Second Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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SECOND SHORT QUIZ - SEPARATE BUT UNEQUAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND THE ADMINISTRATION'S "BLIND SPOT" TOWARD THE ONLY FACTOR THAT TRANSFORMS (vs. merely nudging) INNER-CITY SINGLE-DIGIT H.S. GRADUATION RATES

1. Do you personally consider it more important to do something about the prevailing inner-city SINGLE-DIGIT H.S. graduation rates, or merely to continue to do something about insuring a few token African Americans attend college each year (most courtesy of the only “affirmative action” program that the Supreme Court does NOT dare to attack – athletic scholarships)?

2. Does the country’s education establishment, from all of the wonderful studies summarized in our suggested reading (and many if not most are truly wonderful – I’m not being sarcastic), recognize the problem?

3. Does the country’s education establishment even propose to measure the problem?

4. For what age level are designed most, if not all, of the special programs described in the our suggested reading?

5. What do the effectiveness studies of pre-school program studies show? (Hint – you will probably have to surf the internet to find an accurate answer for this question!)

6. What is the effectiveness of middle-school and high-school intervention programs? Does the judgment of “effectiveness” of such programs depend on whether the objective is to do something about the prevailing inner-city SINGLE-DIGIT H.S. graduation rates, or merely to continue to do something about insuring a few token African Americans attend college each year?

7. Why are there virtually no intervention programs described in our suggested reading that are aimed at inner-city children from age 5-8?

8. When Eugene Lang addressed in 1981 the graduating 6th-graders at Harlem P.S. 121 and, on the spur of the moment, was inspired to say he would pay their college tuition if they stayed in school – HE QUICKLY REALIZED HIS MISTAKE!!! For the first 180 sponsors in 51 American cities who replicated what he did during the 1980’s and 1990’s, why did Gene require that they adopt their group of inner-city children (the ENTIRE grade level in an inner-city public school or the ENTIRE grade level in a public-housing project) for tutoring and mentoring through H.S. graduation with a guarantee of college tuition NO LATER THAN THIRD GRADE?

9. Why does the country’s education establishment seem so purposely obtuse when it comes to the only program that has demonstrated an ability to transform inner-city SINGLE-DIGIT H.S. graduation rates to 60% - 70%?

10. During the Clinton and Bush Administrations, was the country’s political establishment equally obtuse?

11. Why does U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan who, after all, was the head of the Chicago public school system for many years, seem so obtuse when it comes to the only program that has demonstrated an ability to transform inner-city SINGLE-DIGIT H.S. graduation rates to 60% - 70%?

AND FOR EXTRA CREDIT --

A. Why does U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan seem to relish offending the N.E.A. and A.F.T. (the two largest teachers’ unions) with proposals such as incentive merit pay – which has only a negligible effect on inner-city SINGLE-DIGIT H.S. graduation rates – while ignoring a NON-CONTROVERSIAL program that has a quantum impact on that objective?

B. Is there anything in our suggested reading (or from anywhere else that you can find such as from searching the internet) that would have more than a negligible effect on inner-city SINGLE-DIGIT H.S. graduation rates?

C. Is there anything that could improve our recommendation to President Obama of last January of FEDERALLY financed AND OPERATED magnet schools whose heart and soul would be the tutoring and mentoring by the suburban students and their families of the inner-city students – before we re-focus our suggestion on Arne Duncan?