The Michigan Daily-Friday, June 4, 1982-Page 3
BACK TO BASICS FOR KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS
State school district flunks 400

BENTON HARBOR (AP)- More than 400 students
in kindergarten through second grades will be
flunked when the school year ends today under a
tough new program designed to boost basic math and
reading skills, officials say.
The normal failure rate in the district is about 5
percent, and "no one's happy with the fact that 22
percent of the kids lack the skills," Superintendent
James Hawkins said yesterday. "But we're here to
do a job."
AT A SCHOOL board work session earlier this
week, Kaye Jeter, elementary education director,
reported that 459 of the district's 2,083 kindergarten
through second-grade pupils would not be promoted
to higher grades unless they managed to catch up in
the last days of the school year. She estimated that
h only a few would be able to pass.

Hawkins said some of the flunking students would
have a chance to redeem themselves by catching up
in a special, voluntary summer school program.
The students being held back have not met math
and reading objectives established in the "minimal
skills" program -started last fall in the first three
grades.
HAWKINS SAID district students had repeatedly
shown to be at or near the bottom when their scores
on standard tests were compared with those of
children mother districts.
"Something had to be done about it. It was obvious
the kids were not reaching basic skill levels,"
Hawkins said. "After a lot of study, we decided we
needed to establish some performance standards.
"We haven't had any backlash thus far. But the full
impact may not have been felt by the parents."

HAWKINS SAID there is a consensus among people
in the southwest Lower Michigan community of about
17,000 that "kids ought to do better academically."
He said parent groups were involved in planning the
new program.
School district spokesman Clem Cleveland said
most parents probably already knew if their children
were in danger of flunking.
"Parents, teachers and principals are brought
together when the determination is made whether a
child should be retained," Cleveland said, adding
that parents of students with problems were notified
as early as December or January.
UNDER THE NEW program, which will be exten-
ded next fall to the third and fourth grades, a daily
summary was kept of each child's progress in
reading and math, Cleveland said. Students having
trouble were given extra help.

House passes
penalties for
spy exposure

WASHINGTON (AP) -The House
gave its final approval yesterday to
compromise legislation permitting
three-year jail terms for journalists or
scholars who deliberately expose the
identities of American spies.
The vote for, the Intelligence Iden-
tities Protection Act was 315-32 and
the measure now goes to the Senate
where final congressional action is
almost certain, perhaps next week.
THE MEASURE has administration
backing and is likely to be signed into
law by President Reagan soon after
final Senate action.
For seven years, Congress has been
attempting to protect U.S. intelligence
agents from exposure to terrorists,
while preserving free press protections
of the First Amendment to the Con-
stitution.
Critics predicted that the bill ap-
proved by the House would be struck
down as unconstitutional in the courts.
"FOR THE FIRST time in American
history, the publication of information
obtained lawfully from publicly
available sources would be made
illegal," said Rep, Don Edwards (D-
Calif.).
A supporter, Rep. Henry Hyde (R-
ec 0
thinking, s
By SCOTT STUCKAL
Society's increasing reliance on com-
puters and communications
technologies is drastically changing the
way people think, according to a Ford
marketing executive.
Computer-aided-technologies,, from
video games to word processors, have
"become the means through which we
conceptualize reality," said Marilyn
King this week while participating in a
high technology lecture series spon-
sored by Eastern Michigan University.
KING, WHO studies consumer at-
titudes for Frod, said that such
technology has a "pervasive influence"
on people's thoughts.

Ill.) countered: "We often ask our
covert agents - and their sources of in-
telligence - to risk their lives in the
national interest. The very least we can
do is protect their identities from
assassins and terrorists."
The first legislation was introduced in
1975 after the assassination of Richrd
Welch, the CIA station chief in Athens.
His name had been published in the
magazine Counter Spy, published by
dissident former CIA official Philip
Agee.
A NUMBER OF similar incidents
followed, although there is
disagreement over whether terrorist
attacks resulted from making agents'
identities public.
Both the House and Senate Judiciary
Committees approved bills that would
have limited prosecution of any jour-
nalist or scholar to those who
specifically intended to "impair or im-
pede" U.S. intelligence activities.
The House and Senate, however, seta
less stringent standard under which a
prosecutor would have to demonstrate
only that a person had "reason to
believe" that identifying U.S. spies
would disrupt American intelligence
operations.
inluences
ays exee

DOROTHY JONES, former coordinator at the University's Institute for
Labor and Industrial Relations, discusses some of the problems women
currently face in the work field.
Labor adrccate looks
at women in workforce


An example of video's effect on
thought patterns can be found in the
public's conception of Robert Young,
star of "Marcus Welby, M.D.," as a
doctor rather than a television perfor-
mer, King said. 250,000 people have
written to Young for medical advice,
King noted, and even the American
Medical Association asked him to ad-
dress.a medical convention.
Clearly we need to be alert to the
modification of our behavior by video,
King said. "We must step back and
consider what it all means."
"Today's computer whizzes in their
20's may be outstripped by computer
generation kids," King said.

By FANNIE WEINSTEIN
If unions are successful in organizing
office workers, the power of this coun-
try's female labor force will be almost
limitless, according to Dorothy Jones,
former coordinator of program
specialists at the University's Institute
for Industrial and Labor Relations.
There are 20 million clerical workers
in this country, 80 percent of whom are
women, according to Jones. They make
up one-third of the total female labor
force, she added, which is the largest
single concentration of women in the
country's work force.
"THE MOVE IS on to organize that
sector . . . Women will be able to
demand their worth," Jones said.
"Do you know what would happen if
you organized all working women?"
she asked. "You'd have enough power
to move Mount St. Helens.".
Jones, presently assistant director
of the Walter Reuther Senior Centers in
Detroit, began her union career with
United Auto Workers Local630 in1972..

FOR SIX years prior to that, she
worked on the assembly line at
Chrysler's Ann Arbor factory where 80
percent of the employees werewomen.
Before she decided to run for a union
position, which she did partly because
of a dare from a friend, Jones said she
knew very little about the union or how
it worked.
"The top leadership was male.
Women were not encouraged," she
said. "I was in the union six years and
all I knew were dues."
JONES SAID her first contact with
ILIR came while she was serving as a
union steward and decided to take
classes on topics such as collective
bargaining and arbitration through the
ILIR's Labor Studies Program.
While attending one of the institute's
workshoe on stewarding, Jones was
given the opportunity to teach the cour-
se when the instructor was forced to
leave midway through the term.
Since that first workshop, Jones has
See LABOR, Page5