First Short Quiz

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johnkarls
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First Short Quiz

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1. What are “identical-twin” studies?

2. Since “identical-twin” studies focus on randomly-selected “identical twins” where each set of twins was orphaned before their first birthday and where each twin was raised in a radically-different environment, are Identical-Twin Studies viewed by scientists as THE GOLD STANDARD for determining what is genetic and what is environmental?

3. Over the decades, have Identical-Twin Studies consistently demonstrated that when inner-city identical twins are orphaned before their first birthday and one twin in each set of twins is adopted by a suburban family while the identical twin is adopted by another inner-city family -- (A) the identical twins adopted by suburban families develop by adulthood measured IQ’s equal to average suburban measured IQ’s, and (B) the identical twins adopted by inner-city families develop by adulthood measured IQ’s equal to average inner-city measured IQ’s?

4. So why is there any great mystery that so much depends on TWO factors = (A) loving and nurturing adoptive parents, and (B) an environment (BOTH home AND school) in which learning is revered rather than ridiculed?

5. The many times that we have focused on America’s 30% Permanent “Untouchable” Under-Caste occupying our inner-cities, have we recognized that the typical conditions facing the 178 “I Have A Dream”® Programs in 51 American cities during the 1990’s when Yours Truly was the volunteer Treasurer of IHAD-National were –

• SINGLE-DIGIT high-school graduation rates for the class immediately preceding, and the class immediately following, the Dreamer class.
• 99% of all Dreamers living in single-adult households.
• 95% of all Dreamers living in single-adult households headed by a druggie.
• 75%-80% of all Dreamers living in a single-adult household headed by a druggie who hands over all receipts to the pusher so that the kids have to steal just in order to eat.
• Virtually-universal recognition by inner-city 5-year-olds that their only realistic career objectives are pusher or pimp, or girl friend of a pusher or pimp graduating to whore.

6. So why do academics and policy makers LIKE TO PRETEND that the typical SINGLE-DIGIT high-school graduation rates in our inner-city ghettos are an EDUCATION problem rather than a SOCIOLOGY problem?

7. After all, does any among us who has raised children believe for a moment that an inner-city teacher can (quoting from Q-4) -- (A) be a “loving and nurturing adoptive parent” AND (b) “provide an environment (BOTH home AND school) in which learning is revered rather than ridiculed” -- when faced with a huge number of students, 75%-80% of whom (quoting from Q-5) “have to steal just in order to eat”?

8. Is our focus book “HELPING Children Succeed: What Works And Why” (2016) by Paul Tough which follows his book (which is NOT our focus) “HOW Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character” (2013)?

9. Did we study Prof. Diane Ravitch’s “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the School Privatization Movement” for our 6/17/2015 meeting, and Prof. Ravitch’s “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education” for our 9/12/2012 meeting?

10. Is Diane Ravitch N.Y.U.’s Research Professor of Education and a historian of education, and is she a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education?

11. Commenting in her 7/20/2016 blog (which is posted on http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org in the Reference Materials Section for our Oct 19 meeting), does Prof. Ravitch say vis-à-vis “HOW Children Succeed” that “It introduced the concept of grit, and suddenly reformers thought they had the key to success”?

12. Does Prof. Ravitch’s 7/20/2016 blog continue: “Fortunately Paul Tough did not cling to his discredited dogma. He realizes now that grit can’t be taught, and it doesn’t matter nearly as much as attachment and decent nurturing”?

13. Does our focus book “HELPING Children Succeed” comprise solely a couple dozen 5-page essays on a couple dozen different factors that contribute to success?

14. Accordingly, does “HELPING Children Succeed” constitute solely an Ann Landers-style set of suggestions for anyone who has contact with inner-city children? Rather than a workable program for mainstreaming America’s 30% Permanent “Untouchable” Under-Caste?

15. BTW, does “HELPING Children Succeed” begin with -- as the intended “attention grabber” -- the statement (p. 1) that in 2013 “a majority of the country’s public school students -- 51% of them, to be precise -- fell below the federal government’s threshold for being ‘low income,’ meaning they were eligible for a free or subsidized school lunch”?

16. Does UNICEF report that no other industrialized country tolerates EVEN HALF the rate of U.S. children who live in poverty -- and, indeed, the U.S. child-poverty rate is TRIPLE the rate in Germany, Austria and France and QUADRUPLE the rate in such nations as Denmark, Slovenia, Norway, The Netherlands and Finland?

17. Does the size of America’s 30% Permanent “Untouchable” Under-Caste cause America to rank DEAD LAST among industrialized countries in terms of virtually every measure of civilization (e.g., infant mortality, literacy, life expectancy, upward mobility, etc., etc.)?

