RIGHT OF CENTER: LEARNING ABOUT EDUCATION TRENDS

A great deal of attention today is being paid to the nebulous matter of outcomes based education. Parents of school-age children, in particular, are becoming increasingly alarmed at the state of public education.

I urge anyone interested in the topic to read the series of columns by Peter Kinder published in this paper. My colleague has fearlessly pried open the Pandora's box that the elites had hoped to keep tightly closed. I also recommend as must reading the Columbia Daily Tribune's editorial on the subject reprinted on Friday's editorial page. Kinder has dispensed an excellent overview of how Senate Bill 380, Missouri's Excellence in Education Act, inextricably links Missouri schools to the absurdities of modern education fads -- as opposed to old-fashioned schooling. The Tribune's editorial demonstrates how well-intended reforms are destroying public education in Columbia and elsewhere.

The public gradually is becoming aware that education's so-called experts, who believe teaching multiculturalism, diversity and egalitarianism is more important than reading, writing and math, are a menace from which children must be guarded.

Yet many school administrators, teachers and school board members are puzzled when parents object to OBE. As Kinder and the Tribune make clear, many local educators simply don't know much about OBE. As with much of modern society, the changes in education have come gradually. Most parents have the vague notion that the simple schooling they received an youngsters better prepared them for life than the education their kids receive. They aren't quite able to put their finger on it, but something isn't quite right. Thanks to those who have taken it upon themselves to investigate OBE, a clearer picture is emerging.

In America's culture war, few battles will be more crucial than the one brewing over public education. Civil society everywhere is decaying, with spiraling crime rates and rampant immorality, divorce and illegitimacy. Parents typically can insulate their children from the seedier side of society. They can stay married, work hard and live upright, responsible lives. They also are prepared to take on anyone who tries to corrupt their children.

But the dons of universities and colleges of education tell parents, "Trust us, we know what's best for your children," to which parents respond, "We can't afford to trust you or anyone else with that responsibility."

One of the most frustrating demands I face as a parent is that I must always keep a watchful eye on my young children. When I attended kindergarten in 1970, I walked to and from school each day. But my children can't. There are too many predators and pitfalls. When I was a child, I could play for hours in the city park without parental supervision. My only fear was the bully, two years my elder, from whom I kept a respectful distance. But the parks in Cape Girardeau, and in many cities, gradually are being overrun by hoods and perverts.

We do our best to shield our children only to learn they're being corrupted in the structured, seemingly safe environment of school. The corruptor is a curriculum, concocted by pointy-headed ivory tower elites, that tries to cast children into a static mold -- diverse, compassionate, tolerant humanists. There's only one problem. The little cherubs can't read or write. All that stands between OBE and utopia, then, is a citizenry that demands schools to teach.

Many parents -- some with great financial hardship -- send their children to private schools, where the curriculum isn't yet stained by the experts. Others are taking the ultimate responsibility and home-schooling. But many, myself included, hope instead to restore proper schooling in public schools.

We have a simple message for the elites who, like potters molding clay, hope to shape our children: This clay isn't your responsibility, nor is it the state's. This clay is the responsibility of men and women, intelligent and able to plan, to think and judge for ourselves what is best for our children.

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian.