Kozol Quiz No. 2 – Additional Info Re Kozol’s “Apartheid” Ghettos

[johnkarls]

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Q&A-15 of the First Short Quiz, in explaining why Yours Truly was well-qualified to compare America’s inner-city schools 1990-2005 (the subject of our focus book) with the notorious “separate but UNEQUAL” schools of the Old South before Brown vs. Board -- said with respect to the former --

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“Re the inner-city schools described by our author Jonathan Kozol during the 15 years before the 2005 publication of his “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” Yours Truly had extensive experience with those same schools during that period.

“During the 1990’s, the “I Have A Dream”® Foundation oversaw 178 IHAD programs in 51 American cities, most of which were sponsored by CEO’s of major corporations. Each program replicated Eugene Lang’s example when he returned to his alma mater, Harlem Public School 121, in 1981 and promised the entire graduating sixth-grade class their college tuition if they would stay in school and then provided each student a tutor and mentor for the 6 years until high school graduation (the 178 follow-on projects adopted third graders so it was 9 years of tutoring/mentoring plus the guarantee).

“The early IHAD programs typically replicated Eugene Lang’s 60% - 65% high school graduation – college matriculation rates. And the later IHAD programs typically achieved 90%-plus high school graduation – college matriculation rates. This despite the class just ahead and the class just behind each “Dreamer class” typically having SINGLE-DIGIT high school graduation rates.

“Yours Truly served as the Volunteer Treasurer of IHAD-National and his own IHAD program served 200 children in public-housing projects. As Volunteer Treasurer, Yours Truly had occasion to tour many of the 178 local IHAD programs in 51 American inner cities. AND NOT ONE OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ATTENDED BY THE DREAMERS FAILS TO STILL CAUSE HIM NIGHTMARES 2 DECADES LATER!!!”
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The following Questions are based on that experience of Yours Truly with MANY of the SAME AND SIMILAR SCHOOLS AND THEIR STUDENTS during the SAME PERIOD that Jonathan Kozol was describing in “Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America.”


1. What are Identical Twin Studies?

2. Are Identical Twin Studies the Gold Standard for determining what is genetic and what is environmental (for even such things as sexual preference) by identifying identical twins who were orphaned before their first birthday and raised in radically different environments?

3. Do Identical Twin Studies of inner-city children orphaned before their first birthdays where one twin was adopted by a suburban family and the other twin was adopted by another inner-city family -- consistently show that by adulthood, the identical twins adopted by suburban families generate Measured IQ’s equal to average suburban Measured IQ’s, while their identical twins adopted by inner-city families generate Measured IQ’s equal to average inner-city Measured IQ’s?

4. In other words, do Identical Twin Studies consistently demonstrate that our inner-city children have THE SAME INTELLIGENCE POTENTIAL as the rest of the population and their failure to reach that potential is PURELY ENVIRONMENTAL?

5. Do our inner-city children know before age 5 that they are INELIGIBLE for their dreams?

6. Was this made PAINFULLY CLEAR to Yours Truly with the first group of housing-project third graders adopted by his own IHAD-Stamford(CT) program?

7. Did he and his Board decide that the best way to recruit volunteer tutors/mentors was with a brochure illustrated with colorful “kid art” comprising what children in our housing project wanted to be when they grew up?

8. So did he and his Board ask the Minister of the Baptist Church across the street from our housing project to have each child in his Kindergarten Church School draw one Sunday morning what each would like to be when s/he grew up?

9. Were Yours Truly and his Board SEVERELY CRITICIZED by the adults in the housing project for the resulting “kid art” brochure???

10. Were we criticized because ALL OF THE KID ART portrayed nurses, teachers, airplane pilots, chefs, etc., etc. – ALL OF WHOM WERE WHITE???

11. After apologizing profusely, did it occur to Yours Truly and his Board to go back and check ALL 35-40 DRAWINGS???

12. And did EVERY ONE of those drawings portray a WHITE PERSON???

13. In other words, did EVERY ONE of those kindergartners KNOW BY AGE 5 that s/he was INELIGIBLE FOR HER/HIS DREAMS???

14. Is that surprising when the typical conditions facing the “Dreamers” in our 178 IHAD Programs in 51 American cities were --

99% of the Dreamers living in single-adult households;

95% of total Dreamer households headed by single adults who were drug addicts; and

75%-80% of total “Dreamer” households headed by a single-adult druggie who turned over any receipts to the pusher so the kids had to steal just in order to eat.

15. Is it any wonder that the H.S. graduation rates for the class just ahead of each Dreamer class and just behind each Dreamer class WERE TYPICALLY SINGLE DIGITS???

16. Was the “Project Coordinator” (the “mother hen” for the flock of Dreamers) for my first group of Dreamers just graduating from Columbia U. after a career as a four-year starter on the Women’s basketball team?

17. Did Valerie Purdie (I hope she won’t mind my using her name -- she is currently a social psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia U) grow up in the projects?

18. From her experience growing up, did she know that THE PUSHERS recruit the third graders AS RUNNERS because they don’t want to risk being arrested themselves?

19. So did Valerie, the first day on the job, size up the housing project to identify the pushers and challenge each of them to basketball one-on-one???

20. I don’t recall what Valerie promised if she lost, but did she make each of the pushers whom she beat promise to refrain from recruiting any of our Dreamers as runners???

21. Did she beat ALL of the pushers??? And did they mind being beaten by a woman because, after all, she was a four-year starter for Columbia and she was beating EVERY ONE OF THEM???

22. So is it surprising that children in our inner-city ghettos KNOW BY AGE 5 that they are NOT ELIGIBLE for their Dreams???

23. And that their only realistic career objectives are Pimp or Pusher, or girl friend of a Pimp or Pusher, graduating to Whore???

24. BTW, was Valerie an outstanding success because every child in the projects knows that if s/he can steal a pair of sneaks, s/he can play basketball???

25. And BTW, did the secret dream of inner-city males to play in the NBA provide a terrific math exercise for our Dreamers??? Because all of them know exactly how many NBA players there are, the average length of an NBA career, etc. and, if you give them a few seconds, exactly how many new NBA players there are each year???

26. And are they sobered up very quickly by the fact that the answer is approximately 50 new NBA players every year – and how many states are there in the country, and are they the best player in their own school, much less their state???

27. So why don’t they stick with the IHAD program which ONLY REQUIRES ATTENDANCE to become a doctor or lawyer???

28. BTW, does Jonathan Kozol talk at great length about how few whites there were in the inner-city schools that he visited???

29. In all of the 178 inner-city IHAD schools in 51 American cities that Yours Truly had the privilege of visiting (NB: he is NOT claiming to have visited all of them), did he EVER SEE a white student???