OBE-INSPIRED CHANGES UPSET HALLSVILLE PARENTS

HALLSVILLE -- Jane Bevans doesn't like what she has seen in the Hallsville School District over the last three years. She is so alarmed she has taken her three children out of the public schools and, at considerable financial sacrifice, placed them in a private Christian school.

What has her so alarmed? Bevans is a married working mother of three children and native of Sikeston. The curriculum changes in the Hallsville public schools is a form of outcomes-based education. The changes, she says, fundamentally changed education in the small Boone County community seven miles north of Columbia.

"I first became aware that major changes were under way when Hallsville decided to combine the fourth and fifth grades," Bevans says. "We were called to a meeting of parents of affected children. Jeremy had completed the fourth grade, and now his fifth-grade class would be combined with younger students. My husband and I were strongly opposed."

Bevans claims school officials promised to hold a follow-up evaluation session the following year but never did.

"We received virtually no information. The teachers wrote the curriculum for each quarter, telling parents that they were doing it as they went along, as they were still learning. There were very few answers to our questions."

Bevans and her husband asked to see textbooks and were told there were none. Because the teachers were writing the curriculum as they taught it, "there was not even a workbook that you could evaluate."

She became concerned about the lack of homework under the study program.

"Before OBE, my children had homework almost every night. I told Jeremy's teacher during the first quarter of OBE that I enjoyed working with my children to help them with their homework problems. I stressed that this was a good time for me to be with my children, and that it allowed me to keep up with their progress and to spot problems. She informed me, `That is not your job. That's the teacher's job.' She also said, `Homework is not fair.' Those are her exact words."

Bevans was told that homework, under OBE, is bad for a child's self-esteem. "Self-esteem is very big. Cooperation is also a key. I could no longer keep up with what they were learning."

Teachers told Bevans she could come to the school and review her child's portfolio. "The problem is, there really isn't anything measurable to review in the portfolio. A lot of drawings. A few papers they have written. I was told that if they took work home, it would not be included in their grade."

Bevans says that when Jeremy finished an assignment, he had three choices: "He could play, he could play on a computer or he could assist students who had not yet completed the assignment. He did not go on to more challenging work until the entire group had finished. There is so much emphasis on group work, almost none on individual excellence and achievement. Individual achievement is actually squelched" under OBE.

Bevans believes OBE is cheating students by not preparing them for the challenging world of work. "They're giving the children a false idea of the world. When they get into the work force, they're in for a major shock. I don't think they're going to adjust well at all."

Spelling was always a problem for Jeremy, but Bevans believes that after two years of OBE, her son "actually regressed in spelling skills. I would say he has a harder time sitting down and working through something now than he did in the fourth grade. He has lost the habits of self-discipline he was developing before OBE."