Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

233 pole to support the canopy; and 3) a set of hinged ribs radiating from the center pole. The umbrella gives us a perfect analogy for comparing many of the school reform movements. Outcome-based education is represented by the canopy of the umbrella. The OBE ideas represent possible reform of the total school system.... When a district moves into OBE, it is ready to examine belief systems of staff, students, parents; placement of students; grading and reporting policies; curriculum issues; certification processes; instructional methods; etc., etc., etc. In other words, OBE means an approach to reform within the total [emphasis in the original] school system; i.e., the umbrella under which all practices of school operation will occur. The center pole supporting the umbrella represents the mastery learning ideas. Mastery learning supports the OBE movement in that it is the main vehicle upon which to begin the change process in the belief system, curriculum organization and instructional strategies. Mastery learning provides us with the support and processes needed to begin the total OBE reform in our schools. The set of hinged ribs radiating from the center pole can be viewed as any of the many effective school movements [emphasis in original] and/or strategies available to us. Strategies such as Dr. Hunter’s Mastery Teaching, Hopkins’ Student Team Learning, Johnson and Johnson’s Cooperative Learning, Joyce’s Teaching Models, Good’s TESA, and many others, represent effective practices which are totally compatible and will certainly enhance an OBE/ML program. ...Realistically, one could implement any one of the above-mentioned strategies without having ML in operation; indeed one can implement ML without having OBE. However, when OBE is implemented, ML must be applied. The "Effective" Eighties : c. 1986 “R EPORT TO THE S ECRETARY OF E DUCATION W ILLIAM B ENNETT , A PRIL , 1986. T RANSFORM ing American Education: Reducing the Risk to the Nation” was issued by the National Task Force on Educational Technology. The memo was distributed at an Ohio State School Board caucus. An excerpt follows: For 1990–2000: The improvement and transformation of education to Mastery Learning will demand continuing support. The nation needs to recognize that the education of its citizens provides the basis for the economic, social and cultural health of American society. Enlightened national self-interest should justify the support of the well-planned educational transformation that the Task Force proposes. O N M AY 5, 1986 T HE S T . L OUIS G LOBE -D EMOCRAT RAN AN ARTICLE ENTITLED “S CHOOL Officials Upset by New State Plan” which reported that local educators objected vociferously to a new state plan that required them to give standardized tests in seven core subjects to students in the third, sixth, eighth, and tenth grades. Excerpts from this article follow: Local educators are stepping up their criticism of what they claim is state interference in the way local schools teach children.... The tests are required by the Excellence in Education Act of 1985 , a reform bill that educators have largely supported. But school officials claim the testing component will force them to change their curriculum so students learn material in the same order the tests are given [teach to the test]. They claim 70 to 80 percent of the curriculum in local schools could be determined by the new tests....