Tom Friedman, McKinsey and TFA.

Tom Friedman

This morning’s NY Times has a column from Tom Friedman.

Friedman has been wrong on so many issues. He is mighty lucky the NY Times doesn’t use a pay-for-performance model. Poor Tom would be eating at a food kitchen tonight.

Big example: It was Friedman who was an early cheerleader for the war in Iraq.

Today he claims he knows what to do about public schools. He wants us to hand them over to the likes of Teach for America. He is wowed by the TFA model where urban schools are staffed by young kids for a couple of years before they move on to their real career.

He knows this is a good model  because data from the smartest guys in the room, the consulting firm of McKinsey, suggests it is a good model.

That is the conclusion I drew from a new study by the consulting firm McKinsey, entitled “The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools.”

McKinsey has its own problematic track record. When Tom was waving the bloody flag to invade Iraq, McKinsey was coaching Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling at Enron. They created the blue print for Enron. Remember Enron?

In an article in the New Yorker a few years ago, writer Macolm Gladwell wrote:

The reputations of Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, the company’s two top executives, have been destroyed. Arthur Andersen, Enron’s auditor, has been driven out of business, and now investigators have turned their attention to Enron’s investment bankers. The one Enron partner that has escaped largely unscathed is McKinsey, which is odd, given that it essentially created the blueprint for the Enron culture.

Friedman, McKinsey and TFA’s Wendy Kopp. There’s a trifecta worth betting on.

UPDATE: For more on Friedman and Kinsey, click on Clay Burell’s blog over on the right.