The Community of Sixty
The following was
published on June 23, 1995, with regards to restructuring in the Nine Mile
Falls School District. Although the
school board claimed that the Community of Sixty "represented a
cross-section of the community", when a greater number of parents (82) in
the Nine Mile Falls School District signed a petition to throw the Essential Learnings out, the school board refused to do so,
claiming that those who signed the petition represented only a segment of the
community, not the entire community!
Recently I obtained a copy of the Creating the Future History, put out by the Nine Mile Falls
School District. This is a 28 page
document accompanied by six appendices.
What is so interesting about this document and
its appendices is the revelations made with regard to the Essential Learnings.
The
Essential Learnings were not come up with by the "community of sixty"
as people have been led to believe.
According to the Creating the Future History, the
"community of sixty" set the "guidelines" for the Essential
Learnings via three meetings that were conducted on March 2, 9, and 16,
1993. Also, according to the Creating
the Future History, the Essential Learnings were the product of the
Creating the Future Leadership Team – an appointed body of individuals
– most or all of whom took then Superintendent Holloway's
"restructuring class" in the Fall of 1992.
The
people who comprised the "community of sixty" were selected,
as were/are the people on the Creating the Future Leadership Team. These people were not elected –
which means it cannot be construed that they represent or represented the
community [1], or the will
of the community, as people have been led to believe.
Many
who participated in the "community of sixty" have stated that the
Essential Learnings in no way reflect their input. [2] The notes from the
meetings back that claim up. There
is no consistency in the notes that would provide a basis for the Essential
Learnings as they were presented in final form. It is very obvious, from reading the
notes, that it was not the unfettered input of the participants that was sought
by those conducting the meetings, rather that the
group was fed information obviously biased in favor of education restructuring
then feedback was solicited relative to that information. There are notes about the
"facilitators," articles that were presented for the participants to
read and discuss, and audio and/or video tapes. While many of the notes reflect
rhetorical jargon (life long learner, critical thinker, problem solver, all
children can learn …) relative to education restructuring, many of the
notes also reflect a will to return to traditional education values,
representing two obviously different ideologies. As such, it cannot be claimed that the
meetings set the "guidelines" for the Essential Learnings as only one
ideology is represented in the Essential Learnings.
In
reading through the notes it also becomes obvious that there was some confusion
as to the purpose of the meetings.
This backs the claim that has been made that the participants were never
told what their function really was.
What is the significance of this? The claim has been made many times that
the Essential Learnings represent what the community wants in the education of
their children. This isn't what the
notes, correlated with the Creating the Future History, say. They tell a whole different story
– a story reflecting a decided disconnect between who actually came up
with the Essential Learnings (the CTF Leadership
Team) and who was given credit and ownership of those Essential Learnings (the
"community"). It is important
to note that the Creating the Future Leadership Team did not come up with the
Essential Learnings either, they borrowed them from Lake Washington School
District on the West side and made a few changes.
The Essential Learnings are the pivotal
around which everything else revolves.
They are derived first as they are the basis of the curriculum, the
instruction, the teaching methodologies – all being aligned to the exit
outcomes (Essential Learnings) to ensure that the child masters them. This is known as "designing
down" (from the Essential Learnings) and "aligning back" (to the
Essential Learnings). This is the
process prescribed by outcome-based education as defined by Dr Wm Spady, godfather of OBE. This is also the process enumerated in
the Creating the Future History and is the process under way
right now in the Nine Mile Falls School District.
Lynn M Stuter
The Nine Mile Falls School District paid Northwest Regional Educational Laboratories of Portland,
Oregon, the sum of $8,000 to facilitate the above meetings, NWREL
being one of ten regional educational research laboratories nation-wide under
contract to the U.S. Department of Education (the labs are dependent on federal
funds to operate). Research also
showed that NWREL facilitated the Lake Washington
School District whose exit outcomes were haled by state restructuring advocates
as the model for state standards.
Considering that the state standards had to align with the eight
national goals enumerated by Goals 2000, it is little wonder that the goals of
Lake Washington as facilitated by an organization dependent on federal funds
(your tax dollars) to exist would also comply with Goals 2000. It is also of note that NWREL calls their restructuring program "Creating the
Future".
The "community of sixty" was facilitated by two trained
facilitators from NWREL. The process used is one that education
reform researchers have come to know well:
create the crisis (tell the participants how bad current education is)
to effect the wanted solution (education reform)
through a facilitated process
intended to make people believe that the outcome of the meetings are their own
ideas. As one parent subjected to
the Washington pilot on reform, the Schools for the 21st Century,
stated,
She knows just how to facilitate so that everyone thinks it is
their idea …
Why is this process necessary in the scheme of things? The following is from The
Community Action Toolkit, put out by the U.S. Department of Education
(via a contract with NWREL):
Remember, it
will not be possible to sustain reforms of the educational system without
broad-based community ownership
of the reform efforts.
