Suggested Answers to the First Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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Question 1

Although Bob Herbert seems to jump around quite a bit, he is basically addressing only three problems = infrastructure, poverty/education, and the cost of war (including both the human cost and what economists would call the “opportunity cost” of not employing the same resources on other pressing problems). The question = has Bob Herbert even addressed all of the important problems facing our nation including one which should probably have made the Top Three, if not No. 2 or even No. 1???

Answer 1

Please see Q&A-16 for a looming problem that does not appear to be on anyone’s radar.

In addition, please see our 24 Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns posted in the first section of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org.

And also see “Tony Reali (Good Morning America – ESPN) and Lynching Tom Brady” posted under “Participant Comments” on http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org for a deadly-serious criticism that the inability of our news media to think is the bed rock reason why our country is in such a sad state -- using a sports metaphor to minimize participants concentrating on the substance of the example(s) rather than the theoretical essence of the critique.

Question 2

Does Bob Herbert’s call for more infrastructure spending, which is the traditional call whenever the economy is languishing in order to provide a stimulus, come too late since the economy seems to be picking up???

Answer 2

So it would seem.

Question 3

If infrastructure spending on Bob Herbert’s “highways and bridges” is so important, then why do we see President Obama proposing infrastructure spending on high-speed Bullet Trains instead???

Answer 3

Who knows???

Question 4

Why did Florida reject President Obama’s $43 billion Tampa-Orlando Bullet Train that would have competed on an 85-mile run with airlines and an Interstate??? [NB: 85 miles is almost the 94-mile distance between Philadelphia and NYC.]

Answer 4

The U.S. government would only have paid $2.4 billion with the State of Florida having to raise $40.6 billion. Moreover, if Florida did not complete the project, it would have had to repay the $2.4 billion to the U.S. government.

Obviously, the State of Florida did not consider the Tampa-Orlando Bullet Train a good investment of the funds it would have had to raise.

Question 5

Why did California’s Governor “Junior” Brown break ground 1/6/2015 on President Obama’s $68 billion San Francisco-LA Bullet Train that will compete with 90-minute air travel by providing a 3-hour rail experience???

Answer 5

Who knows???

Especially since the U.S. government will only pay $3.3 billion, with the State of California having to raise $64.7 billion!!!

One would think that there are many more pressing problems on which California could spend its money. Indeed, Governor Brown is one of the 21 American politicians who turned their backs on $84 billion of PRIVATE funding to provide tutoring and mentoring K-12 for 10 million California inner-city children with a guarantee of college tuition -- when he and each of the other 20 politicians knew that a single Amicus Curiae brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court pursuant to its Rule 37(2) might well have been enough to prevent the courts from “flushing away” the rights of the inner-city children in “the segregated toilet” -- the terms used in correspondence with the 51 inner-city clergy who were supporting the children to describe how judges order their opinions which they know are diametrically opposed to well-settled law NOT to be published AND NOT to be cited in order to avoid affecting the rights of First-Class American Citizens!!!

[Indeed, the third section of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org contains several of the many pleas sent to each of the 21 American politicians over several years imploring them to file Amicus Curiae briefs under U.S. Supreme Court Rule 37(2). Indeed, during Jerry Brown’s campaign for California governor, he received three copies of each letter -- in addition to the normal copy sent to his office (he was California Attorney General at the time) and the normal copy sent to his residence, a third copy was sent to his Campaign Headquarters!!!]

One would think, under the circumstances, that Governor Brown is a Modern-Day Pharaoh building a “pyramid” to memorialize himself while ignoring all of his subjects who are suffering as a result of his decisions!!!

Question 6

Why was California’s current Governor Jerry Brown (since 2011) known as “Junior Brown” during his first incarnation as California Governor (1975-1983) when his father was California Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown (1959-1967)??? Whom did they “sandwich” as California Governor 1967-1975???

Answer 6

Both father and son were named Edmund Gerald Brown, and the son went by his middle name. [The mystery is how the father came to be called “Pat” since there was no Patrick in his name.]

They sandwiched Ronald Reagan as California Governor 1967-1975.

Question 7

Does Bob Herbert understand the issues of poverty and education???

Answer 7

Yes!!!

He even quotes at length from his interviews of Diane Ravitch (N.Y.U.’s Research Professor of Education and a historian of education; a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education).

In “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education” (© 2010) which we studied for our 9/12/2012 meeting, Prof. Ravitch cites (p. 142 of “Life and Death”) the two authoritative national studies of school choice (aka charter schools) -- one by Stanford University and the other by the Brookings Institution -- which show that charter schools ARE WORSE THAN INNER-CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS despite (1) cherry picking the best students (or, when a lottery is used, admitting only students of parents who are motivated enough to register them for the lottery), and (2) typically expelling under-performing students. Indeed, the Stanford U. study which found that 37% of the nation’s charter schools “had learning gains that were significantly below those of local public schools” and 46% of which “had gains that were no different” with only 17% showing “growth that was significantly better” WAS FUNDED BY SUCH PRO-CHARTER GROUPS AS THE WALTON FAMILY FOUNDATION AND THE MICHAEL AND SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION.

Unfortunately, Bob Herbert does not quote our comment in our Sep 2012 Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaign to President Obama --

“‘School Choice’ is treating a SOCIOLOGY problem as an EDUCATION problem and makes no more sense than closing a police precinct in whose jurisdiction a crime is committed and hiring amateurs in their place.”

