WE ARE BEING CONNED BY NEA AND OTHER EDUCATIONAL UNION PROGRAMS

Submitted by: Donald Hank

So-called outcome based education was touted as an innovative approach to education, and teachers everywhere were trained to use it. In fact, it was mind control and propaganda, and if you read this you will see clues as to why Americans -- particularly those with degrees from institutions of higher "learning" (read: indoctrination) -- no longer think for themselves, why we vote for empty suit candidates on both sides of the aisle, and why there are fewer and fewer paying jobs in America and an unwieldy destabilizing debt.

Thanks to Joan for passing this on. It is no longer in print but more timely than ever.

Don Hank

 

"OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION" ?

MASSIVE PUBLIC RELATIONS CON?
By Joan E. Battey

A clever Midwest printer marketed a bumper-sticker: "Outcome Based Education? The Outcome Is Ignorance!" Many American parents and taxpayers are discovering that he may be MUCH closer to correct, than educators who spend millions of our dollars marketing the idea that fluff and nonsense will make American students higher achievers than old-fashioned nose-to-the-books learning that brought us to world leader status, and inspired great inventions and culture.

What is Outcome Based Education (OBE)? First, it's nothing like common sense would lead you to suppose. Non-informed citizens mistakenly think it's synonymous with high levels of literacy, math, science, etc. No! Today's "outcomes" are purposefully vague statements about "meeting highest world class standards; excelling to students' highest potentials; developing problem solving abilities; critical thinking, etc." Marvelous "outcomes"! So why are poor skills and near-illiteracy more common than real achievements?

It can't be explained in a single column, but maybe a few facts could move readers to question where, and how, and why their money is subsidizing fluff nonsense, ego-boosting (false self-esteem), and social agendas to the near-exclusion of solid academic achievements.

There are three stages of OBE, as outlined by original proponents (Spady, Champlin and others): 1. Traditional OBE (closely resembling education as we used to know it); 2. Transitional OBE (slipping in some techniques of behavior-modification and group learning); and 3. Transformational OBE (where the primary focus is on changing students' attitudes and beliefs rather than on academics, and. which proponents hoped to see totally in place by 2OOO) New York's New Compact for Learning sets "goals" for "what students will know, do and be like by graduation time." It's "to change the way we raise our children," and it calls for "parents to support school values and attitudes--rather than the other way around.

OBE phases out and eventually eliminates "letter grades" as being ineffective for "assessing student progress." Under OBE, no failure is permitted. So, students take and retake the same test over and over until they pass. Students who pass on the first try are expected to tutor poorer students, rather than progressing further themselves. Johnson City recently had, according to parents in that district, 2000 incompletes at the end of a semester, for a student enrollment of 1400. (Local news media never reported that parents presented the school board with petitions bearing over 300 signatures demanding a return to "letter grading' and an end to unlimited retesting on the same material without penalty to students' standings.)

            With OBE, everything must be "relevant to students' current and future lives." Thus, students demonstrate math ability by relating math to such things as "personal wellness and nutrition," and literature is confined to studies of current social issues and political agendas--often written from a single point of view. Where students used to be required to discuss books in depth, they now must "tell what your family does in situations like the book described."  (Is the family supporting the school's agendas?)  Though academic skills have been declining rapidly for a number of years, class time is often taken up with "surveys" of students' views and activities regarding intensely personal topics, and asking information on family members' habits as well  (Changing beliefs and attitudes??).

One of the most-frequently cited "outcomes" is 'tolerance of a diversity of peoples and lifestyles.' Thus (as in the proposed new History Curriculum Standards), George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and most other traditional Americans, (as well as The Constitution and other documents) have all but disappeared. They have been replaced by frequent and expanded coverage of many people included more for their backgrounds than their achievements. The complaints are not that these new inclusions should have been omitted, but that they were hastily chosen to replace people and events that created and sustained the United States.

OBE claims to know exactly what the future will be like, and thus claims to know exactly what students "must be like to meet the challenge of the future." OBE shifts education from academics to "thematic learning," which then uses academics classes to intensify study of desired "themes": diversity, social problems, crime, etc. These classes then become opportunities for attitudinal changes, behavior and belief modification, and political activism. Students are deprived of time-honored academic means of building thought and creativity from a broad-based input of cultural and technical sources, to be better-equipped for a future that will include "surprises" that can't be anticipated now! In preparation for this future that educators plan, students spend endless time "role playing," "dressing in costumes," "putting on trials" of historical and contemporary figures -- and even each other! 

What happens when the future doesn't match these scripts and role playing exercises? What happens when all students have been forbidden to learn "phonics' and must rely on words they "have seen before, or guess at, or substitute"-- to decipher what they see in print? (That's how OBE teaches reading!) What happens when taxpayers go broke turning schools into Community Centers with social workers, data base files on students and families, clinics, job training, and day care? (That's what OBE/New Compact plans call for.)

Iowa Research Group Jan. '95 "Christian Conscience" published a report on the June '94 Model Schools Conference in Atlanta. 1300 educators and public figures heard memorable statements such as these: "Memorization and recall are mindless work." (former superintendent of Johnson City Schools). "Most people are too busy working to pay attention to the education of their own children . . that's why we require children to board at school." (Chairwoman of Chinese Intellectual Resources Development Center) "Peasant Class will explode and be composed of unskilled service workers. No middle class exists; the Bureau of Standards has already identified this trend." ("Internet for Educators" speakers). OBE? You bet! This Model Schools conference was sponsored by a group directed by a former co-trainer with William Spady at Outcome-Based Education seminars--who also "held a series of management positions at the NYS Dept. of Education, and led initiatives on the current restructuring of education in NYS," according to "Calif Schools, Winter '94 issue." The Asst. Director of that sponsoring group is currently "also employed by the NYS Dept. of Education as Regional Curriculum Supervisor."

OBE? What is it? Don't be fooled into thinking your district doesn't have OBE! It goes by several names (so you won't catch on), but most of it is already in every district, and all of it will follow as soon as it can be put in place. If you value your children, or your culture, get "educated" about OBE. It's not what you think!  IT WILL AFFECT US ALL!