Analysis of OBE as Oregon Law

WHAT IT MEANS

Professor Siegfried Engelmann of the University of Oregon aptly describes the educational trends of today as "academic child abuse" and a "war against the schools." How the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century fits into that description --- plus being an all out war against the family itself --- is shown in the following analysis of Oregon law and the Administrative Rules of the Oregon Department of Education.

GENERAL REVIEW OF THE STATUTORY BASE

In June of 1991 the 66th Oregon Legislative Assembly passed, and the Governor of Oregon signed into law, an Act known as House Bill 3565, the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century. The Act was passed "declaring an emergency," which made law of the act without delay. Meanwhile, an attempt to stop implementation of the law and repeal the act by placing an initiative on the next general election ballot was thwarted by a friend of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, who filed a court action that delayed the Secretary of State's approval of the initiative long enough to prevent signature gathering in time for the general election. Later legislative sessions made mainly cosmetic changes to the law.

As described in the Foreword to "Task Force Reports Summaries," published by the Oregon Department of Education, the way had been prepared for HB 3565 by extensive shifts in curriculum goals and assessment strategies undertaken by the Department of Education, and passage by the legislature of House Bill 2020 (1987, superseded by HB 3565), which established site committees and defined their makeup; and House Bill 2001 (1989) which established the "voluntary" Twenty First Century Schools Program, on an emergency basis, and "encouraged districts to undertake restructuring in school operations and professional relationships, and establish a waiver process for statutes and rules to allow change to occur."

Among other relevant laws passed were HB 3293 (1989) which required that the Department of Education develop guidelines for a Community Services Curriculum, and prescribed requirements for that curriculum; Senate Bill 780, Chapter 477 (1989), which in Section 1 defined (a) "at-risk" children and (b) families according to rules adopted by the State Board of Education; HB 3180 (1995) that relates to children and family services provided at the school sites and the agencies that provide those services; and HB 2991, which made cosmetic and facilitating changes to ORS Chapter 329, which was rewritten previously by HB 3565.

THE BOARD OF EDUCATION RESPONDS

With passage of HB 3565, the State Board of Education (BOE) immediately began implementing Administrative Rules for establishment of the mandated program authorized by the law. The first rules adopted were those for the Early Childhood Improvement Program on December 31, 1991. The full time line for the program is shown in the Chart on Page 41 of "Working Designs for Change," published by the Oregon State Department of Education, January 1993. That exhibit describes the activities involved in implementation of school reform, but provides little detail. However, certain significant assertions are made.

On Page 4 of the BOE's "Working Designs for Change," third paragraph, we find, "The (State) Board (of Education) viewed the task forces' recommendations based upon a firm commitment to the principles of outcome-based education. In an outcome-based educational system, the state establishes a core set of expected outcomes or results from schooling, but permits school districts and schools, within reasonable limits, to develop their own ways of reaching those outcomes...." Events proved the promise of local variations in the system to be less real than suggested by the Board of Education (BOE)

There is no doubt, then, that the BOE interpreted the school reform Act to mean that Oregon school reform shall be based on the method or system of education known as Outcome Based Education (OBE), the history, characteristics, and development of which are described by former Representative Ron Sunseri's research reported in his book: "OBE: The Truth about Outcome Based Education. ("Questar Books, Sisters, OR 1994)

The correctness of the Board's interpretation of the law as being supportive of OBE is verified by noting that references are made in the law itself to a publication of the National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE), a creature of the Carnegie Corporation, which is alleged by some to be the primary source of OBE philosophy, methodology and legislation not only in Oregon but throughout the nation.

WHAT THE OBE LAWS DO TO CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES

A "distinctive feature" of the reform, according to what the state tells us in the Task Forces Report is that "It calls for a shift in social attitudes towards schools.... Schools must change fundamentally to accommodate these broader social and economic changes. And this depends upon a shift in public attitudes about roles and responsibilities of schools... This reform...concerns what happens between preschool and public school, between school and home, and between school and work and adulthood generally. It emphasizes connections among different segments of the educational system and among schools, families, the business community, and social service and health care organizations." (p6) In other words, the traditional role of school as educator, striving for academic excellence, is abandoned.

Meanwhile, dependence upon church and family to provide the nurturing, protection and general physical and psychic development of the child, is now abandoned, and those responsibilities placed under the purvey of the school and its associate government agents. Furthermore, as we shall see, this extension of authority proceeds far beyond the bounds of the school and school-age children as such, involving infants even from the prenatal period, families from that same period onward, and adolescents and young adults as they make the transition into life beyond the school. In short, the same educational experts who over the past thirty years have ruined the quality of education are now extending their expertise to management of the family. The law is very clear about this, and so are the assertions of the theorists and planners who developed the scheme and are implementing it.

Section 18 of HB 3565 states, "It is the policy of this state to implement, at the earliest possible time, programs for early childhood education including prenatal care, parenting education, child-parent centers and extended Oregon prekindergarten programs..." In Section 4(c)(2) of HB 3565, the extent of the involvement of the schools in the lives of children and parents becomes clear. There the law asserts: "'Services' means education and all other programs and services addressing one or more of a child's six basic needs as follows: stimulus, nutrition, health, safety, nurturance and shelter."

What does that really mean? By law and administrative rule, the reformed education system now stands ready to take over the complete role of the family when it deems the family incapable of serving or is unresponsive to school demands that it perform its traditional functions in accordance with the requirements of the State.

