RECURRENT FAD

The Ghost of OBE Past Haunts Education Still

Wednesday, September 22, 1993

By Robert Holland

The State Board of Education wanted to define the desirable “outcomes” of education by which children should be measured.  The Department of Education brought in consultants from outside Virginia to assist in the task

Bureaucratic brainstorming yielded dozens of learner outcomes, many of them having to do with shaping attitudes.  A primary goal, said the educrats, should be “cooperation of individuals within groups…and cooperation of groups within other groups.”

These were some of the critical attitudes they wanted to instill:

·        The tendency to subordinate personal desire to the public good.

·        The urge to apply critical and experimental thinking to the problems of everyday life.

·        The disposition to be an economic asset.

A commentator explained that this common core of learning was devised to replace the academic disciplines of social studies, science, and English with “challenging social problems” such as the environment.  Students would put their higher-order thinking skills to work in relevant ways.  Studying in that fashion would “set the stage for cooperation rather than competition.”

Objections to the squishy, life-role outcomes were brought to the attention of the Governor of Virginia.  He agreed that education should be primarily about the basics.  He ordered the Department of Education to withdraw the program immediately.

Was that the scenario for Governor Douglas Wilder’s surprising strike last Wednesday at the heart of Outcome-Based Education?  Pretty close.  Actually, however, I’m describing Governor Tom Stanley’s indignant move 37 years ago against what he considered a soft-headed and even “socialistic” curriculum.

The outcomes in the Common Core of Learning shelved last week by Wilder are remarkably similar to those above, as described in J. L. Blair Buck’s 1952 history of public education in Virginia.  From the May 27, 1993 CCL version that has stirred such bitter controversy across the state: Understand the views and needs of others, Communicate and cooperate with people of varied backgrounds.  Use the environment responsibly.  Identify community problems and negotiate solutions contributing to the public good.

This illustrates the cyclical nature of the sappy fads with which education is plagued, as well as the daunting task facing any theorists who would define education according to social goals.

The OBE specter is far more serious this time around, however.  Stanley was essentially beating a dead pedagogy, while Wilder was cutting his political losses for a program developed for three years by his appointees with his knowledge.  Buck wrote that the outcomes curriculum begun in 1932 on a 10-year time line never got much use; teachers massively ignored it.

Even if Wilder scrupulously upholds his vow to stop spending millions on touchy-feely experiments and to leave curriculum decisions to local communities, the big question now is whether states are going to be left alone to leave localities alone.  At the federal level the Clintonites have national assessments and equalized outcomes in mind.  And in an impending reauthorization, they seek to have Congress change the massive Chapter One law from a block grant program to one enforcing OBE principles as a condition of aid.

On a more hopeful note:  This issue has mobilized whole battalions of parents.  Contrary to what certain quote-dispensing, ivory-tower pundits have opined, Wilder’s blow against OE was not primarily a victory for the Religious Right.  It was a triumph for a grassroots coalition that cut across ideological, social, and racial lines.

Much good will result if that energy is channeled in constructive ways.  Wise will be the local school board that taps into it.

What are some constructive alternatives?  Here are two starting points:

*Build on reading, the skill upon which all outcomes depend.  Reading is the best self-esteem program.  The child who can read has reason to feel good about himself.

Jeanne Chall’s Learning to Read:  The Great Debate should have ended the debate in 1975 about the best way to teach beginning reading.  Ms. Chall of the Harvard Graduate School of Education reviewed essentially all research ever done on reading.  Although she did not start out as a fan of phonics, she honestly reported that code-emphasis methods – teaching kids to “sound out” words (phonics) –clearly was the most effective way to teach beginning reading.

It is nothing short of scandalous that schools still buy into look-say (or guess-say) programs now peddled as “holistic” or “whole language.”

*Build on the Standards of Learning, which are grade-by-grade learning objectives in each of the traditional disciplines.  Former state superintendent Jack Davis, a no-nonsense educator, led in putting the SOL structure in place in 1983.  There is some fluff in the SOL – it could be substantially improved – but mostly it contains solid academic objectives.

Here’s an actual example:  By the fifth grade the student should be able “to identify the important ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.”  That’s just one of many outcomes in social studies and one that everyone can understand.  Yet under OBE, the SOL – instead of being a starting point for school reform – would have been shunted aside.

Many parent-activists worry that the Wilder action is nothing but a political ploy and that OBE will continue to be implemented without a CCL. They have cause to be suspicious.  OBE experiments such as the venture in child-directed learning at Beaverdam Elementary in Hanover County continue (with or without the backing of parents of the children who are the guinea pigs).  There is no indication yet that the Governor is halting the push for more subjective testing and teacher retraining that would drive a new feel-good curriculum.  Indeed on Pat Murphy’s radio talk show out of Hampton Roads last Friday, the Governor said the public relations was bad but “the concept is good and we’re going back to the drawing board to try to implement it.”

If it turns out that state officialdom is just engaging in more subterfuge and disinformation, the parents’ revolt will grow hotter than ever.