I am astonished this book has not received more play from the conservative media elements, it is a spectacular read. (Laura Ingraham and John Stossel did cover it.)
For those of you with the belief that public school education has deteriorated to the point of disaster – and especially inner city schools, and the dominant political party has had a great role to play in its downfall then this book is for you.
If you thought it was a monumental case of hypocrisy for Barack Obama to send his children to the prestigious Sidwell Friends school while he destroyed the voucher program in DC, which then prevented poor black children from attending the same school – then this book is for you.
If you are tired of being lectured by Democrats on racism, while they and their union paymasters have for generations kept minority children in a world destined to fail, and never once admitted their grotesque mismanagement or complete negligence about the disastrous consequences – this story is for you – because Ben Chavis has a special message for these “pimps” as he calls them.
If you are tired of liberals telling the world that not enough is being spent on education and that taxes need to be raised to fix this problem – while they purposely thwart any attempt of accountability for teachers, and fight with tooth and claw the ability to fire incompetent teachers, standardize testing and No Child Left Behind - then this book is for you. Chavis bemoans the money being wasted by a system that is designed to spend and designed to fail. He is a proponent of No Child Left Behind and dedicated the book to it, because he is not afraid of standardized testing and wants to be held accountable – he is the anti-liberal education establishment. Are you listening NJ teachers? I would think Governor Christie would be dispensing this book at meetings.
Ben Chavis is an American Indian educator and self made wealthy businessman, has struck a rock in the desert with his teacher’s ruler and unleashed an untapped river of pure water. He took over the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland California, which had a 35% absentee rate, alcohol and marijuana problems, kids having sex on a mattress behind a tool shed, and moronic Oakland teachers spending hours making beads and banging drums to keep the students culturally attuned to their Indian heritage. Chavis, a veritable Hercules, cleaned the Augean Stables of this rot and fired almost everyone working at the school. He painted, scrubbed and revitalized the school building but more importantly he wire brushed the corroded minds around him. He brought absenteeism to 2%, he tracked down mothers in bars at ten in the morning demanding their children come to school, he made math and English a top priority devoting 90 minutes to each subject, he banished all multicultural nonsense from the curriculum, he ended the minority “victimization” mentality and he taught free market capitalism as a color blind road to prosperity. Test scores sky rocketed!
His growing up as a “darkie”, as he calls himself, on an Indian reservation in utter poverty has given him a special insight into the education of minority children. His upbringing had pain, poverty but an incredible wisdom which he has brought to the fore. He studied the Bible and the book is replete with religious symbolism and values. He put a cross on the building and cannily told inquisitors it was the “Four Directions” of the American Indian, while he told his minority students the school was the house of the Lord and to respect it. Chavis made this middle school more like the one class country school house. He gave the students one teacher for all their subjects, and stopped the wasteful and useless rotation of classrooms - bringing stability and lasting relationships to those who lacked it in their lives. He would reward student accomplishments with dollar bills for tasks that he assigned. He pulled up the pants, wiped off the make up and if he had to, shaved the heads of unruly students. He brought rule and order to a world that had been nothing more than a campaign prop for liberal politicians to enhance their own careers while generations of illiterate children were pushed through the system – to become immediate unproductive liabilities of the state.
Ben Chavis gets it – and in this book he indicts the Democratic Party, even though it is his political party. Education, he says was ceded to them and they have destroyed it with their unions, uncaring attitudes, unaccountability and the wasting of billions of dollars. Ben Chavis walks it likes he talks it because he made it rain in the desert, and Governor Schwarzenegger came twice to visit. His results are astounding for an inner city school – but the recognition doesn’t seem enough and it makes one wonder that he has too many political enemies? (Recently, he called Charles Barron, black radical politician in NY, a pimp and offered to take the argument outside.)