OREGON BECOMES "BIG BROTHER" RELATING TO CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

In Oregon Administrative Rules, 1994 edition, we find a section on "Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education" which reaches out to preschoolers even into the pre-natal period; and "Parent Education", which was established by the legislature in 1987 in anticipation of the reform Act, and is covered in Chapter 684 of Oregon Laws 1987.

Under the title, "Targeting of Services to Families," we also find:

"581-19-075 Programs must target families whose children ages 0-8 are at risk of experiencing difficulty in school based on the following criteria:

(1) Single, step and dual-career families;

(2) Low-income families;

(3) Families for whom English is a second language;

(4) Families who have experienced high mobility (e.g., military, migrant);

(5) Families whose children have high absenteeism in school;

(6) Families with a disruptive family environment (e.g., prison parent, chemically abusing parents);

(7) Families whose children have been assessed as developmentally at risk;

(8) Families with handicapped children as defined by ORS 343.227;

(9) Minority families; and

(10) Families of adolescent parents."

Note that the wording is "must target." As indicated by the list, just about every possible family and thus every possible child between the ages of zero and eight is targeted as, and is by definition, "at risk". As such, virtually every child is therefore liable for government intervention based upon an evaluation by the school or its agents. There is no way for a family to escape intervention if the State wills it based on the above criteria. This "targeting" responds to the requirements of HB 3565 Section 19a(2)(a), and is a common feature of OBE education systems.

There is a common disbelief or denial that "at risk" classifications and correlative "interventions" apply to children or families when children merely do not achieve the proper educational outcomes required by the system, whether by academic failure or by the choice to reject the outcomes sought. Such disbelief or denial is dispelled by HB 3565 Section 21(4). There we find, "If, at any point, a student is not making satisfactory progress toward attainment of the standard at grades 3, 5, 8, and 10, including the Certificates of Initial Mastery and Advanced Mastery, the school district shall make additional services available to the student, that may include but not be limited +to...(d) Family evaluation and social services, as appropriate."

An astute philosophical commentary on this penchant for governmental intervention in matters once familial and religious, or supported by private charities, has been offered by Jean Behtke Elshtrain, a University of Chicago professor, in her new book, "The Twilight of Democracy." (Basic Books, NY, 1995). What is happening to our society, she reveals, is the loss of "a world of groups and associations and ties that bind" our society together. Specifically she refers to the private, mostly local civic organizations: women's groups, volunteers assisting the needy, charities; all providing assistance to the needy and helpless amongst us, both individuals and families. And as these groups have been weakened or even lost, government has taken their place. That is what we see in the schools today; for schools are no longer for educating the young, they are for changing the complexion of society, just as Norma Paulus suggests in the passage we quoted from her report. The schools are an arena that provides an excuse to intervene in the family itself.

The poor and the downtrodden, or even the successful citizen who somehow falls into the snares of the educational bureaucracy, are now "clients" of a faceless bureaucracy more interested in its own comforts and self preservation than it is in those whom it would serve. They are a "network of helpful others" imposing a host of "programs" on a society made captive by law whether the clients want their "help" or not.

For implementation of this element of the system one must turn to ORS Chapter 417, which establishes and defines the Oregon Coordinating Council for Children and Families, of which the Superintendent of Public Instruction is a key participant (ORS 417.310). This council is intended, under the auspices of a school district, to manage the integration, at or near the school site, of children's services and other agencies as appropriate to meet the requirements of laws including HB 3565 in serving "at risk" children and families.

Children aged zero to eight shall be targeted for services by "contractors" or "subcontractors" (other government agencies or private organizations that have no religious affiliations or character, OAR 581-10-065) for various reasons, which will result in "intervention" by those agencies if deemed desirable by the school or its associated agencies.

In the 1995 legislative session, SB 163 was filed at the request of the Children's Services Division of the Department of Human Resources. This Bill would require the Children's Services Division to establish priorities for receiving custody of children based on available resources, and stipulates that those "clients" for whom there are no resources are none the less "in provisional custody of the division."

In the 1995 legislative session HB 2356, Section 2(a), would require the government agent to "Provide a comprehensive risk assessment of all newly born children and their families." (Observe that the modifier is "all." The obvious intent is that no child and no family shall escape the snare of this law.) Further, in 2(c) it stipulates that support services for families shall include but not be limited to "community-based home visiting intervention services" and must (g) "Establish a data system to document.... (a) profile of risk and family demographics." But what does such a dossier have to do with a child being given the opportunity for a good education?

OAR 581-19-078 also requires collection and maintenance of complete data on every family in every category in the above listed criteria for targeting "at risk" families and their children. The formation of local commissions on children and families, as we will see in a moment, puts everything in legal place for full state control and detailed monitoring of virtually any child or family, given the criteria involved, including the simple device of assessing a child as being "at risk" for not meeting the educational development expectations of the educational establishment created under the aegis of OBE.

A significant feature of all this is that the school system is expanding its purview to children even before their birth, and to the education of parents, and using other government agencies as agents of the school in maintaining that purview. It follows, therefore, that in OAR 581-19-080, the Rules state, "If employees of the parent education program, in their official capacity, have reasonable cause to believe any child has suffered abuse or neglect, they shall report or cause a report to be made...." It is their job to inspect each child's home (it appears to be interpreted by the agents, based on testimony of parents, to include all children and not just those at risk by definition) to determine if that home environment satisfies the state's view of what it should be like materially and in terms of family character and values.

This is required by Section 4a(5) of HB 3565, which stipulates that "Services should be comprehensive in nature with the flexibility to identify and address the most urgent needs in a timely manner including health, intervention and support services..."

An abused child, by definition of OAR 581-19-075(7), may be defined as one who is "developmentally at risk." Not to be developing as appropriate to a child's place in school thus confirms the child to be at risk. "Not developing" is measured by standards established by the school, standards which, as shown in Ron Sunseri's book, are subjective and deal largely with prescribed attitudes and feelings.

To be found "at risk" judged by the politically correct State standards, is cause for "intervention" by the school and its agents. It may involve retraining of the parents (parent education), psychological counseling of parents, child, or both; or it may require removal of the child from the home under the authority of an agency employee designated as "surrogate parent" or an "advocate" for the child, who replaces the parents as the person responsible for the health, nurturance, etc., of the child. Certainly such removal (except in emergencies) can be authorized only by a judge, the judge must still follow the law that stipulates what cause may justify removal. But, as we saw, simple failure of a child to develop as required by the school, or rejection of the character of that required development by the parents, is now legal cause for all the "interventions" listed in the law and quoted above.

The consequences of removal of the child from the family on perhaps a broad scale as is anticipated by an Act addressed in the 1995 legislature in HB 2224, filed at the request of former Governor Barbara Roberts. It provided in Section 1 that "A district school board in a school district may enter into agreements to provide auxiliary services and facilities to students, including but not limited to forms of residential care.... Any facility used for residential purposes under this section must meet the applicable standards of the Health Division and the State Fire Marshal."

Section 2 provided that any school district supplying such services "shall receive additional funding to compensate for the direct and indirect expenses incurred in providing the services." In other words, there is clear intent that the state will have the capacity to intervene in families extensively enough that it can make good on its legal threat to remove children from the homes of parents of whom the state disapproves.

While there is no doubt a valid interest of the State in assuring the health and welfare of children, the governance of the schools relative to school-related interests as opposed to those authorities normally delegated to the Children's Services Division is what is challenged here. The definition of "at risk" children and families in terms noted earlier, most of which on the face of it have no necessary connection to child abuse or neglect as ordinarily defined either by law or common social understanding, is believed to be morally and legally questionable, and unconstitutional at bottom.

HB 3180, passed by the 1995 legislature on an emergency basis, in Section 6 amends ORS 419B.005(1) to redefine "abuse" of children relevant to the statutes governing the operations of the Children's Services Division or the new State Office for Child Protective Services. It includes sexual, physical and emotional abuse and neglect, and the threat of same, but does not address educational abuse or neglect as assumed by the Administrative Rules of the BOE.

But even more, to use undefined but scholastically-based "developmental" criteria as a basis for a claim of child abuse or neglect challenges the right of the family to bring up and educate its children in accordance with its own rules and principles, a right which the law clearly supports as fundamental to the character of our society and Constitution.

More than that, the "intervention services" of the agents of the school by law include removal of the child from the home. This is regarded by most authorities and the Children's Services Division itself as a "last resort" alternative, and desirable only in circumstances posing extreme danger to the welfare of the child. For research has shown that removal of a child from its home, even in circumstances where that home life is most unpleasant, is extremely traumatic and results in serious psychological harm to child and family. Thus the severity of the harm caused by removal has to be balanced judgmentally against the harm potentially caused by failure to remove the child.

Remembering that according to the theorists who developed and implemented the OBE system, the underlying goal of OBE is behavior modification seeking a scholastic product (student) exhibiting socially-desirable behaviors, and that the methodologies used in the OBE system are based on the research-developed learning theories and "teaching machine" of B. F. Skinner, a noted behavioral psychologist, then the behavioral research described by Dr. Daniel L. Alkon is appropriate to mention here.

By way of introduction: Skinner's work relates ultimately back to the work of Pavlov and his salivating dog, following techniques perfected by thousands of researchers working with dogs, cats, mice, rats, etc. Indeed, that is why behavioral psychology has long been known among academics as "rat psychology." Relevant to the issue at hand, Dr. Alkon discusses the results of experimentation with monkeys.

"Monkeys reared with prolonged periods of separation from their mothers and/or siblings become irreversibly depressed. The monkeys learn to expect isolation. Their (neural) networks respond by reducing behavioral activity in general and suppressing the drives whose satisfaction defines the animals' very purpose in life. These results of deprivation are severe enough to overshadow inherited differences in emotional makeup. Under these circumstances, nurture takes precedence over nature. It seems only logical that the same must be true of humans." (Memory's Voice: Deciphering the Mind-Brain Code; Harper Collins, 1992, p 92) Note Dr. Alkon's assertion that the effect is "irreversible." Permanent harm is done.

The interventions authorized by HB 3565 and Administrative Rules which are sought to be justified by differences of opinion between school authorities and their agents concerning the decisions a family makes in rearing its children, and which can result in removal of the child from the home and placing it either in some stranger's home or in some domiciliary provided by the school or its agents, are traumatic enough that it is safe to say that no child or family subjected to such intervention will ever forget it, and their lives will be permanently scarred henceforth. Permanent harm results. Whether the trauma will result in depression, psychic isolation and suppression of natural drives to the severe extent described by Dr. Alkon will depend upon many factors, but the threat of terrible, irreversible and permanent harm is present, all for the sake of a disagreement between school and parents concerning whose educational goals are best for the child. As Dr. Alkon, concludes (p 93), "Trauma, chronic frustration, and isolation all stem from learned expectations, as does Pavlovian conditioning."