Inclusiveness is not just a goal, but a process requirement. (highlighting added)
In simple terms, when people accept ownership of the goal, they will
defend it; if the goal is foisted on them, they will fight it.
At a school board meeting in a north Idaho school district
considering contracting with NWREL for restructuring,
the NWREL representative was asked by a board member
if NWREL had encountered resistance in any of the
school districts it had worked with.
The NWREL representative responded that they
had and named Nine Mile Falls as that district. The board member asked what they did
about it. The NWREL representative responded that
they looked around the community for a influential
individual, then invited that individual to join the CTF
Team in the district. That
influential individual was the pastor of a local church attended by many of the
parents who were resisting education reform in the district. This tactic is promoted by the Community
Action Toolkit, not only to get influential individuals involved, but
also pastors whose participation will be looked upon by a trusting flock as a
sign of endorsement.
One of the outcomes (essential learnings)
for the Nine Mile Falls School District that I particularly liked was
"Demonstrates and appreciates appropriate humor". How do you define that … how do
you teach that … how do you test that using an objective standard? A school board member and member of the CTF Team would tell a group of parents in November 1995
that she defined that as "not pulling a chair from under
someone." Unfortunately, while
the school board member's definition is honorable and one that most parents
would probably agree with, she is not the one, nor parents, establishing the
curriculum taught to the child so the child demonstrates mastery of that
outcome; nor is she the one assessing whether the child has mastered that
outcome. Parents are understandably
leery, especially when restructuring advocates take the view that …
a large part of what
we call "good teaching" is the teacher's ability to attain affective
objectives through challenging the students' fixed beliefs and getting them to
discuss issues. [3]
the real purpose of education is not to have the instructor
perform certain activities but to bring about significant changes in the
students' patterns of behavior, it becomes important to recognize that any
statement of the objectives … should be a statement of changes to take
place in the student. [4]
education, as now conceived,
leads to demonstrable changes in student behaviors, changes that can be
assessed using agreed-upon standards. [5]
Considering quotes like these, parents nation-wide have objected
to the behaviorally oriented and subjective exit outcomes that are found in
every state and school district under Goals 2000; those defining these nebulous
outcomes, establishing curriculum to teach them, and assessing whether the
child has mastered them, may not have the same moral values as the parent. The individual defining
"appropriate humor" may believe those commanding
center stage before adult audiences in Las Vegas to have an
"appropriate sense of humor".
It is under the teaching of these nebulous outcomes that questionable teaching material
is finding its way into classrooms and before children such as …
children
being taken to mortuaries to view dead people;
children
being taken to cemeteries where they write about their own death, draw their
own tombstone, and write their own epitaph;
children
being subjected to Eastern mystic religious practices such as meditation, Yoga,
guided fantasy, guided visualization, and spirit guides;
children
being subjected to pagan, occult and even Satanic rituals and practices in the
classroom;
children
being subjected to sexually explicit books, magazines and supplemental teaching
materials, both homosexual and heterosexual;
children
being subjected to radical environmentalism that has no basis in scientifically
validated research,
to name just a
few things that parents have discovered have happened.
Any time you have ...
a diverse group
dialoging to consensus
over social issues (crises)
in a facilitated meeting (controlled
environment)
to a predetermined outcome
you have what is known as a soviet. The purpose of a soviet
is not to make decisions based on fact, but to build relationships that require
people to abandon their principles in behest of, and to the defense of, the
collective. [6]
And yes, the term soviet does come from communism, and yes,
this process does describe what happened with the community of sixty
whose outcomes, magically, turned out almost word for word those of the Lake
Washington School District 350 miles away on the western side of Washington.
_________________________
[1] It is not what the "community" wants in the education of
the child that matters, it is what the parents
of the child want that matters, parents having the inherent, God-given duty to
oversee the upbringing and education of their child. [Back]
[2] The input of the participants was synthesized (brought together),
not by the participants, but later by the Creating the Future Leadership Team. [Back]
[3] Taxonomy of Education Objectives; Book 2 Affective Domain; David Krathwohl, Benjamin Bloom,
Bertram Masia; Longman: New York; 1964; p 55. [Back]
[4] Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction;
Ralph Tyler; Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1949; p 44. [Back]
[5] Roadmap to Restructuring; David T Conley;
Eugene: University of Oregon; 1993; p 124. [Back]
[6] Dean Gotcher: Institution for Authority Research. [Back]
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