[mikebenfield]

> 2. Why aren't all research publications required to be accompanied by a second abstract written in plain low jargon language that can be understood at some level by someone with high school science?

Because the target audience of research publications is other researchers in the same field; while outreach to nonscientists is fine, it's simply not the goal of a research paper.

Besides, for many papers this is impossible and/or pointless. My research results are incremental results in a specialized subfield of mathematics. I don't know how to explain them in anything but the vaguest terms to anyone without a reasonable background in that subfield, and I also don't know why such a person would care about them.