THE PLANNED 'RE-EDUCATION' OF PARENTS AND FAMILIES

Here it is probably best to amplify the preceding discussion in terms of the ORSs that bear on these issues, which go far beyond the traditional concepts of education.

HB 3565 and sequelae include educational programs known as the Parent as Teacher Program (PAT), and Prekindergarten Program (PKP), as well as the 21st Century Schools Program. ORS 329.170(2) tells us that the purpose of the PAT program is "to enhance their (parents') ability to foster their children's cognitive, social and physical development." Then (3) informs us that the PKP Program is to "provide comprehensive health, education and social services in order to maximize the potential of children three and four years of age." ORS 329.175(1) expands on that, stating that the Department of Education (DOE) will administer the program "to assist eligible children with comprehensive services including educational, social, health and nutritional development to enhance their chances for success in school and life."

Section 17 of HB 2191 amends ORS 329.160, to read: "It is the policy of this state to implement programs for early childhood education (kindergarten through grade 3), for parenting education, including instruction about prenatal care, for child-parent centers, and for extended Oregon prekindergarten programs."

ORS 329.170(5) defines an eligible child as an "at-risk" child, and "may include children who are eligible under rules adopted by the State Board of Education." We cited those rules above, as developed by the Board of Education.

As for the PAT program, an eligible family, according to ORS 329.170(6), is "any family with an at-risk child, and an at-risk child "means a child between zero and eight years of age who is assessed...as likely to experience difficulty succeeding in school." More than that, families involved in the program may, by ORS 329.180(2), "be charged for services based on their ability to pay."

The clear intent is to provide those services, from birth onwards, wherever the school authorities believe there is in fact, or is the likelihood (in their opinion) that a child will be unsuccessful in school. "Unsuccessful," in this context means that the child is not, or is not expected to, perform at appropriate grade level. That means, under OBE, not to exhibit the behaviors reflecting attitudes and values prescribed by the state.

The special education statutes in Chapter 343 now include not only provisions for conventionally disabled children, but effectively any child who may be "at risk." ORS 343.155 directs the Board of Education to establish rules and procedures for child protection, and also for appointing a surrogate for the parent. ORS 343.157 extends the rules to cover early childhood special education and early intervention services.

Section 21(2)(a) of HB 2191 directs that every school district must employ a child development specialist to evaluate and provide services to elementary pupils and their families. This specialist will help the school staff in identifying learning problems, and will refer the child and parents to the appropriate agencies for services "as required." Subsection (3) extends that service to preschoolers and their families.

ORS 343.l64 tells how a targeted child's needs are evaluated when parents consent; 343.165 tells how to proceed if the parents object. This involves special hearings that may be appealed at parental expense through a special "independent evaluation" by a "qualified examiner," or through the courts through a civil action (the school district can also appeal in the same manner), In other words, if you fight the system you will make the lawyers rich and you poor.

An evaluation may be initiated at the request of a teacher (343.173(2), or parents may initiate a referral for services (343.517) by the local Commission on Children and Families. But, (3) cautions, "Nothing in this section shall relieve school districts of the duty to identify, locate and evaluate preschool children with disabilities under ORS 343.157." The BOE and school districts are simply to make agreements per 343.511 to contract for services for children and their families.

HB 3130 (1995), Section 34, makes a significant amendment to ORS 430.705, requiring that the mental health services that the Department of Human Resources operates in Oregon "may include but shall not be limited to the prevention of mental illness and the treatment of children without severe cognitive, physical and medical impairments." In effect, this opens the doors of such facilities to any at risk child deemed to have emotional difficulties with the schools and their curricula.

Section 15 of HB 2991 amends ORS 329.150 to specifically allow the school district to "provide services for children and families at the school site." It gives the schools primary responsibility for those services, although they are expected to coordinate provision of those services with other agencies represented on the local commissions on children and families.

The above legislation that injects the State so comprehensively into the lives of school children and their families comes as no surprise when we study HB 3565 and the response of the State Department of Education and the State Board of Education. As Norma Paulus asserts in her task force report, (p 7), "The State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction have made early childhood education their top priority... Oregon's reform plan thus places a premium on strong early childhood programs that provide for the comprehensive needs of young children and their families."

It is interesting to note that on that page the Board seeks justification from a study done by the National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE), an organization funded by the Carnegie Corporation, a key player in development of Outcome Based Education and its implementation, and on whose Board of Directors sat Vera Katz at the time she introduced into the legislature the Oregon educational reform act based on the work of the NCEE.

Refer to Sunseri's book for more thorough information on the role of the NCEE in educational reform in Oregon and nationally, and the role played by Spady. As shown there, Oregon school reform is not a product of local educators, or of educators per se. Rather, it is clearly shown in the attachments that the Oregon School Reform Act and its implementation are the more or less direct product of private organizations, funded by foundations and federal government contracts and grants, employing psychologists and sociologists who have designed a system they believe will meet the requirements of employers and government in the twenty first century.

Note that latter change in emphasis contained in this system: the product of the schools is no longer educated children given the intellectual and cultural tools that will enable them to exercise their individual desires and options in life; the product is conditioned children given the emotional and technical tools that will enable them to provide the services desired by government and employers.

WHAT OBE TURNS OUT TO BE (BUT YOU WERE NEVER TOLD)

The point of the above citations is but to show that there was nothing accidental about the similarity of the Oregon law to laws in other states or to the Federal HR 6, nor was anything else offered to the people's choice. It was a calculated, well-planned coup, prepared for in advance by other laws such as HB 2020, enacted by the 1987 Oregon Legislature under the auspices of Vera Katz, or the similarly relevant and originating HB 2001 of 1989. In other words, this was a law not developed by Oregon Educators to meet the particular needs of the people of the state. It was a law developed by outside agencies and imposed on the people of Oregon by a small group of influential state officials when, quite literally, no one was paying attention.

In Section 20(2) of HB 3565 the State Board of Education is ordered to "provide the standards...that a student must meet in order to obtain a Certificate of Initial Mastery." In Section 20(3), it lists the general requirements for the Certificate of Initial Mastery. They include: (a) Assure that a student has the knowledge and skills to read, write, problem solve, think critically and communicate across the disciplines, at national levels by the year 2000 and at international levels by the year 2010; and (b) Assure that students exhibit the capacity to learn, think, reason, retrieve information and work effectively alone and in groups."

Nearly that exact wording has filtered down through the Department of Education to all the school districts and schools, no matter that they are supposed to have autonomy in responding to the law. Nor are these substantially unlike the requirements established by the Federal Department of Education or the educational arm of the United Nations. The emphasis of this program is global in concept.

Section 3, which outlines what the reformed education system must be, specifies that the knowledge and skills provided will (7) permit the student to "succeed" in a "participatory democracy and a multicultural nation and world," in contradistinction to the sovereign republic established by our Constitution; and (10) learn to make the "appropriate choices," obtained by (11) learning opportunities that include "appropriate intervention services" as necessary to produce (12) "the attitudes and skills necessary for democratic citizenship."

The attitudes, skills, and appropriate choices the state requires will be established by the State as follows: Section 21(1) requires that the State Department of Education "shall implement an assessment system for all students, including performance-based assessment of the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve the standards for each mastery level leading to the Certificate of Initial Mastery." In Section 21(2), the State Department of Education "..by rule shall establish criteria for determining whether students have demonstrated the knowledge and skills necessary to perform successfully at each level in the manner described in section 20 of this Act, beginning with the 1994-1995 school year."

In the task forces report, page 13, these criteria are stated. Oddly enough, they conform almost verbatim with the stipulated requirements of HB 3565, Section 20(2)(a) and (b), no matter that the state and school districts were said to be free to determine their own standards. Moreover, in that same place, HB 3565 stipulates that students must perform "at national levels by the year 2000 and at international levels by the year 2010," which therefore demands that schools be judged on global criteria and not those of their own choosing made in their own self interest. And, if a student fails to perform, then in Section 20(4), a school district is ordered to "make additional services available" to those students who fail to make "satisfactory progress toward attainment of the standard at grades 3, 5, 8 and 10, including the Certificates of Initial Mastery and Advanced Mastery...." These services may include "Family evaluation and social services, as appropriate," including "appropriate intervention services" allowed by Section 3(11), and parental re-education provided for in Section 18. And, under the operative laws dealing with Children's Services, rejection of such re-education may be labeled child abuse or neglect, and the children may be removed from the home by the State.

This is consistent with the requirement of Section 19f(2) which implicitly requires a school district, by some unspecified date, to implement "strategies for prevention of failure and early intervention for students requiring special assistance." Among those strategies are, in 19f(3), "(c) Coordinate comprehensive health and social services to students and families; (d) Provide preventive and remedial services;" and "(i) Encourage parent or guardian participation and education regarding developmentally appropriate practices for young children."

Given the current history of the onerous procedures of the Children's Services Division, and the provisions of this law that permit intervention with families, "encourage" in this context can only lead to coercive intervention in practice. For example:

In Section 22(2), the Bill discusses the rules by which a child in school shall be allowed to obtain employment, and injects school authorities into the decision-making process, effectively giving them veto power over the decisions of the parent, child and employer. It states, "The proposed rules shall provide opportunities to participate in the employment decision-making relating to the minor, by the minor, the minor's parents or guardian, local school authorities and the potential employer." In short, if the student seeks employment the school authorities or their agents have the right to deny such employment for the child no matter that the child satisfies all child labor law requirements and the prospective employer is ready and willing to hire the child.

This is made absolutely clear in "Task Force Reports -- Summaries," Revised, published in December 1992 by the Oregon Department of Education, which proposed the change to the Administrative Rules governing employment of minors in school. There it clearly states in paragraph (4) on page 47 that a student in the CIM program must obtain a Consent to Work form from the school district, obtain permission of the school authority before entering employment, and submit a consent form to the school district for annual review and approval.

The same exact wording on page 49, paragraph (4), applies to students in the CAM program.

In the Oregon Department of Education Task Force Report on the Integration of Social Services, the members saw the schools, community agencies and families to be "full partners" in the planning and delivery of social services to the child (p 3), and refer to the parent as "a critical co-partner in goal setting and implementing services." (p4). In other words, instead of the parents of a child being the sole arbiters of the kind and quantity of services (including education) that their child may experience, they are relegated to having a minority voice in the partnership with the team of government agencies dealing in such matters as providing services to the child.

