Tom's Diary

Here are the notes I took from today’s   Dr. Phil   show:   How Far Would You Go For Your Kids?

Segment 1

Dr. Phil asked how far would / should parents go to secure a better education for their children.  He wanted to know: Would you say that you lived at a different address; one served by the desired school, in order to get your kids in there? 

Kelly, a mom has been convicted of lying and falsifying school eligibility forms in order to get her children into a safer, higher performing school than the school located in her own neighborhood.  Has a crime been committed? 

One jury says yes; convicting her of a felony, and the judge jailed her.  Her ten year sentence was later reduced to just over nine days.  But this case is under appeal, as the felony charge, according to Kelly, her lawyer, and the Reverend Al Sharpton, seems indeed steep for the level of ‘wrong’ Kelly did.  Others who do this just get a “slap on the hand,” while others (like Kelly) are charged with a felony. 

Kelly believes that she did not break the law, claiming that her daughters lived with her father (at his invitation) to gain them access to the school in his district.  She spent time with them on breaks (a sort of shared custody arrangement with her father).  She  feared for her children’s safety in their original school; lots of burglary and violence happening there.  As she spent most of her time with her father anyhow, and when away from him, she was attending college, in her mind, Kelly was in fact, living with her dad. 

However, the ‘defrauded’ school hired a private investigator to tale Kelly, and based on his reports, concluded that she was not living with her dad, contrary to what she claimed. 

Sharpton believes that Kelly was excessively vilified by the court.  He’s on the show today, and he and other Kelly supporters were astounded that she was brought up on such a serious charge. 

Kelly’s attorney, David Singleton, who also appeared on today’s show admit that Kelly indeed made mistakes in her handling of this whole affair, but they feel that again, the punishment was highly excessive for the crime committed. 

Dr. Phil asked why Kelly did not ‘officially’ move in with her dad, and to that, Kelly answered that she was too focused on getting her education to do that at the time.  Kelly said that she wanted to keep her independence by not fully living with her father even though her kids lived with him.  Dr. Phil read from the record, and found that Kelly did in fact declare herself as a resident of Akron, but then also claimed on other federal and state government forms that she lived with her dad.  She omitted some of her income when applying for school lunch program assistance.  Then, the most difficult part of this for me to accept, Kelly falsely claimed to be deployed in the military in response to a tuition bill she received from the school where her kids were attending.  In fact, Kelly was not in the military at all, much less deployed abroad.  This made her appear to me to be a schemer.  Also, there were 48 families denied entry into Kelly’s school of choice.  True, the highest percentage of those rejected were black.

Kelly’s lawyer, David Singleton, thinks that it’s wrong to send Kelly to jail for a crime this petty, though he did admit that Kelly did not handle this in the best way possible.  Kelly’s never had any rubs with the law before this, and this fact along with others, makes way excessive the ten year jail sentence she got, not to mention the stigma she now carries of being a convicted felon.  With this on her record, she’ll a difficult time getting that teaching job she so wanted and trained for.  Singleton says that Kelly did not break the law. 

Segment 2

Reverend Sharpton thinks that Kelly should be saluted for caring so deeply about the betterment of her children.  Kelly’s lies originated in desperation, because she had no way to secure clean, safe, and effective educational facilities for her children without lying.  Educational quality needs to be standardized; people should be able to go to any school and get the sort of education that Kelly had to lie in order to secure for her kids. 

Writer Bob Dyer from an Akron-based newspaper thinks accuses Sharpton of playing the race card where there was no racism.  He strongly disagrees with Sharpton’s view.  Kelly lied and we should not excuse this deed because she’s black.  Kelly should punished for her felony this guy says, just as any other American would be who commits a similar crime.  He found it offensive that she’d stoop so low as to falsely claim that she was deployed in the military, while folks who really do serve there, are losing their lives and limbs every day. 

Kelly said that she lied about being in the military because she was desperate to get the school to stop harassing her.  She was “stressed out,” as the school district was relentless in their hounding her for the tuition money. 

Dr. Phil said that he thought Kelly was punished too harshly, but also recognized that Kelly could have lived with her dad for real, she could have paid their tuition, she could have taken her kids out of the school and gone somewhere else.  But she chose to perpetuate the lie and keep them there while at the same time, lying about her income and military service to evade the tuition bill. She tried to game the system, and “the system reacted,” he said. 

Dr. Phil wanted Kelly to own the parts of this that she definitely screwed up on; to admit her wrongness for that for which she indeed acted wrongly.  He appears to be siding more with the prosecuting school district than Kelly. 

My thoughts: Perhaps it’s not fair that some of us pay more tax than others.  But if the law says that a particular person must pay, then it’s wrong for him to avoid that payment just because he’s trying to make a better life for his children.  If you don’t think they system is fair, then you work to change it legally.  But you don’t accomplish that by breaking laws and lying. 

