HERRNSTEIN AND JENSEN WHY PUBLICITY?

To the Editors of the Crimson:

Perhaps the Crimson or someone else at Harvard can enlighten me.

Dr. Jensen writes a paper concluding that compensatory education has failed and that very little can be done to raise I.Q. and gets his message published in the prestigious Sunday Times Magazine Section.

Dr. Herrnstein regurgitates Jensen's conclusions, adds a few "insights" of his own, and gets his message published by the prestigious Atlantic Monthly and summaries printed in major newspapers and news magazines.

Dr. Rick Haber of the University of Wisconsin takes children of mother of I.Q. 70 or under and by intervention produces I.Q. of between 128 and 130 as compared to a control group of 80 I.Q. Dr. Weikart of Michigan and Dr. Levenstein of New York also report dramatic increse in I.Q. as a result of intervention.

One does not have to be paranoid or a member of the SDS to wonder why Haber and Weikart don't get the same publicity as Jensen and Herrnstein. Furthermore why doesn't the academic community challenge Jensen and Herrnstein to explain the Haber and Weikart results or publicly admit that their conclusion and insights need to be reconsidered?

It this were merely an academic debate, it wouldn't matter. Funding for education research and intervention during the very early years depends, in part, on public confidence in the efficacy of these programs. The news media and the academic community are not meeting their responsibility in this matter. George Purvin   Graduate School of Education