European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 12, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 6 the stars and stripes thursday september 12, 1985 shopping Mair High schools condemned by researchers Washington a three education researcher wednesday unveiled a chilling portrait of the american High school As a shopping mall that offers something for everybody but does Little to push the average student to Ward Mastery of academics. The schools have done a Masc Ray Job at Selling the importance of High school attendance but have failed in the attempt to sell to most students the value of working hard to learn to use one s mind authors Arthur g. Pow Ell. Eleanor Farrar and David k. Cohen concluded. In this consumer oriented institution. You can get As much or As Little As you choose they said in a Book the shopping mall High school. Winners and in ers inthe educational if you choose to buy Little the problem is yours no the mall s. The mall is Neutral about the kinds of Pur chases you make and about How informed a consumer you ire. The mall wants your regular presence and your Good behaviour and for that alone it will sell you a diploma. The researchers based their portrait on schools they visited in the Boston area Denver san Diego Cleveland Mobile ala., and other Sites in 1981 and 1982. They found one school that took 65 typeset pages to describe the 400 available courses and another that offered 480 courses. Some courses with virtually the same titles ranged from the easy to the exacting. In order to entice and graduate the entire adolescent population and ensure that most arc somehow the Belte for it High schools make numerous accommodations with academic rigor they said. This produces a Neutral environment where a do your own thug attitude school allows students to Lake up to 36 percent of their credits during grades 10 through 12 in marching and concert the researchers found. Many teachers with Little commitment or skill wish to retain their jobs. They use student passivity As an excuse to cover up their own passivity they said. Using pseudonyms the Book tells of actual teachers who regale students with lid bils from their own love lives. Such lackadaisical teachers Settle for a relaxed classroom atmosphere As an end in itself. Lacking education and commitment to their work they too prefer undemanding classes. They Are satisfied As Long As students Atland and arc nol act As if they believe that the smarts needed for life arc nol really taught in High school the authors assign Little or no Homework and some tolerate students who listen through headsets to Sony Walkman As Long As the volume is kept Low. But the Book also depicts an exacting teacher leading an advanced English class in a probing discussion of Ibsen splay a doll s High schools typically offer challenging courses for students on inc fast track the authors said As Well As special services for slow learners or disruptive students. But the great mass of students in the Middle arc often poorly served by the shopping mall High school the authors very factors thai make Many average youngsters in special they arc neither skilled enough nor problematic enough to stand out also make them trouble free invisible and taken for granted by schools they said. Parents of such children should become forceful advocates themselves and should organize if they individually Lack the Means to Send their children to another Powell is executive director of inc Boson based project. A study of High schools. Farrar is a senior policy analyst at Abt associates inc., in Cambridge mass., and Cohen is a professor at the Harvard graduate school of education. They wrote their Book As pan of the same study of High schools that earlier produced Horace s Compromise a Book by Theodore r. Sizer that called for a Radical re structuring of secondary education. Suicides in 15-24 age group tripled in 30 years panel told Washington up the suicide Rale among Young people has tripled in 30 years to reach epidemic proportions and More Federal help is needed to reduce the death loll. Congress was told tuesday. Legislators and social workers and a 16 year old boy who talked a Friend out of leaping off a Bridge testified at a hearing on Bills to examine Why children kill themselves and to create school suicide prevention programs. In 1981. The latest year for which fed Al figures Are available the suicide rate among americans Between theates of 15 and 24 was 12.3 per 100,000 a 50 percent increase Over 1970 and a 300 percent jump from 1950 to 1980. Teen age suicide has reached epidemic proportions Inthis nation. Rep. Gary Ackerman d-n.y., told a House subcommittee on education. Half a million children try to kill themselves each year and tragically 5,000 of Ackerman a chief sponsor of legislation to provide fed eral Grants to create suicide prevention centers at schools said our children arc crying out for help. Without it More and More of them will Fred Wyall 16, said he reached out himself last year held the Belt of a distraught Friend standing on a Bridge in Washington and talked him out of leaping to his death. He was saying no one cares. My parents Don t care. My Girlfriend does t care. Life does t care. No one wants to help me. Nothing is going right " Wyall told in panel. I told him you have to think of life As a Bunch of hurdles. If you trip Over one you can t Stop the race restarted to cry Walt said. He said his Friend sought help and is now doing rep. Tom la los. A Calif. Said the government needs to do More. He said Federal funds for suicide prevention have Al but disappeared during the past decade and funds for suicide research arc Given no priority. If we can t spend $1.5 million to find out Why our Young people Are killing themselves then our priorities Are off