Segment 3

Another guest (Rebecca) joins in.  Her kids also go to the school that Kelly lied to get her kids into.  But Rebecca achieved this without lying.  Rebecca is white however, so was perhaps less desperate than Kelly.  She believes that Kelly indeed cheated the school and that Reverend Sharpton picked the wrong person to back.  Rebecca says that she makes way less money than does Kelly.  She worked herself through college.  She’s basically done more to justify her kids’ spot at that school than Kelly did (by lying) to warrant her kits going there. 

Sharpton appears to be attempting to divert the attention from Kelly’s lying, and focusing it instead on the overall problem of disparity of education in this country.  If we are one nation, paraphrasing from Sharpton, then educational quality should not be a function of the zip code you’re in.  He’s attempting to justify, or at least, mitigate a little, Kelly’s lying by blaming that on the institutionalized racism in America.  He point seemed to me to be that this institutional racism is so ingrained that a black person has little other choice but to lie.  I somewhat agree with this statement but I’m also nervous about accepting lying, no matter how worthwhile it’s cause.  The ends I believe, do not justify the means.  No matter how noble Kelly’s intensions, she should not have lied repeatedly as she did, to fulfill her dreams for her children.  He acknowledged that Kelly’s lying about being deployed in the military was probably a bad choice on her part.  But nonetheless, that transgression is not bad enough that Kelly should be vilified as a felon for it. 

Dr. Phil said that Kelly needs to take responsibility for any wrongness in the actions that she took. 

Lots of arguing of and rehashing of the points made in the previous segments. 

Bob Dyer said that falsifying information on federal documents is a third degree felony in Ohio, and this in fact, was what Kelly was convicted of.  He seems to think that Kelly should be dubbed as a felon. 

Dr. Phil disagrees. 

So does Reverend Sharpton.  The punishment was too harsh. 

Segment 4

Kelly’s 16 year-old daughter is speaking.  Upset that her Mom was hauled off to jail, that she had to live without her Mom for those nine plus days.  She feels that her mother didn’t do anything wrong, and she’s glad that her mom did what she did. 

Dr. Phil asked of Kelly if she thought she was setting a good example for her daughter with the deceptions she committed by lying to the school district about where her kids lived, her income, and her deployment in the military. 

Kelly says that she’s not guilty and that she was simply doing what she had to, in order to ensure her daughters a good education.  “I’m not perfect,” Kelly said.  She has indeed made mistakes but she’s improving all the time, and she claims that she’s a better person today than when she committed those questionable actions. 

Ohio’s governor sent a statement into the show, saying only that he eagerly awaits the results of a review that the parole board is conducting on this case. 

Reverend Sharpton fears that if this felony conviction stands, that it could sat a dangerous precedent; that being that it’s okay to label somebody who lies out of desperation as a felon and then treat them accordingly.

Segment 5

Bob Dyer thinks Kelly should be punished. 

Kelly’s lawyer says that she might get an expungement (where her record is wiped clean of all traces of this felony conviction).  But the stigma will probably remain and so, Kelly may always find it extra hard to find jobs because of this.  He said that the show was starting to sound like another retrial of Kelly. 

Dr. Phil offered that Kelly created her problem.  Yet he’s against the felony label because of how long-lasting and irreparable the stigma and other effects of it can be. I regrets that this could prevent this woman from providing for her family.

Dr. Brian Goldberg, a leader in the Beverly Hills school system says that this residency fraud happens a lot throughout the country.  It wastes tax payer dollars and staff time that should be used to actually educate kids, on fighting it.  This waste concerns Goldberg. 

Segment 6

Next guest, Ronda: A woman punishes her son for getting low test scores by making him stand on street corners in Tampa, for hours at a time, wearing a sign around his neck, advertising the fact that he has a 1.2 GPA and that he only answered four questions on his FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) exam.  Sounds like a harsh mother to me.  She reminds me of house parents I had in my 5^th grade year at WPSBC. 

Dr. Phil was opposed to this sort of negative reinforcing, and said that this was a “famously bad idea.”  You don’t excite kids to work harder with negative, fear-mongering tactics.  You instead, motivate them with positives.  He thinks that you must find out what currency matters to the kid, and discipline them by controlling that currency.  This is what you take away when they do wrong.  You do not humiliate them.  Figure out, he advises, how to reward with positive things. 

Ronda claims however that this tactic of embarrassment shamed her son into performing better, as afterwards, his grades rose to B-average.  Her other kids are now nervous; worried that if they allow their grades to fall, that they’d suffer the same fate.  She says that she’s encouraged all of her kids and pats the kid with the sign on the back for the improvements in performance that he’s made. 

Segment 7

Dr. Phil thanked all the guests for being on today’s show: David Singleton, The Reverend Al Sharpton, Bob Dyer, Dr. Goldberg, Kelly, and Rebecca.  He said (jokingly) that Dyer and Sharpton ought to have lunch, in a place where they don’t use breakable china. 

Tom Hesley