The New School Wars: Battles over Outcome-Based Education.
1995; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 76; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1940-6487
Autores Tópico(s)Legal Issues in Education
ResumoMr. Manno proposes a twofold strategy that he believes can help resolve differences between supporters and critics of outcome-based education. In her book The Great School Wars, Diane Ravitch, distinguished historian of American education, chronicles epic political straggles and reorganizations of New York City's public schools from mid-1800s to early 1970s. Those agonizing conflicts arose from passionate disputes about role and purpose of public schools. Each school war, Ravitch says, characterized by combat of principle against principle, of one set of rights against another, of strongly held interests of one group against those of other.(1) Today, another war rages - this one over prescription of knowledge and skills that all children must master - what many call outcome-based (OBE). In what follows I seek to provide some perspective on this new battlefront. I begin by describing sensible impulse to judge quality of by focusing on outcomes and how that impulse is now object of an intense political backlash. Then I explain how this backlash arose and analyze two expressions of it - one that I call Aquarian and one that I call Nostalgist. Finally, I present a twofold policy strategy for resolving differences between supporters and critics of OBE. A Good, Commonsense Idea began with a good, common-sense idea. We should judge quality of by focusing on outputs - on what students learn and on measurable academic results. To do this we need to set clear goals and standards that we expect our young people to meet. This focus on results called into question conventional wisdom that judged quality by inputs, by what goes into education: intentions, efforts, services, resources, and spending. Such gauges tell us little about what students learn. Focusing on results won widespread support from elected officials (e.g., governors, legislators, and mayors) and from laypeople (e.g., business leaders and newspaper editors). The nation's governors became especially important leaders in this movement - so much so that in 1989 President George Bush convened an education summit with all 50 governors. Together, President and governors agreed on six (there are now eight) national goals for education. Today, 25 states have developed or implemented an outcome-based approach to education. Eleven other states have made outcomes a part of state accreditation or assessment process.(2) The Backlash: Strange Bedfellows The focus on results has lately become object of intense criticism and political controversy. Conflicts rage in states as dissimilar as Connecticut, Washington, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Virginia and in communities as different as Littleton, Colorado; Montgomery, Texas; and Fort Wayne, Indiana.(3) Like New York City's school wars, this strife is ultimately about role and purpose of public education. Where does criticism come from? Many agree with Matthew Freeman, research director of People for American Way, that the national organizations taking [OBE] on are almost exclusively religious-right organizations.(4) But this is both an exaggeration and an oversimplification. The truth is that - like politics -- these disputes make for strange bedfellows. Individuals representing all segments of ideological spectrum are united in criticizing recent manifestations of OBE. Phyllis Schlafly, president of conservative Eagle Forum, says, OBE is converting three R's to three D's: Deliberately Dumbed Down.(5) Albert Shanker, president of American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and hardly an ally of Schlafly's, is just as pointed in Objecting that OBE's vaguely worded outcomes . . . encourage business as usual . . . and [do] nothing to raise student achievement.(6) Furthermore, AFT affiliate in Pennsylvania withheld endorsement of that state's plan, because it believed outcomes were not sufficiently academic. …
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