In Section 12(1)(a) school districts are invited to request the State Department of Education to "modify any laws, rules or policies," as necessary to implement the school restructuring, in effect granting the State Department of Education the right to waive the application of any law or derivative Administrative Rule to a school district. This is an invitation to school, social service and other authorities allied under this Act to in effect write their own rules (and ignore them, too, for that matter) relative to interventions in family affairs or any other matter bearing upon implementation of OBE.

Such waivers are consistent with those which Superintendent of Public Instruction Norma Paulus obtained in the federal Goals 2000 education legislation, HR 6. In her letter to Steve Swisher, Superintendent of the South Lane School District on April 1, 1994, Ms Paulus wrote, "I asked (Senator Mark Hatfield) to help free us from burdensome federal regulations. My staff developed a package of Oregon examples of federal roadblocks to school reform which Senator Hatfield used to convince Congress to include an Ed-Flex provision in Goals 2000. That provision will allow states to waive certain regulations in six major federal programs: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Carl Perkins Vocation and Applied Technology Act, Eisenhower Math and Science Act, Immigrant Education Act, and the Drug Free Schools Act.... Another provision allows the Secretary of Education to select up to six demonstration states where the state education agency itself would be allowed to grant federal waivers." In February of 1995, Federal Secretary of Education Riley, meeting with school officials in Salem, announced that Oregon was one of those states granted the Ed-Flex waivers. Oregon, as requested by Norma Paulus, is now able to operate above both State and Federal laws that get in the way of her plans for school reform.

The State law furthermore provides that non-elected special interest groups, government agencies outside of the education system, and other non-elected people be charged with preparation of the rules and content of the education system as provided for in Section 38; develop standards as provided for in Section 2(5)(e); develop goals and strategies, per Section 22(2); to develop programs, per Section 30; and consult, Section 24(5); all done while removing any power or authority in this regard from the people or their elected representatives as provided for in Section 34.

To implement part of the law, the State Department of Education published "Extended Definitions for the Certificate of Initial Mastery." There it is stated (p 1) that these definitions "are not intended to identify curriculum goals, describe developmentally appropriate activities, or define expected levels of performance." Rather they are intended for guidance "to those who develop program, assessment tasks and scoring criteria for the Certificate of Initial Mastery."

The report continues: "In order to measure student progress relative to the CIM outcomes, additional components of the CIM assessment system are being developed. These components include scoring scales (rubrics), model assessment tasks and expected performance levels."

What is clear from this wording, and from the actual system as implemented in Cottage Grove and elsewhere, is that the local school districts have no latitude in their implementation of the system, although HB 3565 stipulates that local school districts should be responsible. The State has developed (using material from outside sources beyond the influence and control of the people) the required outcomes, standards and ways of scoring student performance, and the publications of the various school districts reveal that they have fallen into line. As well they might, for the law provides in Section 32 that if they do not, they will lose State funding and in the end be effectively taken over by the state.

THE OUTCOMES OF OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION

The defined outcomes are such that most imply subjective criteria for evaluation, which exposes the system to abuse. Several examples are given in the following. In each instance the definition is given as "The student will be able to:", and a question is herewith posed relative to that definition:
 

Outcome:  Deliberate on public issues.	Definition (The student will be able to):  "apply democratic principles such as fairness and justice in formulating options and actions."
Question:  What if a child disagrees, as for example, judges on a court may, with the state's definition of fairness and justice?

Outcome:  Understand diversity.

Definition (The student will be able to):  "Students will respond to diversity in a way that recognizes the dignity and rights of all people." Furthermore, "Students will be able to communicate with a person from another culture in that person's language and show a sensitivity to the norms of behavior that apply."

Question:  What if a student chooses not to recognize the dignity and rights of all people, just as this approach to education does not? In short, if the student (or his family) does not possess the state-defined attitude on this or other matter of belief or attitude, the dignity and right of that student or family is not respected. Under this law, using the techniques recommended by research for OBE, student and family will be remediated by appropriate intervention, else both will be otherwise punished by the system.

Even when it comes to what ought to be areas where more objective criteria may be established, as in "Apply science and math concepts and processes," we find the vague definition that the student will be able to "analyze the impact of technology on economic, social, political and environmental systems."

Any analysis produces meanings of one sort or another. Meanings derive from interpretations of data. If a student's analysis does not produce interpretations and meanings that coincide with the state-approved criteria, he obviously will not meet the outcome standards and must be remediated. More than that, the definition requires such expansive knowledge of a school child that any response of the child has to be technically flawed and based upon mere opinions and attitudes concerning those fields. If his attitudes are not politically correct, he must fail until he changes his attitudes and produces an acceptable analysis, for there are State-approved correct responses, and anything else requires remediation.

No graduate of any of our best universities could make such an analysis related to all the fields of economics, political science, social science, and environmental engineering, much less relate those fields to the impacts of the multitudinous branches of technology such as electrical, electronic, aerospace, aviation, mechanical engineering, hydraulics, chemistry, etc., all of which have very specialized technological subfields. One can therefore only expect that any outcome expected of our children will be subjectively biased, understood as "politically correct" in the vernacular.

Indeed, the final outcome definition on page 9, related to the student's ability to participate "as a member of a team," is exceptionally revealing. It specifies the outcome ability to "work toward consensus while respecting divergent points of view." In other words, like it or not, the child must gladly suffer fools and reach consensus with their foolishness. Either that or the child will not obtain his certificate and will be subject to the remediation provided for in the Bill under Section 21(5).

