UNDERSTANDING OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION PART III BY MARY MCGARR:
Understanding Outcome Based Education Part III
By Mary McGarr
The easiest way to understand what it is about our public schools that is different is to
look at a list of those things that have been changed or newly implemented over the last
twenty years. It is one thing to “say” that things have changed, but it is quite another
to reveal the actual changes.
OBE at its heart is concerned with the following matters. See how many of them you recognize as being in place at your child‘s school. I think the reader will be surprised. Most adults believe that they received a quality education in America’s public schools. Certain teachers and subjects stand out, and one recalls them with fondness. Recall if you will the kinds of things you were taught and how they were taught to you. Does anything come to mind that was upsetting to you to have had to learn? Do you believe that what you learned in school would have met with your parents’ approval? In your school experience, don’t you believe that the school was supportive of your parents’ values?
After you read this list, ask yourself these questions: “Will my children look back fondly on certain teachers? Will they have a teacher upon whom to look fondly, or will they instead have a "favorite computer"! Are my children being taught the same knowledge that we all know is fundamental to the continued acquisition of further knowledge? Are my values being supported at my local government school?"
As you read the list, try to recall any of these things being a part
ofyour public school education.
The items are listed in no particular order of relative importance but just as they came
to mind:
Outcome Based Education:
*promotes a politically correct agenda
*undermines parental authority
*eliminates competition
*establishes “slippery” objectives
*eliminates a "liberal arts education" in the traditional sense of that phrase
*establishes “mission statements“ that suggest students belong equally to parents and the school- the word “partnership” replaces “cooperation” – partnership is a legal term inferring equal ownership by two parties (children belong only to their parents—ownership of them cannot be shared)
*history courses are eliminated or cut short so that there is no
time to teach early American history- thus Founding Fathers’
ideas are
ignored
*geography may be substituted for history--they are not the same thing
*world history increasingly is about Middle Eastern history instead of Western Civilization
*no
differentiation between forms of government is taught--students are not taught that one
form (the free enterprise system) is preferable to all the rest
*history instead becomes social studies/current events
*eliminates recognition for achievement in such things as science fairs, math competition and history fairs, and these are instead replaced by Futurist contests, UN indoctrination games, Destination ImagInation, and so on. The idea of "creating our own future" is pre-eminent.
*includes curriculum that serves to confuse students so as to undermine their personal values
*sex education abounds, and the sooner they can start teaching students about all of it, the better
*drug abuse prevention programs are instituted which pique curiosity
instead of curtailing use
*teaching of cursive writing is eliminated thus slowing students’ ability to write complex
thoughts on paper---computers don’t grow at the end of one’s arm and
will not always be available
*encourages enrollment of young children in day care/pre-school/full
day
kindergarten not because there is any empirical evidence that learning is enhanced but in
order to separate children from their parents as early as
possible
thus lessening the opportunities for parental influence on values and
moral codes as well as their efforts to teach academic
material to their children
*promotes false self-esteem----students are praised for meaningless
accomplishments which waters down REAL
accomplishment for those who deserve real praise
(Example:
watch "American Idol" and see all the young people who truly
believe they can sing well.
Note, too, how they are treated.
What happens then to their “self-esteem”?
It’s hard to watch the cruelty. Why do you suppose these
people think they can sing?
The answer is, someone mistakenly trying to elevate their
esteem has told them they can).
*much time is spent in elementary grades in meaningless contests and activities with no academic value -assemblies are regularly held to bring in paid hawkers of the agenda-the hawker may be a clown or a renowned figure but the message is clearly advocating the agenda
*stipulates outcomes that are concerned with values, attitudes,
opinions, and
relationships rather than objective and factual knowledge-OBE gurus claim these are only
“enablers” but they are actually “outcomes”
*perpetuates, through the use of the whole language approach, the
failure of public schools to teach all children to read well-30 to 40% of students (in
Katy ISD schools) are unable
to read at all
*invades
pupil and family privacy asking through “homework” about family habits regarding sleep,
food, religion, wellness activities, and attitudes
*seeks to involve schools in student and even sometimes teacher health care matters and
wellness programs-student (and teacher) health is none of the schools’ business
*emphasizes the use of essay-type tests and portfolio assessment
which when
combined with the prevalence of subjective outcomes, allows students to be graded and
promoted on whether their attitudes are politically correct rather than on their
objective, academic knowledge. (Some states at first initiated, rather
than a
graduation diploma, a Certificate of Initial Mastery, but parents got wise to those, and
they were discontinued.)
