Parent Information Network (P.I.N.)
P.O. Box 733
Elm Grove, WI 53122

414-821-1873
_________________________________________________________________

OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION

"THE SEVEN GOLDEN CITIES"

Position Paper Volume 4                                         
By Rev. Wayne C. Sedlak
_________________________________________________________________
                                                          
FOREWARNING

The subject of this report, OBE (Outcome Based Education), is a
many-faceted, federal "octopus" which carries deadly potential
for an already declining educational system.  It is yet another
classic case of the "cure" being worse than the disease itself. 
This paper will concentrate on the power and tactics of those
who endorse the new reforms.

THOSE DARING CONQUISTADORS

Students of American history are introduced each year to the
thought provoking stories of the "conquistadors".  You remember
them, don't you?  They were the  "rough-and-tumble" Spanish
explorers of the sixteenth century who roamed the Americas
looking for wealth and adventure for the Spanish empire.  Their
very name meant "conquerors".  They include such men as Balboa
who, we're told, "discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513"..after
the locals showed him where it was.  They include Pizarro, the
man who humbled the Inca tyranny...only to impose one of his
own.   But the most amazing of them all, perhaps, was Francisco
Coronado.

In February of 1540, he led a band of 336 soldiers off on a
fantastic two-year expedition in search of the fabled "Seven
Golden Cities of  Cibola".  The fabled cities of gold were said
to be located in the deep recesses of the unexplored, Indian
territory of "Cibola" (more popularly known as "Arizona").  Now,
you must understand something.  Coronado wasn't exactly the
romantic adventurer.  Prince Valiant he wasn't.  What he was
instead, was a Spanish government administrator of a new world
frontier province.  In other words, he was a bureaucrat.  And
like all bureaucrats, he desperately needed money to run his
Spanish province.

Having heard that Indians owned these cities of gold, he was,
shall we say, "green with envy".  They had it, and naturally he
wanted it.  Of course, being that he was the government (though
not of "Cibola", but that detail didn't seem to bother him
much), he felt he had a greater claim to that money. 
Governments always do.  I'm sure there was talk of "the public
interest" and the "common good".  Maybe even "national
security".  But, whatever the talk, his government wanted that
money.  Hence, the soldiers.

So, off he went on his grand adventure, believing in the cities
of gold.  Cities which he believed were to be annexed to the
Spanish empire.  Cities which he believed would bring him fame
and glory.  Cities which he believed would finance his new
education program...ah, no, sorry!  I can't blame OBE for this
one.  Well anyway, as you've  probably guessed, he didn't find
any cities.  Not that there aren't any "cities of gold"; it's
just that he didn't find them.  That feat would be left to the
United States government and some very powerful special interest
groups.  In fact, all Coronado found were the adobe huts of the
Zuni Pueblo and the Grand Canyon...which, for all of its size,
didn't yield him any revenue.  So, for all of his effort, he
returned discouraged and broke.  Kermit the Frog was right: "It
isn't  easy being green."

There is an amazing lesson to be gleaned from Coronado's
adventure.  When money is at stake, governments and their allied
special interest groupswill be more than willing to pursue
almost any fable...even if they must invent it themselves.  And
they will run to any "city of gold' to get it.  That's a lesson
which bears remembering.

THE REAL CITIES OF GOLD

In the June 7, 1993 issue of Forbes,  an article appeared
entitled "THE NATIONAL EXTORTION ASSOCIATION?".  Authors Peter
Brimelow and Leslie Spencer wrote in that article that America's
most powerful trade union, the National Education Association,
"plays very rough".  Citing the 1981 Alpena, Michigan school
system shutdown, the article noted the repeated refusal of the
voters in that school district to increase local property taxes
to meet teacher union demands.  The result was that the school
system was shut down.  Says Brimelow and Spencer, "The blackmail
worked:  Alpena capitulated, along with several other Michigan
districts threatened with shutdown."

Alpena is not the only city to face such demands for its
"gold".  In March 1993 Keith Geiger, president of the N.E.A.
teachers union, appeared at a rally in Kalkaska, Mich.  His
message was directed to the voters of that city who had also
repeatedly rejected any more tax increases and was, as a result,
closing its school year two months early.  According to Forbes
reporters," Geiger's message was implicit:  Never mind the
nonsense about teaching as a public trust; pay up or we'll shut
you down."

