New wave may cast education adrift - outcome-based education - includes related article on Richmond Times-Dispatch journalist Robert G. Holland's critical articles on the outcome-based movement

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Oct 18, 1993 | by Kenneth Smith

William Sloane was skeptical when Peg Luksik arrived at the office carrying two crammed briefcases. An Gamble, he had been the victim of vehement lobbyists before.

When, four hours later, Luksik finished explaining her opposition to a bill on a new approach known as outcome-based education, Sloane and Gamble sat stunned. Recalls Sloane, "Huck turned to me and said, |This sounds terrible. Can we stop this?' "

What they and a growing number of parent groups are trying to stop, or at least slow down, is a reform movement that has taken root in an estimated 42 states and countless local school districts. Outcome-based education, sometimes called mastery learning, radically changes not only what, but how, students learn. While school choice and vouchers preoccupy Washington, the battle over outcome-based education is likely to affect the course of education far more for the foreseeable future.

Pennsylvania state Sen. James Rhoades, the ranking Republican on the Senate's Education Committee and a supporter of outcome-based education, says he never expected so much opposition. "When you're trying to do something positive, people usually respond positively," he says. Rhoades is part of a powerful coalition of education theorists, state officials and business leaders in key states such as Pennsylvania who are counting on the new approach to transform an educational system they believe is incapable of turning out competent graduates.

In fact, outcome-based education is a response to a 1983 report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, "A Nation at Risk" which portrayed a country plagued with declining educational standards and performance. A decade later, the problems seem more urgent than ever. The Department of Education last month issued the results of recent surveys that found 90 million adult Americans functionally illiterate -- unable to read a street map or calculate the cost of a purchase -- and 25 percent of high school seniors, 31 percent of eighth-graders and 41 percent of fourth-graders unable to read and understand simple passages for students at their levels.

"It paints a picture of a society in which the vast majority of Americans do not know that they do not have the skills they need to earn a living in our increasingly technological society and international market-place," said Education Secretary Richard Riley.

The solution, say advocates of outcome-based education, requires a new educational paradigm. Discrete academic disciplines are replaced by classes and projects designed to show students how to use their knowledge. Traditional grading is discarded in favor of demonstrations of learning that occur at "culminating points" in the educational process.

"Our traditions are killing us," William Spady says bluntly. A former Harvard University sociologist and now a reformer whose Colorado organization, High Success Network on Outcome-Based Education, is most often credited, or blamed, for the revolution, Spady has quietly collected a "deeply committed cadre" to the cause.

At its most "transformational" outcome-based education is about stripping away existing time frames, such as nine-month school years. Some students may require more time to achieve than others. Under the outcome-based approach, a class doesn't necessarily end with the semester; it ends when all students have achieved the goal.

Theoretically, students can test and retest to make the grade, while high achievers take on advanced work. "We don't want bell curve standards, expectations and results," says Spady

Standard teaching in individual academic disciplines merges into complex problem solving, such as this hypothetical study on homelessness described in material distributed by the Virginia Board of Education: "The students could research the cause and effect of homelessness; study how other countries handle the issue; survey community attitudes; analyze data from the survey; discuss solutions; and present their conclusions individually or in groups through displays, school newspaper articles or letters to community officials.

"What have students learned through this activity? They have learned about the problems of homelessness. And they have also learned reading comprehension, library research skills, social studies, writing, mathematics, arts, etc. They have learned about all the subjects we remember when we went to school. But instead of learning them as a series of isolated facts, they understand how they fit together."

In practice, however, critic see a politically correct agenda behind the pedagogy and a further drift away from teaching the basics. Pennsylvania's Board of Education defined its outcome-based curriculum as the means to achieving specific "knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors." In response to parental opposition, it dropped "attitudes and behaviors" from the definition. Nevertheless, one board-approved "learning outcome" requires that "all students evaluate the implications of finite natural resources and the need for conservation, sustainable agricultural development and stewardship of the environment." Another: "All students demonstrate an understanding of the history and nature of prejudice and relate their knowledge to current issues facing communities, the United States and other nations."