"Outcomes-based education" (Critical Guide, E.D. Hirsch Jr)

   A term of uncertain meaning which during the 1990s became a symbolic cause of verbal war between political liberals and conservatives. 

    It is best understood historically. 
   In the late 1980s and early '90s, in the midst of public discontent with students' test scores in reading and math, some professional educators proposed that schools pay relatively less attention to methods of schooling, such as discovery learning, and more attention to results. They labeled this idea "outcomes-based education." Their goal was to correlate teaching methods more closely with results. 
   The label stuck, but the idea behind it subtly changed in the early 1990s, when committees of teachers and administrators gathered to define what outcomes were to be achieved. Because of the general antipathy in the educational community to an emphasis on facts, subject matter, and content, the outcomes drafted by these committees tended not to emphasize knowledge so much as various tool metaphors for education and virtue in the form of democratic attitudes and emotions. These included respect for all people, including people of diverse races, religions, and sexual orientations. It was this last idea, and similar socially liberal notions, which raised red flags with conservatives. 
   Thus the battle began, with the term "outcomes-based education" being viewed as a left-leaning conspiracy. It could also be viewed as the transformation of a reasonable idea into impractical vagueness through progressivist antipathy to subject-matter knowledge. 

Antipathy to subject-matter content  

"break-the-mold schools" 
"facts, inferior to understanding"
"facts are soon outdated"
"intellectual capital"
"less is more"
"mere facts"
"rote learning"
"textbook learning"
"transmission theory of schooling"
"teaching for understanding"

Naturalistic pedagogy
"constructivism"
"cooperative learning"
"discovery learning"
"drill and kill"
"hands-on learning"
"holistic learning"
"learning by doing""multiaged classroom" 
 "open classroom"
"passive listening"
"project method"
"rote learning"
"thematic learning"
"whole-class instruction"
"whole-language instruction"

Tool conception of education
"accessing skills"
"critical-thinking skills"
"higher-order skills"
"learning to learn"
"lifelong learning"
"metacognitive skills"
"problem-solving skills"
"promise of technology"

Romantic developmentalism
"at their own pace"
"child-centered school­ing"
"developmentally appropriate"
"factory-model schools"
"individual differences"
"individualized instruction"
"individual learning styles"
"multiaged classroom"
"multiple intelligences"
"multiple learning styles"
"one size fits all"
"student-centered education"
"teach the child, not the subject"
"teach the whole child"
 

Antipathy to testing and ranking
"authentic assessment"
"competition" 
"culturally-biased tests"
"exhibitions"
"performance-based assessment"
"portfolio assessment"   


Others

"banking theory of schooling" 
"culturally-biased curriculum" 
"outcomes-based education" 
"research has shown"
"self-esteem"


 

Return to the main page : 

Critical Guide to Educational Terms and Phrases

  
                          ------------------------------------------ 

 

This was an excerpt from Hirsch's great book on education :

The Schools We Need 
 and Why We Don't Have Them.

Recension by Richard Askey :  
http://mathematicallycorrect.com/hirsch.htm  

Read some extracts (Amazon) :  
http://www.amazon.com/Schools-We-Need-Why/dp/0385484577#reader_0385484577