*trades on educational jargon (educatorese) that is not understandable to parents-uses words that have a double meaning in order to hide true agendas (See GLOSSARY on www.marymcgarr.com)
*causes teachers to spend too much time “teaching to assessment
tests” in
an effort to change students’ personal beliefs
*shifts
the focus from cognitive education to affective education
*uses grades or grading systems that have no relationship to academic achievement and
knowledge
*most students in elementary school receive “A’s” for everything-such practices keep parents at bay and no questions are asked when everyone is happy or grades are eliminated all together or changed to other figures of expression
*manipulates time increments in order to change the status quo (length of year, length of
semesters, length of school day, length of class period, etc.)
*uses subjective learning outcomes that make it impossible to
objectively measure achievement on standardized tests or to allow comparisons with
other
students, other schools, other states, or prior years
*changes state testing standards or tests every few years so that
testing results
cannot be compared with those of the past and these tests show a
continuing decline of intellectual ability by students
*suggests that parents do not need to see their children’s tests--will not let students keep some tests or bring them home to show their parents
*implements technology to circumvent the teacher
*implements the use of computers to eliminate textbooks and remove oversight by the SBOE and/or local school board
*institutes more and more control over the teaching process
*emphasizes “learning” over “teaching”--ignoring the fact that no
learning occurs if
there is not relevant and competent teaching
*uses the method of re-alignment of tests to fit the curriculum so it appears that students are learning something when in fact the entire process has been dumbed down-the tests simply measure the dumbed down curriculum. [the reason KISD students did so poorly on the STAAR tests this year (TEA set the passing level at 37%!) is that the school districts won't change their curriculum to fit with the new TEKS that the State Board of Education revised a year ago. They were hoping that the Democrat would become the next governor and would circumvent the SBOE's mandate. As it is KISD is violating the law by not changing their curriculum.]
*the term “aligned” appears everywhere, but it is impossible to tell what has really been aligned (vertically and horizontally) (and perhaps diagonally) and clearly the intent is to confuse rather than to “align” Actually the intent is probably to insure that every kid in Texas is being "taught" the same thing on the same day!
*holds back smarter students by using them to peer tutor slower students under the guise that “it’s the right thing to do” instead of allowing them to exceed the requirements of the class by giving them more difficult assignments thus furthering their education
*smarter students are sometimes asked to do janitorial labor to help out the teacher just to keep them occupied
*eliminates honors classes (ability grouping) except for AP classes
which
for the most part are deliberately made too difficult for most
students to handle
*encourages heterogeneous grouping as a deliberate means of holding
back all
groups including those who are average learners, slow learners or
special education learners; the teacher then must teach to the lowest degree of ability in
each classroom creating a leveling effect
*utilizes the concept of “mainstreaming” special education students which means the School
District has to spend far less money on these students when they do not have to hire
trained special education teachers for them but instead hire an untrained “aide” to sit
beside them in the regular classroom and answer all the questions for them so they don't
have to; the practice also tends to lower the level of achievement for the entire class
which is the intent of the practice
*suggests that there are various learning styles (visual learner, auditory learner, etc.) so that if a child doesn’t learn there’s another excuse why he can’t thus relieving the school of the responsibility
*relies on portfolios of student’s work rather than grades to
establish
accomplishment which is a subjective way to evaluate student
progress
*establishes peer mentoring for behavior problems letting students help other students
when they are not qualified to do so
*principals abdicate discipline duties to the school district’s police force
*initiates IB (International Baccalaureate) coursework to further
globalist,
multiculturalist and socialist beliefs
*claims to help minorities by bringing them up to the standard, but
instead the standard is just lowered for everyone thus creating a false sense of
accomplishment
which denies minorities their right to a proper education
*falsely believes that minority students cannot learn as well as white students (Asian students do better in Katy ISD schools than do white students)
*requires group learning, teacher as facilitator, peer mentoring, and other such socially leveling tricks so that no one can be held accountable for the lack of academic learning
*keeps every student in school regardless of behavior-extreme behavior elicits placement in separate campus facilities but rarely is anyone ever expelled (to expel them is to give up state funding)
*establishes zero tolerance discipline to eliminate common sense resolution of students’
behavior problems.