The same article proceeds with a very stinging indictment of
the N.E.A.:

The Kalkaska shutdown got nationwide publicity.  But Forbes has
learned that it was little more than a union-orchestrated
stunt. Kalkaska's school budget was not out of line with that
of other districts in the region.  Its main problem, since
teachers' compensation makes up about 65% of all school
budget:  a contract calling for 6% annual salary increases three
years running.  This is a poor rural area (average income: 
about $22,000), where teachers (average income: about $32,000)
are already among the top earners.  And the school system
could easily have made cuts, for example, in support staff or
busing.  Or it could have followed established procedures for
going into deficit.  The shutdown expenses amounted to $1.1
million...But the union had made its point for other
parents-taxpayers who might be tempted to trifle with it.
(emphasis mine)

In an interview with president Keith Geiger, Forbes reported
that, according to Geiger, other Michigan school districts now
face shutdowns, if their voters don't come up with the cash.  It
appears that Coronado gave up too soon.  But, our children ARE
learning the lessons of the conquistadors...one way or another.

If, indeed, voters can be "muscled" so as to cough up tax
increases against their will ("blackmail"?), what will people do
in light of the OBE reform, which is exceptionally
expensive...as Chicago and a growing number of communities are
experiencing.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

Right now, over $170 billion dollars is being spent annually on
the education of more that 40 millionstudents in both the
elementary and secondary education levels.  In addition,
colleges and universities spend more than $100 billion annually
with the lion's share of such expense coming from the government
sectors-state, federal, or local.  In other words, we the people
are paying that tab too.

As a result of such expenditures, education has become a vast
empire.  Unfortunately, when a nation creates such an internal
"empire", it must be constantly sustained.  The current battles
over the "runaway budget" are a testimony to that fact.

But there is another problem which embitters many and creates
greater tension.  As John C. Calhoun pointed out in the 19th
century, such money creates a tension which divides the nation
into "tax-payers and tax-eaters".   The trick is to keep the
tax-eaters from gobbling up the tax-payers.  As it stands now,
statistically, each taxpayer is "carrying" at least one
tax-eater on his back.  On the bright side, at least the
tax-payer isn't gobbled up...yet.  But he is still being taken
for quite a ride.  As the brilliant economist and social analyst
Llewellyn  Rockwell put it:

To keep us from struggling too much, the government - from our
earliest days - trains us to be good little citizens:  to
salute and say "Yes, sir!"  when ordered to pay
redistributionist taxes, instructed how to run our businesses,
told how to lead our personal lives, or drafted for foreign
wars.

And part of the training is the painstakingly inculcated
acceptance of the government as "we".  "Are we spending too
much on the space shuttle?" someone asked me recently.  But
"we" are not spending anything.  The U.S. government is.  The
government is separate from us, and almost always opposed to
our interests. We do not have a government of the people, by
the people, and for the people.  We have a government to the
people.  (emphasis mine)

Nowhere is this truth more strikingly apparent than in the way
the government schools (commonly called "public schools") are
managed...with so little input by parents.  Perhaps the real
"we" ought to become alarmed when special interests groups like
the N.E.A., so closely linked to government at all levels and to
this new national educational reform movement, can push its
agenda down the throats of individual school district voters,
one city at a time.  The tax-eaters are pushing tax increases,
debt accumulation, increased powers to regulate and control, and
this is called "progressive".

A question comes to mind.  What are "we" getting for our tax
dollars?  Universally, everyone is concerned about the decline
in educational performance.  The most widely known decline is in
the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores.  The decline has been
gradual but relatively steady since 1963 with only a small
upturn.  The scores have never returned to the 1963 levels.  In
1990, the average combined verbal-math SAT score was 900.  This
was just 10 points above the LOW  of 1980.  It is, of course,
far below the 1963 level.  1991 saw the average verbal SAT score
fall to an all-time low.  Scores also declined on the Iowa Test
of Educational Development as well as on the American Testing
Program (ACT).  In one of this nation's most powerful statewide
educationalsystems, namely California, it was revealed that only
11% of all of the eighth-grade government school students could
solve seventh-grade math problems.  All of that money invested
with an 11% return would be considered a sound investment
anywhere else...except education.  (And that's assuming that a
seventh-grade level of performance is acceptable to the parents
for their eighth-grade students!)1

Of course, educational deficiencies are not confined to poor
mathematics performance.  Almost 33% of American 17-year-olds do
not know that Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation
Proclamation.  Another 30% could not locate Great Britain on a
map.  Almost 50% do not know who Josef Stalin was.  A vast
majority of high school graduates do not know who is responsible
for the statement, "From each according to his ability, to each
according to his need."  Many, when asked, said "yes", that that
was found in the U.S. Constitution!

Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is a
man who is renowned for his social and economic commentary.  In
his outstanding expose, INSIDE AMERICAN EDUCATION, he sheds
further light on just how well our "education dollars" are being
invested.  He writes:

Perhaps nothing so captures what is wrong with American schools
as the results of an international study of 13-year-olds which
found that Koreans ranked first in mathematics and Americans
last.  When asked if they thought they were "good at
mathematics", only 23% percent of the Korean youngsters said
"yes" - compared to 68% of American 13-year-olds.  The
American educational dogma that students should "feel good about
themselves" was a success in its own terms - though not in any
other terms.

Sowell goes on to point out that "a higher percentage of
Japanese twelfth-graders disliked mathematics than did their
American counterparts" but scored much higher than the American
students.   It would appear, then, that many American students
are little more than "confident incompetents", he concluded. 
Professor Diane Ravitch, an American education specialist, adds
another twist to this already sad American "investment". 
Professor Ravitch reports that "professors complain about
students who arrive at college with strong convictions but not
enough knowledge to argue persuasively for their beliefs."  The
professor concluded:  "Having opinions without knowledge is not 
of much value; not knowing the difference between them is a positive 
indicator of ignorance."  "In short", writes Sowell, "it is not 
merely that Johnny can't read, or even that Johnny can't think.  
Johnny doesn't know what thinking is..." 

Yet, when confronted with such criticisms concerning the sad
estate of America's government schools, the education
establishment shifts the blame for its failure to perform.  To
do that, it has invented reasons to justify itself.  Of course,
self-justification is almost always odious because it must
either accuse or excuse.  So, few were surprised when N.E.A.
executive Mary Hatwood Futrell made the (common) accusation,
"The nation's students today are threatened only by the failure
of policy makers to give education the money it deserves."  So,
it's back to the "cities of gold."  Hum...Just how much money
does it take to show kids where Britain is located?

SELF-JUSTIFICATION:
ACCUSING AND EXCUSING

Perhaps the favorite "excuse" used by spokesmen and proponents
of the education establishment is some rendition of the tune "we 
don't have enough money".  Conquistadors have long since mastered 
that tune.  Coronado played it well.  The charge carries with it a
powerful "guilt-trip".  By turning the table on critics, guilt
manipulation allows the educational establishment to shift the
reasons for poor pupil performance to the taxpayer.  The
unsupported assumption here is that there is a correlation
between "more money" and "better education".  That assumption
is, at best, shaky.  It is, at worst, a lie.  

In overall per pupil education expenditure, the U.S. ranks near
the top among all nations.  Our children receive more
expenditures per pupil than most Western European countries. 
Far more is spent in the U.S. per pupil than what is spent on
students in Canada.  American  public education spends 50% more
than is spent per pupil in Australia or Japan and more than
twice the amount spent per pupil in New Zealand.  Yet, U.S.
student performance ranks at or near the bottom of the list when
compared to these same countries, according to Lewis J. Perlman
in the Hudson Institute Briefing Paper of May, 1990.

On the national front, financial comparisons yield even less
satisfactory explanations of student performance.  In 1984, the
state of Connecticut spent about $4000 per pupil.  Vermont,
which spent $3000 per pupil, saw its students perform better
than Connecticut on student scores.  Rhode Island spent about
$4000 per pupil and had the lowest SAT scores of the three
states.  New  York, which spent $5000 per pupil that year, saw
its students perform just a tad better than Rhode Island.  The
prestigious Brookings Institution issued a report which drew
this (now not surprising) conclusion: "When other relevant
factors are taken into account, economic resources are unrelated
to student achievement."2

CONCLUSION: WHAT TO DO?