la los. Who is sponsoring legislation to study what Federal action is needed to reduce suicides said. John Carswell executive Dirc Clor of he Parsons Chil Dren and family Center a Home for troubled children in Albany n.y., said the problem of youth suicide is increasing by critical proportions. It will not go he said answers Are Complex and require coordinated leadership from the Federal government to provide assist Ance to slates and local communities but most of All tothe Young people stateside a a sixth poisonous leak in month reported in Cherrial Valley Nitro . A a Railroad banker leaked hydrochloric acid for about 30 minutes in the second Usu leak in two Days was the sixth poisonous leak in the area in a month. No one was evacuated As workers cleaned up the Small spill which followed a derailment in a Conrail freight Yard officials said. The site of the latest leak is about 20 blocks from Fike chemical where Methyl my Captan leaked sunday tend ing five people to hospitals for evaluation. The string of leaks in the chemical Valley where 13 plants sit along 25 Miles of the Kanawha River began aug. 11 when a pesticide ingredient leaked at Union car bide s Institute Plant sending 135 people to hospitals. Since then. Union Carbide s South Charleston Plant hit had two substantial leaks and Olin corp. And Fike chem ical each have had one significant release. Asbestos contaminated trailers will be buried Epa announces Globe Ariz. A the burial of 40 trailer in an Asbestos contaminated Mobile Home Park will begin next week five years and $7 million after the suspected Carci Nogen was discovered there a Federal official says. It should take two weeks to Bury the Mountain View Mobile Home estates wrapping up the cleanup . Environmental Agency spokesman Terry Wilson said. Maitland Hydro corp. Of Las vegas ncv., will perform the si.9 million demolition Wilson said. The Tola 17 million Cost includes the relocation of Mobile Home Resi dents after Asbestos was discovered in 1979. Chrysotile Asbestos was discovered by a state health inspector who was checking a sewage problem. The Mobile Home Park was built in 1973 on Asbestos tailings left froma Mill that went out of operation in 1972. Since the silo was added to the superfund list in 1982, the Epa has spent about $7 million on the relocation and cleanup. First c-5b transport plane makes 3-hour Maiden flight Marietta a. A the first of 50 huge a in transport jets roared into the air on its Maiden flight la a three hour lest Here officials said. The plane flown to an Altitude of 15,000 feet and my airspeed of 345 Mph began a 55-hour flight lest program by the plane s maker. Lockheed Georgia corp. Systems checks were performed while each of its Genera electric engines was alternately shut Down and restarted. The c-5b is an updated version of the c-5a, the largest military transport in the free world. The first c-5b u to be delivered to the air Force this year. All items in today1 test profile were accomplished with no complication a no surprises said test Pilot Bernic Dvorscak. New Captain assumes command of battleship new Jersey Long Beach Calif. Dpi the new Jersey be world War ii battleship whose modernized gun support de . Marines in Lebanon in 1984, has a new caption a. Lewis Glenn or. Glenn assumed command of the new Jersey in � Cere Mony aboard the battleship at its Home port. Capt. Richard Milligan 49, who completed a two year tour of duty As Captain of the battleship was promoted to the rank of Commodore and will take Over As comptroller of the naval sea systems come in Washington a spoke Man for the new Jersey said. Draft resistor s sentence to Hurt society judge admits los Angeles a draft resistor David Waytz was sentenced tuesday to six months of House arrest at his grandmother s Home and barred from doing Community service although the judge concede society will suffer As a result. . District judge Terry Hatter said the unusual ban on Community service during Wayte s probation would be a grave punish ment for a socially conscious activist who is deeply involved in such service. Halter said he lost sleep monday night trying to devise the proper sentence for Wayte 24, a former Yale University philosophy student who fought his Case up to the us. Supreme court. Society loses in a sense Hollcr said of the sentence but it gains in that it has a person punished for violating Wayne who works Al a school for disabled adults and at a shelter and soup Kitchen for the homeless in Pasadena con tended he was prosecuted Only because of protests such As writing Ami draft letters to then president Carter. . Supreme court upheld that decision. Wayne then pleaded guilty to a Sincle count of failing to Register which carries a a oooo Mcnally of � a cars " prison and the a in s attorney Mark Rosinbaum Ofin a n civil liberties Union Araud Wayne and his wife Jackie were All slaying with his grandmother and the de sense team said Wayte would go Home Tad stay there. The draft registration Law enacted to Rem a recommended courthouse Steps in july 1982, Wayte was indicted on one count of failing to Register. In november of that year. Halter ruled that inc of Crimeni had violated Wayte s right to free speech by prosecuting Only vocal draft resisters. Non Vii Kij a Al our is his selective service i a Federal appeals court overturned Hal grandmother h r confined 10 h s ?80 he decided i 3. And in March the oud be allo Edtl a s3, to. The selective service although the Drift itself is not in effect. Primarily Hal Duris Ter s ruling in july 1983, Wayte said he Learned about Noav Lenic while studying in High school the writ Ings of Henry David Thoreau and Mohib Das k. Gandhi. When he received a selective service notice at Yale in jul not to Register became i part of my government preparation for i
