Second Short Quiz With Suggested Answers

[johnkarls]

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Editorial Note: A yes/no quiz is traditionally offered each August to minimize interference with the vacation season.

Question 1

Was the first article Diane Ravitch ever wrote entitled “Programs, Placebos, Panaceas” (1968)?

Answer 1

Yes.

Question 2

Did it conclude with regard to short-term interventions that “only sustained, quality education makes a difference”?

Answer 2

Yes.

Question 3

Was this conclusion borne out by all of the studies of, for example, Head Start which demonstrated that if inner-city children who have participated in Head Start then enter regular inner-city elementary schools, by third grade there is no discernable difference between them and their classmates who did not participate in Head Start?

Answer 3

Yes.

Question 4

In other words, that Head Start is like a wave that washed up on the sand because after a short while, the mark it left in the sand is gone?

Answer 4

Yes.

Question 5

Was the second article Diane Ravitch ever wrote entitled “FOUNDATIONS: PLAYING GOD IN THE GHETTO” (1969)?

Answer 5

Yes.

Question 6

Was that article critical of the Ford Foundation which had been pushing decentralization and community control over NYC public schools?

Answer 6

Yes.

Question 7

Did that article document that in the 1890’s, NYC’s public schools had long been decentralized and subject to community control? And that school reformers, as an anti-dote for the poor performance of the schools and for the incompetence and corruption of local school boards, had advocated successfully for centralization and control by professionals?

Answer 7

Yes. Yes.

Question 8

Was the theme of “FOUNDATIONS: PLAYING GOD IN THE GHETTO” (1969) that it is inappropriate for mega-rich foundations to take charge of reforming public schools because they are accountable to no one and elected by no one?

Answer 8

Yes.

Question 9

Is that also the theme of our focus, Diane Ravitch’s “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education” (© 2010, 288 pages)?

Answer 9

Yes.

Question 10

Of all the havoc and devastation caused by foundations vis-à-vis public education, does “Death and Life” single out for special condemnation the Gates Foundation which, as Diane Ravitch documents, pushed for 10 years the “false idol” of breaking up failing public high schools into smaller high schools and, after admitting the failure of that approach, of now pushing another “false idol” = teacher evaluations as the most important approach to failing high schools?

Answer 10

Yes.

Question 11

Are the actions of the Gates Foundation and Melinda Gates in getting the Nation to worship these “false idols” tragic when the Nation has known about “The Promised Land” for 30 years – that the only way to increase significantly the SINGLE-DIGIT inner-city high-school graduation rates prevailing in 51 of America’s largest cities is to provide “surrogate parents” in the form of tutors/mentors and to transform the atmosphere in an entire grade of an inner-city school (or an entire grade cohort in a public-housing project) with a guarantee of college tuition?

Answer 11

Yes.

Question 12

Have both the 179 “I Have A Dream” projects in 51 American inner-cities during the 1980’s-1990’s and the relatively-recent “Rainier Scholars” program in Seattle demonstrated that such “surrogate parents” coupled with transforming the atmosphere with a guarantee of college tuition produce inner-city high-school graduation rates above 90% (100% for the 3 “Rainier Scholars” classes that have finished high school so far)?

Answer 12

Yes.

Question 13

Since the overwhelming majority of inner-city children live in single-adult households that are headed by a druggie who turns over any money to the pusher so the children have to steal in order to eat, have the actions of the Gates Foundation and Melinda gates condemned to a “fate worse than death” more human beings than have been involved in all of the prosecutions combined that have been or are being undertaken by the International Criminal Court at The Hague?

Answer 13

Yes.

Question 14

Accordingly, are the actions of the Gates Foundation and Melinda Gates “Crimes Against Humanity” as defined in the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court at The Hague?

Answer 14

Yes.

Question 15

Since the United States is one of the few nations in the world that have not ratified the Rome Statute and therefore subjected its citizens and organizations to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court at The Hague, then just like the ICC’s jurisdiction over War Crimes in Bosnia would it be necessary for a United Nations Security Council Resolution to provide such jurisdiction in the case of the Gates Foundation and Melinda Gates?

Answer 15

Yes.

Question

Since the United States has a veto in the U.N. Security Council, are the Gates Foundation and Melinda Gates likely to be prosecuted for their Crimes Against Humanity at the International Criminal Court at The Hague?


Answer 16

No. [We always have one “trick question” in our annual yes/no quiz!!!]