1)  Beware of guilt-manipulation.  America's "cities of gold"
have produced enough money already for the educational sector. 
"What is lacking is the educational system's ability to deliver
results after it has been supplied with ample resources", writes 
Thomas Sowell.  I agree.  However, the American tax-payer is still
being eaten alive by the ravenous tax-eaters of the government
school elite...with a supporting cast of special interest
groups.  These groups are apparently sensing the weight of the
arguments which expose their false excuses for failure.  So, if
the Forbes article is correct, they are resorting to force and
the American taxpayer will be forced to "pay up or we'll shut
you down".  Americans cannot allow their districts to spend and
tax forever.  At some point "we" must vote "no"...even if it
means a flight to private education.

2)  Oppose any rationale which advocates the following proposals
and positions which create great expense:  "children at risk";
"need to train students to compete in a global economy"; any
need for "restructuring"; any assertion of the "school as
family" or anyone other than the parent as "parent-teacher"; the
need for local "consensus"; any need or timeline which
emphasizes the year 2000; the possibility of eliminating
"failure"; the need to train children to appreciate
multicultural diversity and values; the need to train children
to exhibit "teamwork"; the need to prepare children for school
(this is  used to justify the expansion of  kindergarten and
daycare programs); the need to prepare children to make the
transition from school to work.  All of such proposals are
expensive.  They invariably de-emphasize academics among our
student population which is simply not competing well
internationally.  Yet, being behavioristic in their emphasis,
the children are taught to "feel good" about themselves and
their  performance...without any real reason academically for
believing so.

3)  Oppose the expansion of the school day or year.  Educational
"engineers" who developed these programs long ago realized that
to expand the school day was to create the necessity of
moreadministrative and teaching positions (jobs !).  So, the new
national reform goal is to expand the school time from 6 A.M. to
6 P.M., 12 hours a day, 5 days a week, 12 months a year.  Such
time increases will be advocated in increments.  Incidentally,
this will gradually "crowd" the family out of the child's
schedule as a primary sphere of influence over the child.  The
school will then become the "family" (as former Secretary of
Education, Lamar Alexander, actually advocates), and government
sector personnel become "parents" of your children.  Such
full-time oversight of your children is a stated objective of
the new national reforms, as advocated by the United States
Government (and a number of states).  Get a copy of the previous
position paper "Doublespeak" in order to get a more complete
picture of such reforms.

4)  Recognize that OBE type programs are not just costly.  They
are extraordinarily expensive!  Chicago spent $7.5 million just
to begin the implementation of a five year program...which
failed and was abandoned.  The real heartache was the terrible
drop in student performance on standardized tests.  Top dollar
was paid to implement a system which caused student performance
to fall.  In any event, watch out for the increased local tax
burdens.

5) Learn to recognize the various programs, tactics and
strategies being used by the educational establishment by
sending for some of our resource material at P.I.N.  Such
resources include:

 a) PEG LUKSIK VIDEO- "WHO CONTROLS OUR CHILDREN?"  This video
identifies what OBE really is and how it is being pushed by
the education establishment.

 b) LUKSIK LIVE- "OBE:CHAOS OR CORRECTION?"  This video
identifies the 	fallacies of OBE, past follies of the education
reforms and the expected negative results, especially in the
field of academics, as well as social "engineering".

 c) EDUCATING FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER by B.K. Eakman.  This book
is a comprehensive work which describes the education reform
movement as a whole.

 d) INTRODUCTORY OBE PACKET-an item which explains what you can
do now in your state and community. 

6)  Call and meet with your state assembly representative.  Your
local library will have all of that information.  Send for our
packet at P.I.N. which explains how to effectively approach your
representative and senator.  These issues must be handled AT THE
STATE LEVEL, NOT SIMPLY AT THE LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD LEVEL!  LOCAL
SCHOOL BOARDS DO NOT HAVE THE POWER TO SAY "NO!" TO THE STATE,
BECAUSE THEY WILL LOSE THEIR FUNDING.

7)  Write us as part of an ever expanding network of concerned
parents. 

1 Thomas Sowell, Inside American Education page 1-3

2  ibid., page 11
________________________________________________________________

If you would like more information, or additional position
papers on OBE, please write or call:

Parent Information Network (P.I.N.)
P.O. Box 733
Elm Grove, WI 53122

414-821-1873 
_________________________________________________________________

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