*discusses and pushes the United Nations‘ “sustainable” development,
environments, and government initiatives, Agenda 21, et
cetera ad nauseum.
*advocates Benjamin Bloom’s "Critical Thinking Skills" which are at
best a bunch of hooey-the purpose of these “critical thinking skills” is to keep
students
from thinking critically-
*eliminates the concept of students having an Intelligence Quotient
(IQ)--
IQ scores are no longer generated through school testing
programs-when students no longer “have” IQ’s then there is the perception that all
students “can learn” when in
fact such is not true--all students cannot learn, some of them do not have the
intelligence to learn, others do not want to learn, and they cannot be forced to do
something they cannot do or do not want to do.
*students are allowed into “gifted” programs when they are not
intellectually “gifted” at all--when there are no IQ tests given, no one can ascertain
giftedness-many times students who excel in early grades are simply good readers and
appear to be gifted---false identification at any level does
not well serve the student
*does not allow any child to “fail” (social promotions)
*stresses” problem solving” (as opposed to word problems) in
mathematics,
an intuitive skill best utilized by advanced mathematics students
*leaves the teaching of basic skills in math and reading up to parents (i.e., parents are
supposed to listen to their children read and to teach them their math tables)
*substitutes calculator skills for mathematical thinking skills thus, while appearing to
be intellectually motivated, the practice is actually dumbing down the student
*allows
students to write without regard to form, grammar, punctuation,
spelling,
etc.
*encourages “inventive” spelling--spelling books are sometimes removed from the
school-students are urged to spell words “the way they sound”-lists of spelling words
without rules or connection are learned in the abstract
*stresses multicultural activities while at the same time
denigrating
American cultural beliefs in an effort to divide populations
*diverts attention from the lack of academic learning by stressing extra- curricular activities in the extreme--students are diverted from academic learning to pursue musical, physical, athletic, speech, or entertainment activities instead thus leaving them high and dry with regard to a career later on in their lives
*of necessity subject matter is watered down as teachers, through no fault of their own,
lack the academic training to teach difficult subject matter-
*deliberate effort made to make learning “fun”- -learning is NOT always “fun" nor should it be
*insists on redoing old buildings or building new schools to accommodate the new
“paradigm”—students’ self-esteem is enhanced if they spend the day in an attractive place
*foreign language instruction spends as much time teaching the foreign culture as it does on teaching the language--most students fail to even understand the foreign language much less speak it well--but they develop an “appreciation” for the foreign country and its food --another socially leveling activity
*school buildings look fancy, have many rooms for every size group, have pods, workrooms, auditoriums, look like a mall, have no windows; floor plans create chaos and rooms are not arranged logically; classrooms are smaller and for no good reason; wasted space abounds and is justified as creating a soothing and calming effect on harried students and their teachers
*students sit on the floor, under the tables, move their chairs around, have communal books (or no books at all), pencils, crayons, paper, Kleenex so they learn to “share" and to create chaos which is deemed a beneficial state
*stresses excessive meaningless homework assignments for elementary
students
to prevent them from enjoying their home life after school or having their parents have
input into their upbringing
*dress codes are established to eliminate individualism and to
prevent social
class distinctions-efforts are made to implement the use of uniforms
*school sponsored student social functions are designed to be inclusive to the point of
telling students what kind of transportation they may utilize, what kind of formals they
may wear, and how their hair can be fixed
*about an hour a day is spent in "learning" endeavors in elementary
classes-the
rest of the time is spent walking from place to place, eating, having
recess, being read to, going to art, music, physical
education, the library, the computer lab, putting up or taking out supplies, lunch boxes
or coats, and standing in lines waiting to eat or get on the bus
*rows of stationary student desks are eliminated in favor of movable chairs and desks-organized environments and structure are turned topsy-turvy providing an unsettling atmosphere for students under the guise of making them more “comfortable” and at ease when just the opposite is true
*almost
all activities are performed in teams; individualism is derided and discouraged;
constructivist project learning is the norm
*grades are given to the team and all team members get the same grade no matter how much or how little work they performed--a practice which discourages after a while any effort by the smarter students
*grades for the first few elementary grades are eliminated altogether in an attempt to
keep actual learning activities hidden from parents--progress of any kind is unable to be
tracked
*teachers’ time, since there’s so little emphasis on academics, is
spent meeting with other teachers to discuss individual students-and not their
academic
progress but their emotional and behavioral condition or their family situation
*stresses process instead of content (e.g., children learn how to
observe clouds