WHAT HB 2991 ACCOMPLISHED: COSMETIC CHANGES

Because of public criticism of the out-of-state influences that the Legislative Assembly permitted to shape our education reform law, HB 2991 in 1995 quietly expunged references to the NCEE and its publications. In Section 40, Section 6 of Chapter 667, Oregon Laws 1991, an embarrassing reference to the NCEE was eliminated (See Section 6(1)(a) of the original law.) It stated that the Oregon Workforce Quality Council shall be responsible for "overseeing reform of current primary and secondary education programs as recommended by the National Center for Education and the Economy in 'America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages.'" This was an embarrassment because of the public insistence by Norma Paulus, Vera Katz and others that Oregon School restructuring was of local origin.

A further embarrassment is that ultimate authority for reform of Oregon Schools was given to a non-educational entity: The Oregon Workforce Council.

In Section 6(2)(a) of the ORS, a lengthy word for-word excerpt from the NCEE document was removed by HB 2991, while Section 45 of that act removed a reference to the document in ORS 329.900.

Section 50 of HB 2991 also repealed ORS 329.935, the essential content of which was, "The Legislative Assembly finds that the national education reform model reported in 'America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages,' provides a framework on which to build Oregon's workforce capacity. The Legislative Assembly therefore requires that those programs and activities undertaken under ORS 315.254, 329.960 and 329.965 operate within the structure and the objectives of the five recommendations of the Commission on Skills of the American Workforce of the National Center on Education and the Economy."

HB 2991 also moved to ameliorate other public criticisms of the OBE law. It reinserted language pertaining to "academic standards," defining them in Section 2(1) as "expectations of student knowledge and skills in identified content areas..." Section 3 stated general goals in such terms and Section 4, amending ORS 329.025, now calls not for "a high degree of mastery" in vague fields of knowledge, but for "rigorous academic content standards and instruction in mathematics, science, history, geography, economics, civics and English," subjects which under existing OBE "thematic block" instruction techniques are being virtually eliminated from the educational system.

Section 2(8) now would have education point the child towards successful functioning not only in a "participatory democracy and a multicultural nation and world" as specified by the globalist orientation of the original law, but also in a "constitutional republic," wording missing from the original document. It also deleted subsection (12) of the ORS, which prescribed organization of "instructional groupings as heterogeneously as possible to promote the attitudes and (social) skills necessary for democratic citizenship." This answered the general criticism that mixes of slow and fast learners in effect dumbed down the more talented since they were forced to wait until the entire group had achieved a particular goal, and sought to allay criticisms that all OBE sought to teach were attitudes and values relevant to some "brave new world" of some sociologist's fancy.

Yet in Section 5(1) of the new law, it requires only that students "should" (rather then "shall") be held to these new "academic standards." In effect, this negates demands for quality education in the traditionally basic subject matters. For this presents a natural license for zealots of OBE in the educational system to continue with business as usual. By the same token, Section 6 amends ORS 329.045 to require that academic standards in the subjects listed above be included as necessary bases for achieving a certificate of mastery or a diploma, and the award of a diploma is reinstated into the school law.

Still, while the Section 8 amendment of ORS 329.075 includes the new buzz words, "rigorous academic standards," the implementation plan for OBE remains basically intact and unmodified but for changes in the handling of pilot programs. Worse, Section 23 allows the Board of Education until June of 1996 to develop just a plan for returning academics to the system, while Section 29 allows until June of 1999 before completing the process.

Politically, the most significant change in law made by HB 2991 is the repeal of ORS 329.705 and replacing it with Section 39 of HB 2991. Under the old statute, the site councils had been made essentially autonomous relative to school boards, were dominated by the educational establishment, and site council decisions "shall prevail" over the local elected school committee while the District Board of Directors had only "approval" authority interpreted to be of the "rubber stamp" nature.

The new law now asserts "(1) Nothing in this section shall interfere with the duties, responsibilities and rights of duly elected school district boards." School committees elected to represent the voters of a school area are still powerless, although until the advent of the site councils they had the responsibility of advising school administrators by representing the public that elected them.

Also gaining were parents who now, like teachers, can (not "must") be up to half the membership of the committee. Furthermore, the parents shall be selected by parents of children at the school, while formerly they were selected by school personnel, and usually not more than one was elected to a committee. No provisions were made to assure that selection mechanisms, as before, would not be devised so that "pet" parents would be brought onto the committee so as to be sure that an independent-minded parent would not rock the OBE boat. In other words, the move back toward control of the schools at the ballot box may be more apparent than real under the new law, depending on the administrative rules to be developed to implement the law.

A further change (Section 39(6)) was to make the open meetings law applicable to meetings of the site councils. This responded to the general complaint from practically all districts that site council meetings were scheduled and held such that interested parents would be effectively shut out of any awareness of the deliberations and decisions of the councils.

As indicated in the "Task Force Reports Summaries" and elsewhere, OBe is being incrementally installed in the school districts of Oregon, with some districts and "pilot" schools in advance of others in the sequence of installation. Full implementation and installation was scheduled on or about the year 2000, at which time the system was planned to be operating in its "transformational" phase and all vestiges of traditional academic education and its assessment and value systems will be eliminated from the schools. HB 2991 had the effect of delaying implementation because the schools were obviously unable to develop their OBE programs as swiftly as originally anticipated.