And just as unfortunately, he has no solution other than implying that only income redistribution (the 1% vs. the 99%) can eliminate poverty and improve inner-city education. But please read on Q&A-8!!!.

Question 8

If he does, why was he one of the infamous 43 media superstars who turned their backs on $84 billion of PRIVATE funding to provide tutoring and mentoring K-12 for 10 million inner-city children with a guarantee of college tuition -- when he and each of the other 42 media superstars knew that a single news item by any one of them might well have been enough to prevent the courts from “flushing away” the rights of the inner-city children in “the segregated toilet” -- the terms used in correspondence with the 51 inner-city clergy who were supporting the children to describe how judges order their opinions which they know are diametrically opposed to well-settled law NOT to be published AND NOT to be cited in order to avoid affecting the rights of First-Class American Citizens???

Answer 8

Who knows???

But the final report on 10/5/2011 to each of the 51 inner-city clergy from San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland who had been supporting the cause -- (A) informed them that the US Supreme Court on 10/4/2011 refused to hear our appeal and (B) thanked them for their efforts with the solace that each of us would be able to say at The Pearly Gates with St. Paul (II Timothy 4:7): “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” --

and (C) requested them and their congregants to pray for the soul of Bob Herbert --

as well as the souls of the other 42 news-media superstars, the 21 governmental officials (including California Governor Jerry Brown), the California judges and the U.S. Supreme Court Justices.

Question 9

Does Bob Herbert view inner-city education and the poverty it perpetuates as a problem of Sociology or a problem of Education???

Answer 9

Sociology (please see Q&A-7 and Q&A-8).

Question 10

Can we “move the needle” on poverty/education without addressing the Sociology = the pervasive lack of a positive role model whom the inner-city child worships (which, unfortunately, usually has to take the form of a volunteer tutor or mentor who becomes a surrogate parent)???

Answer 10

If anyone thinks that parents (including surrogates) are NOT the key, I am willing to listen.

Question 11

Why does every purveyor of easy solutions such as school choice (which we have studied several times does NOT improve the overall situation), shun the “heavy lifting” that is required to actually “move the needle”???

Answer 11

The charitable view would be that they are misinformed, rather than evil.

Question 12

Will President Obama’s 1/8/2015 proposal to make the nation’s Junior Colleges free (provided that academic courses are fully transferable to four-year universities and that vocational training actually leads to jobs) “move the needle” on poverty???

Answer 12

No (please see Q&A-13 and Q&A-14).

Question 13

If the inner-city high school graduation rates across the country, despite statistical tricks, are really single digits, how are we going to get our inner-city children into position to qualify for President Obama’s free Junior Colleges???

Answer 13

Through the kind of K-12 mentoring and tutoring with a guarantee of college tuition that has constituted the only kind of “heavy lifting” that has proved effective.

[When Yours Truly was the Volunteer National Treasurer for those 178 programs in 51 American inner-cities in the 1990’s, the early-on programs typically transformed the single-digit H.S. graduation rates for the class behind and the class ahead of each set of Dreamers into the 60% range. And when Yours Truly asked the sponsors of those early-on projects to ask the 50% of their female Dreamers who became pregnant why they had, it was almost invariably because they felt they had nobody in their lives who cared about them and they were going to CREATE someone who would. Which prompted Yours Truly to have those sponsors ask the other 50% of their female Dreamers who did NOT become pregnant why they hadn’t, producing the almost-invariable response that they did have someone who cared about them, typically one of our tutors or mentors, and who made clear to the Dreamer that s/he could make something out of herself with this program and it would break the heart of the tutor/mentor if she didn’t!!! When that information was disseminated to the follow-on programs, matriculation rates shot up into the 90% range!!!]

But the $84 billion of PRIVATE funding that would have been available as late as 2011 to transform the lives of 10 million inner-city children with such programs, was destroyed by the 43 news-media superstars, the 21 governmental officials (such as California Governor Jerry Brown), the California judges and the U.S. Supreme Court Justices who turned their backs on America.

Question 14

Would putting President Obama’s “real” academic courses and “effective” vocational training programs into high schools be a better solution, since high schools are already free???

Answer 14

Better, but not by much, since most inner-city children never make it as far as high school.

Question 15

Or would we still be stymied by the sociological reality that most inner-city children will drop out long before they reach the “real” academic courses and “effective” vocational training programs???

Answer 15

To a great extent, yes.

Question 16

So what (ref Q-1) is our nation’s problem that was overlooked by Bob Herbert but that should probably have made his Top Three, if not No. 2 or even No. 1??? [NB: I am NOT dissing any of the three problems he did select, since he could have expanded his book to cover four problems if, for example, infrastructure spending had to be bumped out of the Top Three.]

Answer 16

The hint that followed Question 16 when the First Short Quiz was posted, suggested that it was corporations beginning in the 1980’s to convert their old-fashioned pension plans into Sec. 401(k) plans.

However, as mentioned in Q&A-1 above, there are 24 Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns contained in the first section of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org. The problems addressed by many of them (such as bringing thorium fission on line ASAP) should also have been in the Top 3.

In addition, on 1/23/2014 Yours Truly posted on http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org an essay suggesting that the bedrock reason for all of America’s ills is the American media. And, as a member of the media, Bob Herbert can’t be expected to indict himself and his colleagues!!!

All of these possible issues will be addressed in greater detail in the Second Short Quiz.