First Short Quiz – Thomas Sowell vs. Stanford University

[johnkarls]

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Part A – Stanford University’s Indictment of Charter Schools

A-1. Did Stanford University undertake a national study of charter schools in 2009 funded by such pro-charter groups as the Walton Family Foundation and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation?

A-2. Did the Stanford study analyze data from 2,403 charter schools in fifteen states and the District of Columbia -- about half of all charters and 70 percent of all charter students in the nation at the time?

A-3. Did the Stanford study find that 37 percent had learning gains that were significantly below those of local public schools?

A-4. Did the Stanford study find that 46 percent had gains that were no different?

A-5. Did the Stanford study find that only 17 percent showed growth that was significantly better?

A-6. Did the relatively-poor performance of charter schools occur despite their admitting only students of parents who were functional enough to apply and then expelling students who did not meet performance standards?

A-7. Did the relatively-poor performance of charter schools appear to be the result of inadequate governmental-regulation standards – many of their teachers had no qualifications and, indeed, quite a few charter schools were headed by former public-school janitors who seized their opportunities to leap from bottom to top?


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“Legal Brief for The Defense” – from Stanford’s Hoover Institution

B-1. Is our focus book for Oct 13 “Charter Schools and Their Enemies” by Thomas Sowell of Stanford’s Hoover Institution (Basic Books 6/30/2020 – 132 pages sans appendices-notes-index – Hardcover $18.69 + shipping or $18.99 Kindle from Amazon.com)?

B-2. Does Thomas Sowell recognize Stanford University and its 2009 study as the CHIEF ENEMY of charter schools?

B-3. Does Thomas Sowell have more recent COMPREHSIVE STUDIES on the effectiveness of charter schools – or lack thereof?

B-4. Do any such COMPREHENSIVE STUDIES correct for the INHERENT BIAS of admitting only students of parents who were functional enough to apply and then expelling students who did not meet performance standards?


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The Gold Standard For Educating The Children of America’s Permanent 30% Under-Caste

C-1. Did Eugene Lang promise students at Harlem P.S. 121 in 1981 their college tuition if they would stay in school?

C-2. Did he then provide a tutor and mentor for each student until high school graduation?

C-3. When in 1985 his “I Have A Dream”® Project was publicized on the front page of the New York Times and on CBS’ 60 Minutes, was Yours Truly one of 178 individuals (most of whom were CEO’s of major corporations) to step forward to replicate in 51 American cities what Eugene Lang had done?

C-4. Did I also serve as the volunteer national treasurer in the 1990’s for Gene Lang’s organization that oversaw the 178 programs which BTW transformed the typically-SINGLE DIGIT high-school graduation rates for the classes just ahead and just behind each “Dreamer” class to more than 90%?

C-5. Were the typical conditions faced by those 178 projects in 51 American inner-cities as I personally witnessed from visiting the overwhelming majority of those 178 projects and 51 inner-cities as national treasurer (in addition to reports from the remainder) –

• 95% of those Dreamers living in single-adult households headed by druggies!!!

• 75%-80% of whom turned over any receipts to the pusher so the kids had to steal just in order to eat!!!

• The children knowing by Kindergarten that they were NOT eligible for their dreams and that their only realistic career objectives were pusher or pimp, or girl friend of a pusher or pimp graduating to whore – none of which requires much education!!!

C-6. Did the early “I Have A Dream”® Programs match Eugene Lang’s success at Harlem P.S. 121 of transforming the SINGLE-DIGIT high-school graduation rates for the classes just ahead and just behind the “Dreamer” class to 65%?

C-7. In visiting the early programs among the 178 as volunteer national treasurer, did Yours Truly notice that 50% of the female “Dreamers” had become pregnant and, as a result, dropped out?

C-8. And did Yours Truly ask the sponsors of those early projects to ask their females who had become pregnant why – for which the typical response was that the female had NEVER had anyone who cared about her and by God, she was going to CREATE someone who did?

C-9. And did Yours Truly follow up by asking the sponsors of those early projects to ask their females who had NOT become pregnant why NOT – for which the typical response was that one of our tutors or mentors had become a surrogate parent and had expressed early and often that the Dreamer could make something of herself with the IHAD program AND IT WOULD BREAK THE HEART OF THE TUTOR/MENTOR SURROGATE PARENT IF SHE DIDN’T?

C-10. So when Yours Truly asked the sponsors of the later projects to have ALL OF THEIR TUTORS AND MENTORS express their hopes for their Dreamers EARLY AND OFTEN, did the later projects transform the typical SINGLE-DIGIT high school graduation rates for the classes just ahead and behind the Dreamer classes TO MORE THAN 90%?

C-11. BTW, did the national “I Have A Dream”® Foundation shift its focus after the 1990’s to serve suburbs whose ethnic mix was changing? And, in the process did IHAD-National lose all of its institutional knowledge about what made successful the 1990 programs that served the inner cities?


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Is Thomas Sowell Attempting To Get The Nation To Worship ANOTHER “FALSE IDOL”?

D-1. Could the “I Have A Dream”® GOLD STANDARD be taken to scale?

D-2. For example, do Sections 4 and 5 of www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org entitled “Inner-City Holocaust and America’s Apartheid ‘Justice’ System (In Honor of Jonathan Kozol and In Memory of John Howard Griffin)” contain zillions of legal documents, etc., demonstrating how $84 billion of private funds could have provided IHAD- or IHAD-style programs for 10 million inner-city children?

D-3. Was the “question presented for review” in the final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court (which they refused to hear) –

“Can state court judges order their decisions which they know are diametrically-opposed to well-settled law, not to be published or cited (a strategy labeled ‘the segregated toilet’ in correspondence with 51 inner-city clergy who represent the 10 million inner-city children who have been disclosed from the outset as the ‘real parties at interest’ in this law suit) in order to flush away the rights of the 10 million inner-city children without disturbing the rights of first-class American citizens -- without violating the ‘Equal Protection of the Law’ requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?”

D-4. Even if Thomas Sowell can cite COMPREHENSIVE STUDIES since the 2009 COMPREHENSIVE STUDY BY STANFORD UNIVERSITY that charter schools ARE NO LONGER INFERIOR to local public schools despite admitting only students of functional parents and expelling students who do not meet performance standards, IS THOMAS SOWELL STILL “SELLING SNAKE OIL”???

D-5. After all, didn’t Thomas Sowell CONFESS in his “Discrimination and Disparities” (our focus book for our last meeting – Sept. 8th) that he believes the problem with inner-city schools are “bad apples” who need to be “weeded out”?

D-6. And that charter schools do precisely that – condemning all of those students who were not accepted by charter schools to what we have always called “a fate worse than death”? In other words, what 5-year-olds in our inner-city ghettos already know is their fate – that their only realistic career objectives are pusher or pimp, or girl friend of a pusher or pimp graduating to whore (none of which require much education)?

D-7. After all, didn’t the IHAD programs of the 1990’s adopt EVERY student in the third grade of an inner-city school OR EVERY child in the third-grade cohort of a public-housing project??? NO EXCEPTIONS!!!???

D-8. Does Thomas Sowell even discuss THE GOLD STANDARD or does he treat it with “studied ignorance”?

D-9. Why does the title of this Section D speak of ANOTHER false idol?