Page 4-Thursday, June 1, 1978-The Michigan Daily
michigan DAILY
Eighty-eight Years of Editorial Freedom

High school diploma: A
worthless piece ofpaper

420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI. 48109
Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 21-S News Phone: 764-0552
Thursday, June 1, 1978
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan

..j

Murder probes
belong o the tub
F OR YEARS legislators have argued about the
wisdom of conducting Congressional in-
vestigations to determine who was really behind
the murders of John Kennedy and Martin Luther
King, Jr.
Some have questioned the purpose of dredging
up past tragedies, saying that Congress should be
devoting all its time to current issues affecting the
country. But others have insisted that it doesn't
make sense for the public not finding out who
conceived slaying prominent national leaders.
Today, it looks as if those interested in con-
tinuing assassination investigations are the vic-
tors. The problem, however, is that. they have
achieved too much of a triumph.
The House Select Committee on Assassinations
confirmed last week that the committee's public
hearings next September and November will be
open to television coverage. Sources say that Lee
Harvey Oswald's widow Marina Oswald Porter
may appear as a star witness.
While re-opening the assassination probes is not
such a bad idea, it seems like an unwise move for
Congress in light of the fact that hearings of much
greater significance are denied television access.
Television coverage of the Nixon impeachment
hearings did prove valuable to the public, which
deserved first-hand exposure to the hearings, And
television could have been helpful to 'keep the
public up-to-date on the Panama Canal debate, for
example.
Instead, Americans will find assassination
hearings in session right in their own liv-
ing rooms. Surely Congress must realize
that if any public sessions are closed to the
television camera's eye it should be with the fall
assassination hearings.
It seems that television the Kennedy-King mur-
der investigations will serve only to appeal to the
sensationalistic instincts of the American
public-something which television does too much
of already.

By Carol Polsgrove "it's devastating to find outselves their abity1
in an economy in which education hoops."
High school dropouts are not is not valued-in which, finally, Surveyinga
alone at the bottom of the job lad- it's valued for its economic value grade youths
der. They have the company of and it has no economic value. ween 1966 and
high school graduates who do not That's both a bleak conception of ter high scho
go to college. education and a bleak world." University r
Social scientists at the Univer- THAT FAITH might be the that those wi
sity have concluded from an reason that only two percent of had a substan
eight-year study that jobs held by school gradual
male high school graduates and BUT THE
jobs held by male high school now the cole
dropouts did not differ substan- high school dil
tially in status or pay. percent of Am
UNEMPLOYMENT was school today,
higher among the dropouts in the percent in 19
sample of more than 2,000 youths. those who finis
But employed dropouts held jobs Meanwhile,
just as good-or bad-as the not kept up. T
graduates did. created betwet
"While the high school diploma "poor" in ter
used to be a big thing a benefits, acco
generation ago," said the study's zberg, Colu
director, Dr. Jerald Bachman, KEEP a economics pr
"now you need a college degree." $ EARl ma, of the Na
But those graduates who do go for Manpower
to college are not in for smooth What has oc
sailing either, according to tial inflation.'
another study issued earlier this raised the pa
year. A staff report to the Joint for jobs with
Economic , Committee of changing the j
Congress predicts continuing un- THE RESU
deremployment of college- job dissati:
educated workers. The "over- e U ste'' workers who
supply" of the college-educated teresting than
"already is suppressing the expected their
monetary returns from college the eligible age group (at least 16 them.
education," said the committee's years old) have taken Califor- There are tw
January report. nia's High School Proficiency ses to these di
IT PREDICTED that the Exam, now in its third year. tations, at wh
college-educated would keep Students passing the exam get a occur, said Gr
moving down the job ladder, certificate legally equivalent to study of "crede
"bumping" those less educated the high school diploma. But they One, sugge
to even lower positions. It also apparently do not believe the cer- Freeman, at
warned of possibly serious social tificate is worth as much as the Overeducated.
discontent stemming from "the diploma in the job market, ac- give people mo
implied limitation on education cording to Charles Benson, an tations.
as a route to economic advan- education professor at the The other r
cement." University of California at own, is that "
Norton Grubb, research Berkeley. lousy sets of jo
economist at the University of Benson, who is working on a than getting
California at Berkeley, said that study to evaluate the exam, said tations congrut
to the usual complaints made that informal discussions with we should get t
about schools, such as declining students indicate that even the with people's e
test scores and violence, a new "quasi-dropouts"-those with
one has been added: that low attendance and poor Carol Pols
schooling does not pay off grades-"seem to believe that lance writer o
economically. the employer values the high faculty of Ea
"Since we've always attached school diploma," not as evidence University's,
such hope to education," he 55a, of learning, but as "evidence of Mass Commu
LETTERS TO THE DAILY:
A matter of words
To The Daily: for making either prediction just
Perhaps my colleagues didn't exist, and that one guess
Whiting and Converse knew what was no bette than the other. I did
they were doing when they said not say that the Administration
"no comment" to your reporter's was incorrest in its prediction.
request for a reaction to the Mid-
dIe East airplane sales. I very WHILE ONE expects the mass
explicitly told (reporter Michael) media to distort-given the
Arkush that neither side had solid trained incapacity of the repor-
grounds for predicting that the ters and their search for the
shipment of these weapons would dramatic-but when University
make the region more war-prone students show this kind of moral
or less war-prone. and intellectual carelessness, one
I said that the knowledge base wonders whether we're doing ourA
n.- ' M m a educational jobs adequately. I've
Letters should be typed and limited been misinterpreted by Daily
to 400 words. The Daily reserves the reporters often, but never this .
right to edit letters for length and blatantly. Perhaps this reporter a
arnat \ . . -,' Y Tbz9ulbe putito re-training
- - - - . -.pr ga .
.. a <: M-J. David Singer

to go through them
a sample of tenth
at intervals bet-
1974, five years af-
ol graduation, the
esearchers found
th college degrees
tial edge over high
tes.
"Great Divide" is
ge degree, not the
ploma. After all, 80
ericans finish high
compared to six
00. About half of
h go on to college.
the job market has
hree out of five jobs
en 1950 and 1976 are
ms of wages and
irding to Eli Gin-
mbia University
ofessor and chair-
tional Commission
Policy.
curred is "creden-
Employers have
per requirements
hout significantly
obs.
LT can be serious
sfaction among
get jobs less in-
the ones they had
schooling to bring
o possible respon-
sappointed expec-
atever level they
ubb, who is doing a
entialing."
sted by Richard
uthor of "The
American," is to
re realistic expec-
esponse, Grubb's
we basically have
bs and that rather
people's expec-
ent with the jobs,
he jobs congruent
xpectations."
grove is a free-
n leave from the
astern Kentucky
Department of
Wications.

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