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Katy Citizen Watchdog$ |
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We’re Taxpayers. It’s Our Money. |
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An Explanation Of Outcome Based Education - Part II |
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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 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? 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 school?”
As you read the list, try to recall any of these things being a part of your 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 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.
*deprives students of incentives to study and to learn because they are allowed to take tests over and over until they make a passing grade.
*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-students not taught that one form (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, and so on. *includes curriculum that serves to confuse students so as to undermine their personal values.
*sex education abounds, and the sooner they can start teaching your child 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.
*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 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 are starting to be discontinued). *trades on educational jargon (educatorese) that is not understandable to parents.
*uses words that have a double meaning in order to confuse true agendas. *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. *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.
*suggests that parents do not need to see their children’s tests.
*implements technology to circumvent the teacher.
*implements the use of computers to eliminate textbooks.
*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 term “aligned” appears everywhere, but it is impossible to tell what has really been aligned and clearly the intent is to confuse rather than to “align”.
*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 more difficult assignments.
*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.
*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.
*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. *eliminates ability grouping and requires that students be heterogeneously grouped and then teaches to a level that all children can achieve, thus dumbing down the curriculum for everyone. *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. *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.
*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, 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 of them “can learn” when in fact such is not true.
*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).
*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. *allows students to write without regard to form, grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.
*encourages “invented” spelling--spelling books are 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-in KISD one can find the spelling lists on the District’s web site. *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.
*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”.
*insists on redoing old buildings or building new schools to accommodate the new “paradigm”.
*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.
*school buildings look fancy, have many rooms for every size group, have pods, workrooms, auditoriums, look like a mall, have no windows.
*students sit on the floor, under the tables, move their chairs around, have communal books, pencils, crayons, paper, Kleenex so they learn to “share”.
*stresses excessive meaningless homework assignments for elementary students to prevent them from enjoying their home life after school.
*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 academic endeavor 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 chair-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.
*almost all activities are performed in teams; individualism is derided and discouraged.
*grades are given to the team and all team members get the same grade no matter how much or how little work they performed.
*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.
*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 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 are anything BUT safe.
*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-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.
*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”.
*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 “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.
*pushes literature and other media that stress psychological 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 in secondary schools. *dictates food choices for children denying their parents that control.
*favors “distance learning” utilizing computers for reasons of control. *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--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 comes to mind.
*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.
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.
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Mary McGarr, Katy Citizen Watchdog$ |
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Date: 11/15/2006 |
