THOMAS FRIEDMAN CONDEMNS 10 MILLION INNER-CITY CHILDREN

[johnkarls]

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Thomas Friedman has always been one of my idols -- I have always read his columns in the NY Times and rarely disagreed with anything he said.

Accordingly, it pains me greatly to feel compelled to comment on how his book for our meeting tomorrow evening, “That Used To Be Us,” deals with America’s permanent inner-city under-class/caste -- particularly after Thomas Friedman received over two years 4 personally-addressed appeals to have one of his NY Times OpEd columns focus on the litigation described in the third section of this bulletin board entitled “Possible Topic for Fall 2011.”

Each of the 4 letters (the last three of which are posted in “Possible Topic for Fall 2011” above) began as follows:

Mr. Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018

Dear Mr. Friedman:

Re: $84 Billion Legally Pledged For Education of American Inner-City Children Rapidly Slipping Away Due To Judicial Improprieties – EQUAL PROTECTION BY THE MEDIA URGENTLY NEEDED!!!

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The point about “Equal Protection of the Media” is that, as a practical matter, the only way to get the US Supreme Court to agree to hear an appeal is what David Boies always does vis-à-vis his litigation, such as his current gay-rights litigation = Boies always gets the media to report on his cases. Indeed, the first letter to Thomas Friedman cited CNN broadcasts as trumpeting the fact “that the Supreme Court justices do not live in a vacuum -- that they are influenced by media reporting in deciding whether an issue is so important that the Court should accept an appeal.”

The letters, inter alia, informed Thomas Friedman of the “Question Presented For Review” by the U.S. Supreme Court =

“Can state court judges order their decisions which they know are diametrically-opposed to well-settled law, not to be published or cited (a strategy labeled ‘the segregated toilet’ in correspondence with 51 inner-city clergy who represent the 10 million inner-city children who have been disclosed from the outset as the ‘real parties at interest’ in this law suit) in order to flush away the rights of the 10 million inner-city children without disturbing the rights of first-class American citizens -- without violating the ‘Equal Protection of the Law’ requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?”

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Neither Thomas Friedman (nor 42 other news-media superstars who received the same 4 letters addressed to each of them) took any action.

Even though each of them also received a copy of a later letter to Ms. Marcia Coyle, the PBS News Hour’s regular Supreme Court reporter/analyst, which requested her assistance and which pointed out that none of the 43 news-media superstars had taken any action on last year’s Goldman Sachs, et al., appeal and none of them had so far taken any action on this year’s Bank of New York, et al., appeal EVEN THOUGH A SINGLE ACTION BY ANY OF THE 43 MIGHT HAVE BEEN SUFFICIENT TO SAVE THE 10 MILLION INNER-CITY CHILDREN.

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So what did Thomas Friedman say about inner-city education in “That Used To Be Us”???

(A) On p. 108, as a general matter (that is, not specifically relating to inner-cities) he claims we do NOT know what drives K-12 education success.

(B) On p. 113, also as a general matter he contradicts himself by claiming that the quality of the teacher is the most important factor.

(C) On pp. 123-7, he discusses the influence of parents but never mentions inner-city parents or lack thereof.

(D) On pp. 142-4, he describes in a section entitled “The Good News” an organization named “Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship” which is THE ONLY IDEA Friedman offers for improving inner-city education = a contest in which entrants try to start a business.

(E) On p. 221, he quotes U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan as authority for the fact that 25% of ALL high school students in America drop out or do not graduate on time.

(F) On p. 222, Friedman reports that the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund found that 47% of adult Detroit residents, or about 200,000 people, are functionally illiterate.

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So why is Thomas Friedman’s blindness so tragic???

First, Thomas Friedman was already informed in the four letters he received that Jonathan Kozol had repeatedly reported in his dozen award-winning books on inner-city education from “Death At An Early Age” in 1967 to “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (2005)” that U.S. Government studies regularly show that 30% of ALL American adults are functionally illiterate as defined by an inability to read the warning label on a can of rat poison.

Second, Thomas Friedman was already informed in the four letters he received that statistics such as Arne Duncan’s mask the fact that inner-city high-school graduation rates ARE SINGLE DIGITS and that the problems with statistics such as Arne Duncan’s are: (A) he masks the inner-city problem by grouping inner-city schools with all of America’s schools (such masking is also commonly done on a city-wide or state-wide basis), and (B) he only focuses on the percentage OF NINTH GRADERS that proceed to graduation, rather than adding back everyone who has been killed before reaching ninth grade or who has dropped out before reaching ninth grade.

Third, Thomas Friedman was already informed in the four letters he received that for inner-city children, WE DO INDEED KNOW what drives K-12 success AND IT IS NOT GOOD TEACHERS!!! It is parenting or the influence of surrogate parents (more about surrogate parents below). The four letters informed Thomas Friedman of typical inner-city conditions faced by the first 178 “I Have A Dream”® programs in 51 American inner-cities and replicating what Eugene Lang did in the 1980’s by tutoring and mentoring a class of 62 children at Harlem P.S. 121 through high school graduation with a guarantee of college tuition --

(A) 99% of total households headed by a single adult.

(B) 95% of total households headed by a single adult who was a drug addict.

(C) 75% - 80% of total households headed by a single-adult drug addict who turned any receipts over to the pusher so that the kids had to steal just in order to eat.

(D) Third graders recruited as runners by the pushers who didn’t want to be arrested themselves. The third-grade runners made more than Wall Street lawyers until they were busted.

(E) Only significant career objectives of American inner-city children: (1) NBA star, (2) runner graduating to pusher, or (3) girl friend of runner/pusher.

Fourth, Thomas Friedman was already informed in the four letters he received that the first 178 “I Have A Dream”® programs in 51 American inner-cities typically raised the SINGLE-DIGIT H.S. GRADUATION/COLLEGE MATRICULATION rates to 60%-65% and that when Yours Truly, as volunteer IHAD-National Treasurer (in addition to being the sponsor/benefactor/chief workhorse for one of the 178 programs serving 200 children in housing projects) focused on the fact that 50% of the female “Dreamers” became pregnant and did not graduate from high school, we were able to achieve typical HS graduation/college matriculation rates over 90%!!!

How were we able to improve the SINGLE DIGITS > 60%-65% success rates to SINGLE DIGITS > more-than-90% success rates???

When Yours Truly focused on the pregnancy problem, he asked several sponsors whose Dreamers had already graduated from high school to ask their female Dreamers why they had become pregnant.

The virtually-invariable answer = they felt there was nobody in the world who cared about them so they were going to create someone who would!!!

After that finding, Yours Truly asked those sponsors to ask their female Dreamers who had not become pregnant and had gone on to college, why they did not become pregnant.

The virtually-invariable answer = there was someone in their lives who DID care about them (typically one of our volunteer tutors/mentors) who took the time to impress upon the Dreamer that with the IHAD program, the Dreamer could make something of herself AND IT WOULD BREAK THE HEART OF THE TUTOR/MENTOR IF SHE DIDN’T!!!

It is respectfully submitted for the reader’s consideration that such tutors/mentors are indeed surrogate parents and, even though each had only weekly contact with the Dreamer, once/week was enough TO PRODUCE MIRACLES!!!

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So what of my idolizing Thomas Friedman now???

I am heart broken!!!

And I am glad that it is NOT my responsibility to judge him when he reaches “The Pearly Gates”!!!