The Hijacking of the Outcome-Based Approach

School Administrator, Dec, 1995 by Bruno V. Manno

Defining learning results that all students will master--many call it outcome-based education--is arguably the nation's fiercest education battle at the moment.

The outcome discussion began with a good, common sense idea: Judge education quality by products and results, what students actually learn. The idea challenged the decades-old conventional wisdom that gauged education quality by inputs--intentions and efforts, institutions and services, and what resources we devote to the enterprise.

The focus on results won wide support from elected officials, such as governors, legislators, and mayors, and lay people, such as business leaders and newspaper editors. The governors, in particular, became important champions of the move to concentrate on results.

But this good and common sense idea went awry, and now it is in deep trouble. What happened?

Two Fallacies

Briefly stated, the critical task of defining specific outcomes was given to two, sometimes overlapping, groups: (1) the very education "experts" most apt to be threatened by a process specifying learning results for which they would be held accountable and (2) other politically correct groups with a radically different concept than most elected officials and lay people of what schools are for and which results are desirable.

Having adopted in principle the language of accountability--a focus on measurable results--the upshot was something very different: accountability hijacked. The result is visible in long lists of outcomes that emphasize values, attitudes, and behaviors that have more to do with social change than with core academic knowledge and skills.

Outcome-based education now is a tainted phrase evoking a good idea gone wrong. And its hijacking has produced an intense political backlash that manifests itself in two fallacies--one Aquarian, another Nostalgist.

The Aquarians--who mostly drafted the outcomes that precipitated the backlash--propose education objectives that consist in the main of nebulous life roles, values, and attitudes. These life roles include functioning successfully as a consumer, producer, citizen, family member, and lifelong learner.

The Nostalgists criticize the Aquarian life roles as soft, anti-academic, intrusive, and inappropriate. Their grievances have more merit than their alternative: a return to the content and methods of a bygone era.

Ironically, the door is now open for an unholy and undeclared alliance yoking elements of the political left and those in the education establishment (who favor more money for education and equalizing resources) with parts of the political right (who fear public schools never will accommodate their values).

The clear and present danger is that the standards-and-results baby could go down the drain with the OBE water. The country then would find itself returning to an approach where inputs, services, and intentions are re-legitimated as the way to judge education quality.

A Plausible Solution

I believe a threefold policy strategy provides a plausible way out of the OBE thicket.

First, states and communities should develop high, uniform, but sensibly drafted core academic standards for all children, along with an accountability system that as consequences for success or failure in reaching those standards. Elected officials and other lay people should take the lead in this.

Second, there needs to be greater diversity in the kinds of schools we have, in the non-core elements of the curriculum, and in the way educators produce results, with families free to choose those schools that best meet their needs. In creating these schools, we should encourage entrepreneur-ship by teachers and other educators, various public and private institutions, even the business sector.

Third, there must be a safety valve for the few parents who find that elements of the academic core clash with their beliefs to engage in home or wholly private schooling.

Implicit in this approach is a new understanding of public schools and governance.

Any school that embraces the core standards adopted by its state or community, meets nondiscrimination, health, and safety requirements, and is held accountable for results is a public school, without reference to whether a government agency operates it.

An external board would ensure that families have the broadest range of enrollment options, every child has a school to attend, and schools are accountable for results.

This perspective supports creation of independent public or charter schools, contract schools, and a host of other sponsoring and governing arrangements.

Achieving such a system will take vision, courage, and fortitude. But pursuing this strategy will assist families and communities in making sure our young people, regardless of background, find success in the worlds of work, family, and citizenship.

Bruno Manno is a former assistant secretary for policy and planning in the U.S. Education Department.