I wish people would take a look at the big picture rather than generalizing from a soundbite. Does it make sense that an educator (himself a minority) would devote time and money to educating poor minorities yet in fact be a racist?

Dr. Chavis likes to joke about race and use it as a motivator–in part, perhaps, because it has become such a politically correct, hush-hush topic of conversation. He knows there are racist assumptions out there, just as you do and as I do. So he will say things, like: If you don’t do your homework and are lazy in school, then people will assume you’re just another lazy Mexican. Is that right that people think that? No. But is it reality? Yes. Dr. Chavis knows the way to prove people’s stereotypes wrong is through achievement. He pushes all of his students to excel in school, which is why all AIM schools rank in the top 1% of schools in California. His schools send poor Mexicans, blacks, and other minorities to four-year universities like Cornell and UC Berkeley. How many other people run schools that provide the poor and underserved with so many extraordinary opportunities?

Read Crazy Like a Fox to find out Dr. Chavis’s views on race and racism. Get the full context. Then comment and judge. But not before.

The first link below features Ben and the students. Click the other links to enjoy seeing Stossel make mental fools out of union bosses, as well as gain insight on school reform from Michelle Rhee, Eva Moskowitz, and charter schools in New Orleans.

1.      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyswCDwe3uo&feature=player_embedded

2.      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGNz0Y9vrBo&feature=related

3.      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlg1LBHlNAc&feature=related

4.      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Irx9o7DjO8&feature=related

5.      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_–4EDg06A

6.      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR3I6LUknxo&feature=related

There will be a new Stupid in America special program. Rumor has it that former American Indian Public Charter School students will be interviewed.

Read John Stossel’s blog on the subject.

http://video.tvguide.com/An+Education/120+school+districts+in+US+adopt+4-day+school+week/7492670

Some of the schools he claims to have started don’t exist; others stand empty or house spinach. Some of the schools that do exist claim they haven’t received a penny of funding in years.

Mortenson billed his charity in one year for almost $2 million in travel and book tour/advertising expenses, even though the charity receives no royalties from his works. Some of those fees consisted of private jet flights. Pennies for schools but private jets for authors. More money was spent on domestic “outreach” expenses–i.e. book tours than on building and operating schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

If allegations are to be believed, his premise for deciding to open schools in Afghanistan is completely fabricated. I.e., he never stumbled into a small village after failing to climb K2, was never nursed back to health by the villagers, never vowed to return to fulfill his promise to a young girl that he would build her village a school.

In full disclosure, I started reading Three Cups of Tea years ago and could not get into it at all, so I read only one chapter. I never read his second book, either. As a result, all the parts of his books that are being targeted as lies are unfamiliar to me. Apparently Mortenson describes being kidnapped by the Taliban, but upon further investigation 60 Minutes reveals that the people wielding AK-47s next to him in a published photo were his unofficial body guards, not his kidnappers, according to one of the so-called kidnappers.

Maybe Mortenson should team up with James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces, also discovered to be a grossly exaggerated memoir) so that the two liars can shed some light on what motivates a person to lie and then publish lies and then promote those lies over and over to the public and then deny the lies when the truth rears its ugly little fact-finding head.

What is incredible about this is that no one blew the whistle for years! How is it that his books and charity could become such a widespread sensation with no accountability? What does that say about the information that travels between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States?

The administration should have stuck with the mass firings. Why? Because just because people say they will do something doesn’t mean they actually will. The same resistance, laziness, and resentment toward the administration is still there tainting yet another class of high school students.

An Associated Press article reports: “Many teachers aren’t showing up for work, often calling out sick. Several abruptly quit within the first few weeks of the school year. Administrators have had to scramble to find qualified substitutes and have withheld hundreds of student grades because of the teacher absences.

“The progress that the city’s school board — and the Obama administration — had hoped for seems increasingly, and alarmingly, elusive.”

I’m sure the administration is to blame as well, but a school can only be as good as its teachers and when they maximize their sick days and quit weeks into the school year they are putting their own self interests above the interests of their students.

Sounds like it’s time to wipe the slate clean. There was a good lesson to be learned here for reformers in my opinion, which is to follow through with the severe actions that are sometimes called for in order to give children, not adults, a second chance.

Ben with John Stossel & Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute

Ben and Coulson debate a NYC school board member

His interview will be part of MSNBC’s Education Nation, a special about improving the American education system. Hopefully this time around, MSNBC won’t misidentify him as the black Ben Chavis who once ran the NAACP!

MSNBC Education Nation special

I am looking forward to watching the taping on Wednesday in New York City!

The hardcover was released about a year ago from today. Both the hardcover and paperback versions of Crazy Like a Fox are published by a division of Penguin Group (USA) called New American Library.

The paperback features a new foreword by MSNBC analyst Michelle Bernard.

You can purchase the paperback online or in stores. A new, as opposed to a used, purchase is always appreciated if you can swing it. And my editor prefers that people shop somewhere other than Amazon. Thank you very much for your support!