KINDER'S COMMENTARY: INTEREST IS GROWING IN OBE, WHICH IS ALREADY HERE

Today it is impossible for me to go anywhere in public without having readers and constituents approach me asking to know what they can do to thwart the advance of Outcomes Based Education in our public schools. A definitive answer to that question will have to wait, as I am still gathering information myself.

For starters, I have written 16 columns over the last two months attempting to describe the stealth agenda being pursued by officials of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in Jefferson City and by some local school administrators across Missouri. Readers who would like copies of all the columns dating back to February 5, as well as other informative items from my expanding files, may contact my office at Room 431, State Capitol, Jefferson City, Mo. 65101.

These columns are gaining an increasingly wide distribution as they are passed around our state. I am gratified to learn that a few have been reprinted in other Missouri newspapers. This entire, ghastly OBE agenda was made possible and given an enormous push by Senate Bill 380, Gov. Mel Carnahan's tax-hike-and-reform bill for education. Readers may thank the governor for accelerating the radical transformation of Missouri schools and also take these issues up with him. To date, by and large, this governor has received a free ride from most Missouri news media through press coverage of SB 380's reforms. The coverage could fairly be described as fawning and uncritical.

Little media coverage is given to the other side, espoused by critics such as Missourians for Academic Excellence. But a superb example of truly original electronic media coverage was a 30-minute documentary aired last month on a Kansas City television station, an NBC affiliate. News correspondent Kathy Quinn's special program first aired about three weeks ago. It is entitled "2+2 Ain't 4: Testing Your Future." I commend it to you as an eye-opening piece. Copies are available at the nominal cost of $15.95 by writing: KSHB-TV 41, 4720 Oak Street, Kansas City, Mo. 64112.

The station was deluged with hundreds of calls, overwhelmingly favorable to the report and asking what could be done. The week following Quinn's Friday night documentary, she followed up with DESE director Bob Bartman's responses. These are included on the tape. To be kind, the Bartman responses aren't reassuring. Some of them confirm what critics have alleged.

Many citizens are demanding to know, in advance of Tuesday's school board elections, where local candidates stand on OBE. The issue of where any local school board candidate stands on OBE is worth noting, but it begs the larger question: OBE is here. Pursuant to state mandates and six-figure grants (as laid out in SB 380 and explained here), OBE has arrived. Pursuant to colleges of education that signed onto active learning models years ago and began teaching it to student teachers, we have it. Some districts are further down this road than others, and some are more enthusiastic than others in their embrace of it, but it is here. It may be called something else, as I have alleged (and, I believe, demonstrated) that many officials are engaged in a shell game with words designed to fool parents and taxpayers -- but we have it now. More is on the way.

To repeat a question with which I began this series: Whose schools are they? I am convinced that Dr. Bartman, his DESE cohorts and their acolytes at the Partnership for Outstanding Schools are pursuing an agenda that will harm education in Missouri and dramatically erode Missourians' support for our public schools. It is because of that belief that I, a product exclusively of Missouri public education, continue sounding the alarm.

~Peter Kinder is the associate publisher of the Southeast Missourian and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.