European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 22, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 12 the stars and stripes wednesday june 22, 1977 Jesse l. Jackson passing the failures the real failure he mwtc0me ask still he s Surett stay on 7e same course As w off cd Ous caftaim5 Here s a name to note Albert . He is a rebel. He has dared to Chal Lenge and expose one of America s great scandals. He is on unlikely revolutionary. Alber Briggs is a District school superintendent in Chicago. His bold and revolutionary a twas to refuse to promote 675 of his District s 1,289 eighth graders to High school because they can t read at the level of a child Halfway through the sixth  warned that he was going to do it last year and created rending clinics to help seventh and eighth graders improve their Reading skills. That helped Many of them who will go to High school in septem Ber and at least raised the Hopes of some of those who failed. It seems a simple thing expecting High school students to read As Well As sixth graders. But it in t a simple thing and that s Why Briggs act is significant an important. A High school diploma has been a univer Sally understood Symbol in american society. It certifies those who hold it As having mastered a Basic collection of in formation. At the least it certifies Young men and women As having a Basic grasp of Reading writing and arithmetic. But somewhere along the line the Symbol was corrupted and overpowered the reality. High schools especially but not exclusively those in our major cities have been awarding High school diplomas Soyoung men and women who cannot read or write or count. The diplomas these Young people proudly clutch on graduation Day Are invalid certificates. These diplomas that fraudulently certify Mastery of critical skills deceive the graduates deceive and defraud the taxpayers deceive and weaken the labor Market. It is a Ripoff and it has gone on All Over the country for far too Long. It s easy to participate in that Ripoff be cause it s become Standard operating practice. Teachers routinely alter and unashamedly inflate grades. And principals knowingly accept the practice. School boards do not discourage the practice and so encourage it. It s an appalling scandal a massive Ripoff and there s Only one Way to Stop it demand Reading and writing or repeat. Make the student repeat the Grade until her she can read and write and count. Demanding that Many repeat last year work requires courage because of the Chal Lenges it raises. It Means standards must be reassessed and Many can t pass. I Means evaluating teachers competence and Many can t pass. It Calls for establish ing accountability a Point on which far too Many boards of education superintendents and principals take a pass. It takes courage to promote the concept of repeating because it is a revolutionary attack on institutionalized mediocrity. I discredits the official acceptance of failure As a Basic Clement of american  students who Aren t learning must repeat then so must some teachers whore not teaching. And so must principals who fail to organize disciplined schools an faculties. Parents and educators must join Rankin a drive for competence in learning and teaching. If they unite their collective will cannot be denied. Imagine their potential Power. But first parents and educators must decree the concept of and demand the practice of repeating. Educators have the Legal authority to do it parents Havethe moral obligation to accept it for their children. In Chicago District supt. Briggs exercised his authority and he s won the sup port of parents. That s Why he s won National attention with a gesture that haste potential to be the big Rock that hits the water and sends Ripples of duplication across the nation. For Briggs passing failing student through was the real failure. After All a Hospital patient should leave until he s recovered. Everyone know passing through is  car should t leave the Detroit Assem Bly line until it can perform at Waran teed Levels. Passing through is  so it should be in our schools. Young men and women should t leave until they be gained and conquered informal Tion adequate to justify their  through is insufficient. William f. Buckley definition Snag in fight on smut Ever since the supreme court i Miller y. California ruled that in defining obscenity Community standards should be consulted the question arose. How do we know what Community standards Are the traditional answer to such a question is ask a jury. The formal language of the common Law Speaks of a jury of one s  chief Justice Burger writing the majority decision in Miller asked the famous question concerning Community standards. Here s what he said a work can be judged to be obscene and proscribed by local statute if the average person applying contemporary Community standards would find that work Sakenas a whole appeals to the prurient inter est would find that the work depicts or describes in a patently offensive Way sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state Law and the work taken As a whole lacks serious literary artistic political or scientific  in Cleveland the City fathers set out armed with this franchise to crack Down on some of the Raun Chier establishments of their City. They arrested in the course of the Campaign several Hundred persons. But in due course these were All Back in the Trade pandering their depravity is and it looked As though the supreme court franchise would prove to be a dead letter. The court has had much More Luck ban Ning prayer from the schools than pornography from the Bookstall. The news is that the people in Clevel Andare going to try again. They have identified As the weakest defined Here As the most difficult to document phrase in the supreme court s ruling contemporary Community  there was a great fuss raised about this in connection with the conviction of Harry Reems the Star exhibitionist of Dee Throat who was tried in Memphis Tenn. How can one the defense raised the Point impose the standards of Memphis on new York City people in new York ten to believe that people in Memphis would ban As obscene a kiss on the lips of Lea Nette Macdonald by Nelson Eddy that is a part of new York s provincialism. But the Point survives How wide is the Community is there a sense in which for these purposes the whole of the United states is one Community if not then How Large Are the discrete communities How Small can one City Block be thought of As indulging certain standards impermissible in an adjacent Block Cleveland is approaching the problem by distributing Over 100,000 questionnaires to a very Large Cross Section of its people. Whether it was intended As ironical the distribution of these questionnaires i being effected by the garbage collectors. " we he Iii Iii Fri Nav Pic \ Tion Aires look like. Professor Alan us Howitz of Harvard the defender of Harry rests acknowledged in a Public debate that he himself would not deny the right of a movie theater to exhibit a snuff film provided it was not filmed within the unite states or advertised in the press or on the marquees. A snuff film for the uninitiated. Is a film in which someone is killed to satisfy the sadistic impulses of the viewer and. Let us Hope the masochistic impulses of the per former. Question is prurient the Correct word to define the taste of someone who de sires to see a snuff film prurient can mean merely a curious itch but no one would speak of a prurient concern spread the works of Aristotle. What about pornography involving Sado masochism what about pornography involving Chil Dren beasts How can a questionnaire describe that which is patently offensive b this an invitation to draw a line Between a Vargas girl and a Hustler Centrefold can the questionnaire elicit responsible answers without depicting samples of the material How can persons filling out the question Naire judge the work if he is Given Only a part fit difficulties but the Experiment is Worth watching.