18. Even though our author, Paul Tough, seems oblivious to the possibility of (quoting from Q-14) “a program for mainstreaming America’s 30% Permanent ‘Untouchable’ Under-Caste,” was such a program demonstrated to be effective back in the 1990’s?

19. HOWEVER, AS A PRELIMINARY MATTER, should the “I Have A Dream”® Program of the 1990’s which had 178 projects in 51 American inner-cities be confused with the post-1990’s IHAD Program which appears to have concentrated on suburbs and appears to have lost all of the institutional knowledge about inner-cities that was accumulated by the 178 inner-cities projects of the 1990’s?

20. Did each of the original 178 IHAD projects, virtually all of which were sponsored by a CEO of a major corporation, adopt ALL CHILDREN in the third grade of an inner-city school (no exceptions!!!) or ALL CHILDREN in the third-grade cohort of an inner-city public-housing project (no exceptions!!!) -- and provide each of them with a tutor AND mentor through high school graduation with a GUARANTEE of college tuition?

21. Did many, if not most, of the IHAD tutors and mentors become LOVING/NURTURING SURROGATE PARENTS?

22. Did adopting ALL CHILDREN (no exceptions!!!) in an inner-city school class or in an inner-city public-housing project create AN ENVIRONMENT in which learning was revered rather than ridiculed?

23. Did the first few IHAD projects have typically 60%-65% of their ORIGINAL NUMBER of Dreamers graduate from high school and proceed to college?

24. When Yours Truly, as the volunteer IHAD-National treasurer, ascertained that approximately 50% of the female Dreamers in those projects had become pregnant as a result of which they did not continue their education, did he ask the sponsors of those projects to find out why they had become pregnant?

25. Was the almost-invariable answer that the female Dreamer felt that there had NEVER been anyone in her life who cared about her and, by God, she was going to CREATE someone who would have no choice but to love her?

26. Did that information prompt Yours Truly to request those sponsors to go back and ask the 50% of the female Dreamers who had NOT become pregnant, why they hadn’t?

27. Was the almost-invariable answer that the female Dreamers who had NOT become pregnant had a person in their lives, typically one of our mentors or tutors, who had become a SURROGATE PARENT and who, more importantly, had told the Dreamer that she could make something out of herself with the IHAD program and it would “break the heart” of the Surrogate Parent if she didn’t?

28. When Yours Truly shared that information with the sponsors of all of the remainder of the 178 projects with the recommendation that they stress with EVERY tutor and mentor that EACH OF THEM should tell her/his Dreamer that it would “break the heart” of the tutor/mentor if the Dreamer did not take advantage of the IHAD program, did the rate of Dreamers graduating from high school and continuing on to college shoot up to over 90%?

29. Did the FIRST President Bush raise prodigious amounts of contributions for IHAD-Houston (where he lived) and for IHAD-Boston (which was headed by his nephew, Jamie Bush)?

30. Was the FIRST President Bush fond of saying that the “1,000 points of light” portion of his 1989 Inaugural Address was inspired by IHAD?

31. Was Hillary Clinton on the Advisory Board of IHAD until the 1992 Iowa caucuses?

32. Did President Bill Clinton’s chief domestic adviser study and report on IHAD as part of his graduate program while still at university?

33. Was Americorps first enacted in 1994 as virtually the sole result of lobbying by Chris Coons who is currently the U.S. Senator for Delaware and who, for the first 5-6 years after graduating simultaneously from Yale Law School and Yale Divinity School in 1992, was a FULL-TIME member of the staff of IHAD-National?

34. Was Chris Coons’ presence on the full-time IHAD staff underwritten by his mother, Mary Gore (who was the sponsor of IHAD-Delaware), until Chris joined the in-house legal department of his step-father, Robert Gore (the inventor of Gore-Tex)?

35. Through at least 2000, were virtually 100% of all Americorps participants tutors/mentors of the 178 IHAD projects in 51 American cities? [NB: this is NOT the same as the converse of virtually all IHAD tutors/mentors being Americorps participants.]

36. Did President Bill Clinton, during his second term, propose and sign legislation providing matching grants for IHAD-style projects for which the legislative history specified that the Congressional intent was to foster IHAD projects?

37. Although the U.S. Governmental matching grants were NOT restricted to projects that officially affiliated with IHAD-National, did the U.S. Department of Education (which administered the program) enter into an agreement with IHAD-National that IHAD-National would provide gratis IHAD-National’s 2-volume Handbook of Best Practices (© 1998) to all of the U.S. Department of Education’s projects whether or not they affiliated with IHAD?

38. So with all this demonstrated success with inner-city children and with such political support, why did America turn its back on THE PROMISED LAND and WANDER IN THE WILDERNESS for 30 years WHERE IT CONTINUES TO WANDER???

THE ANSWER TO Q-38 WILL BE ADDRESSED BY THE SECOND SHORT QUIZ.

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