In Ben Chavis’ words: “My approach to race and culture at AIPCS is nothing like the victimization and babying of minorities preached in teacher credential programs and implemented in public schools. I prefer hiring smart, uncredentialed teachers because many credential programs brainwash educators to teach in a way that is soft, ineffectual, and focused on non-academic topics, such as self-esteem and multiculturalism.” p102
“President Barack Obama has indicated he will push for an additional $80 million to train public school teachers. In California, teachers must complete a five year higher education program to qualify for a teaching credential. Then, once they are employed by public schools, millions of dollars are spent on teacher training for these college graduates. If you’ve spent five years in higher education and you still can’t teach, how is more money going to help you? Could it be we need to restructure the colleges of education instead of wasting more money?” P103
On a dispute over strict dress codes with a liberal teacher, he does not suffer fools gladly: “I don’t care what you think, and I’m tired of you guys helping the students undermine the rules. Some of you are letting them wear their shirts out. Mr. Bates, these kids can be anarchists like you if they go to a stick-it-to-the-Man college like you did, but they’re not going to be anarchists here. How are these kids ever going to get into your private college? You know, I’ve gone all over the state looking at secondary schools, and not a single one of them that uses a liberal philosophy with ghetto students is worth a damn. All this liberalism has screwed over minorities. You think they’re poor and underprivileged and they can’t cut it, so you give them an easy way out. It’s people like you who have f_____ed over my people and I am sick of it.”......”You know, I’m a Democrat, too, and sometimes when I look in the mirror I can’t stand what I see because we haven’t done anything for minorities in public education. All this left wing liberalism has destroyed generations of minorities.” P164
The education establishment has attacked him, they despise him, because he has grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and wiped their faces in the excrement that they have spewed in the halls of inner city schools for decades – and they can’t take the stench of their own filth. (Some of the attacks are purely racist – saying he is bringing in Chinese kids, and the assertions are not true.) Since when has a labor union been able to contribute to the intellectual development of another human being – the whole concept is ridiculous. It also assumes that teachers are fungible, one is as good as another – which why so few are fired in their cushioned, unrealistic world.
Maybe they should make this required reading at all teachers’ colleges. Chavis is spreading his message but not quick enough. His accomplishments are all the more fantastic when one realizes that 74% of his student body uses English as a second language in the home. When political arguments go on and on and solve nothing – here is someone with damn answers, damn glorious answers, and he has proved it beyond a shadow of doubt. Stop spending money, get rid of unions, find the right teachers, good daily structure, family, accountability, high expectations, cleanliness, detention, no to racist affirmative action, emphasize the academic, teach capitalism, and if you act like a fool you will be treated like one.
As well as doing it for far less money!
Well done!
Equal opportunity for all...without politics!!
I am reading Crazy Like a Fox right now. Dr. Chavis has a great vision he is implementing; boy, are the teachers’ unions uptight. Last week in Oakland, when the union teachers were striking for wage increases, Chavis’s school was vandalized and graffiti’d. The prophets are never honored in their own towns.
This book is wonderful, and Dr. Chavis’s results are top-notch.
Worthwhile book. I have nearly finished reading it.
Ben Chavis and Carey Blakely have written well.
This should also underline the point about how dumbed down all the other schools are.
Government education has destroyed standards.
Kudos to Ben Chavis, but what he has done is in no way different from what has been done for decades in ghetto Catholic schools.
“I prefer hiring smart, uncredentialed teachers because many credential programs brainwash educators to teach in a way that is soft, ineffectual, and focused on non-academic topics, such as self-esteem and multiculturalism.’
Wow! Someone who gets it!
The "bad" part is teachers whose only credentials are in "education". Hiring people with technical credentials in science or engineering would, I think, be a good thing. I'm a PhD chemist, and nearing the end of my active technical career, but I could still teach a class or two in pretty much any high school technical subject and probably do it better than the "education majors" that get hired.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about.
I can’t officially ‘teach’ up here because I lack the two year brainwashing. I do have a history degree. I don’t see why I’m not qualified to teach a class to high school students.
Especially not when I get paid to tutor those exact same students, the struggling ones, and I get them up to speed.
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