rather than learning the scientific
names of
cloud formations; children learn how
to use a
calculator which is easy instead of training
their
brains to add, subtract, multiply and divide which is more difficult)
*hands on science curriculum sans textbooks becomes the norm in elementary school-students and teachers “play like” they are scientists-be sure to count the times your child builds a crate for an egg that can be dropped out of an upstairs window without breaking the egg or builds a boat out of paper that can float long enough to get him safely across a swimming pool
*stresses current events in history classes instead of actual knowledge of history-no
memorization anywhere and especially of dates so that students do not understand their
place in time
*reading literature is cursory and limited--no in depth study of major literary works occurs at any grade level
*students are not required to write term papers very often
*students are not required to write themes very often
*papers, tests, themes, homework assignments are graded by other
students instead of by the teacher
*students are required to write in journals, many times on subjects
which are
very personal and which allow the teacher to have knowledge he/she should not
have about the student--journals typically are not graded
*schools utilize security software programs and drills and other means of pretending to keep the students safe when in actuality the students and their personal information are anything BUT safe [See SECURITY elsewhere on this web site]
*catastrophes in schools are met with “teams” of counselors who seize the opportunity to
invade students’ privacy, and oftentimes students are emotionally stirred up unnecessarily
*unmarried pregnant students are allowed to be educated with the regular student population-taxpayer funded day care is provided for children of unmarried students-unmarried parents are instructed in the means of access to all state and federal welfare programs and products
*utilizes the concept of
“situational
ethics” --an idea that embraces the practice of deciding on the ethics of a situation
based upon where one is and who
one is with instead of being taught “right and wrong” (Example:
the (DARE) POWER Program)
*establishes “conflict resolution” as a means of settling
disputes--the process
is simply another manipulative behavioral modification exercise to build consensus without
ever establishing right or wrong--an effort for “can’t we all just get along”
*separates minority children from the larger group through programs
like
bilingual education thus delaying their entry into mainstream
America
*stresses excessive “technological” training over academic learning suggesting that the “technology” is useful in job acquisition but failing to note that most “technology” is outdated in as few as three years
*stresses
a variety of family structures, so that no single type is seen as the only possible one or
the preferable one
*stresses relaying, communicating and learning about all types of sexual behavior including deviant behavior
*pushes literature and other media that stress psychological matters
or cultural matters in preference to
time tested themes such as the conflict of good and evil
*eliminates or cuts back recess for elementary students and physical education courses in secondary schools while at the same time bemoaning the fact that students are not as physically able as they once were and that younger students can't sit still and behave all day!
*dictates food choices for children denying their parents that control
*favors
“distance learning” utilizing computers for reasons of control of the curriculum
*includes “death education” (with inclusion of suicide and why
people take their own lives) to break down personal beliefs
*utilizes role playing as a technique to create understanding of
others-often the “roles”
are oversimplified in order to make a point—(Example: the widely published picture of
children
lying on the floor forming the shape of a supposed “slave” ship’s deck so the students
would “understand” what it meant to be a slave by lying close together on the "deck.")
*utilizes questionnaires and surveys and polls to determine progress
by the
students toward the goals of the school
*lessens parental authority by injecting a “partnership”
relationship with
parents suggesting that children belong equally to parents and the
government school
*concerns itself with each child’s psychological well-being making such matters the
purview of the government school
*creates tracking systems for personal information, grades, and many
other items with the purpose of assigning a value to each child--his human capital
potential
*administrators and teachers receive extensive behavioral psychology training to enable
them to manipulate students in ways dictated by the government
*utilizes excessive staff development for teachers costing millions of dollars in order to
inculcate them with the necessary tools to implement the agenda
*valedictorians and salutatorians are eliminated at graduation ceremonies to be replaced by an “elected speaker” or a larger group of “qualified students" -- once again, the individual and his individual accomplishment are belittled
*”voluntary service” or “community service” are mandated as
requirements for graduation
thus violating students’ civil rights -- usually 60 hours are required and recognition is
awarded at graduation ceremonies where only academic achievement should be noted
There are many more items that could be included, but these are the main ones. The objections parents have to these items stem from their belief that this agenda oversteps its bounds. Public schools should be providing children with an academic education. Period.