Interesting also is that HB 2991 Section 33 removes objectionable mandates or recommendations for OBE methodology from the existing law in ORS 329.585, but does not rule them out or replace them with other recommendations and mandates. Deleted are mention of non-graded school programs, extension of the school year or teacher/student contact hours, integration of health and social services at the school site; elimination of the 55-minute class period and graded glasses and other strategies such as team teaching, student to student monitoring and inclusion of special needs populations. Many of these are now thoroughly integrated into existing non-directive school programs. And, we repeat, there is no requirement that they be eliminated, although wherever OBE appears, these "developmentally appropriate practices" show up also.

WHAT OBE IS INTENDED TO ACHIEVE: CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION

The argument here is that HB 3565, as implemented by Norma Paulus, Superintendent of Public Instruction, the State Board of Education and the State Department of Education, and Susan Massey, as Chairwoman of the State Board of Education, have established a system of education in Oregon known in the education industry as Outcome Based Education. Further, the outcomes required by that system, as implemented, negate conventional teaching methods and policies and their outcomes. Those traditional outcomes, which for a hundred years and more in American schools were defined in academic terms by subject matters, are under this new system defined attitudinally and by belief systems dictated by the State.

No clearer assertion of the intention of the framers of OBE is needed than the words of Shirley McCune, senior director of the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory doing research for the U.S. Department of Education. As the keynote speaker at the 1989 Governor's Conference on Education called by President Bush, she told the governors that: "What we're into is the total restructuring of society. What is happening in America today...is not simply a chance situation in the usual winds of change... (it is) a total transformation of society... You can't get away from it. You can't go into rural areas, you can't go into the churches, you can't go into government or into business and hide." (Ron Sunseri's Book, p 15-16) "..Schools are no longer in the schooling business, but rather in the human resource development...we have an opportunity to develop the kind of society we want." (Ibid., p 62)

Key phrases above are "total restructuring of society" and "schools are no longer in the schooling business." Schools, in short, are but a tool in the hands of social engineers, manipulated to obtain their dream of what our country and its people ought to be like. These are our children they are talking about, reduced to a "human resource" for socially appropriate "development."

The U.S. Department of Education in its report, Developing Leaders for Restructuring Schools: New Habits of Mind and Heart, says "Restructuring (OBE) is the process of institutionalizing essential new beliefs and values in the school mission, structure and process." In other words, the mission of the schools is nothing other than to change the beliefs and values of our children, rooting out those previously inculcated by the family in the home and in the church of their choosing. The intent is to mold each child's beliefs and attitudes into a single, government-approved and sanctioned model. No matter all the fine rhetoric of the Oregon State Board of Education and the Oregon Department of Education, this is what school restructuring and transformational OBE is all about, the consequences of which are that the children of Oregon are being weaned away from traditional education, beliefs and value systems.

In 1990 the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) published America's Choice: High skills or low wages. It described the workplace as one "managed by a small group of educated planners and supervisors (utilizing) ....administrative procedures (that) allow managers to keep control of a large number of workers. Most employees under this model need not be educated. It is far more important that they be reliable, steady and willing to follow directions. "(Ron Sunseri's Book, p 29-30) Why? Because, the report states, "More than 70 percent of the jobs in America will not require a college education by the year 2000." (Ibid., p 30)

The Department of Education emphasis on early childhood conditioning is crucial to the end product. Dr. Daniel L. Alkon, a psychiatrist and neurological researcher, explains that from the moment of birth human beings commence a process of "imprinting" that "dictate(s) their present and future experience." He explains, "People...form an image.... which forevermore represents the love and sustenance they seek. It does not matter that the image might include dreadful deprivation and pain. If this is the image that has been imprinted, it remains with them for the rest of their lives." (pp 3 and 4 of "Memory's Voice: Deciphering the Mind-Brain Code," Harper Collins, New York, 1992). In short, early childhood education from zero to eight years of age, and coincident re-education of parents, will "imprint" the approved experiences, belief systems, values, and behaviors that will produce the life-long outcomes sought by the system.

In 1992 the NCEE put out a confidential report, "The National Alliance for Restructuring Education: Schools--and Systems--for the 21st Century." That report states (p 33), "Our objective is to make schools of the kind we have described as the norm, not the exception, first in the cities and states that are Alliance members, and later elsewhere. Getting there will require more than new policies and different practices. It will require a change in the prevailing culture---the attitudes, values, norms and accepted ways of doing things---that defines the environment that determines whether individual schools succeed or fail in the transformation process. We will know that we have succeeded when there are enough transformed schools in any one area, and enough districts designed and managed to support such schools, that their approach to education sets the norms, frames the attitudes and defines the accepted ways of doing things in that part of the world. There is no turning back.

"The question is how to bring about this kind of cultural transformation on the scale we have in mind....and to organize (resources) in such a way that the growth of the new culture is geometric." Their answer: Mold the children when they are most malleable, from zero to eight years of age, and re-educate the parents using whatever methods are necessary to do the job.

Within the schools the strategies of behavior modification used to obtain conformity involve various forms of coercion: by the teacher/facilitator, by the peer group (recognize the system's emphasis upon group learning) that cannot proceed until all in the group have met the desired outcome; by the administration that would deny progression through the system without buckling under to the standard requirements; by parents in fear of the wrath of the system. The system also employs social service personnel who, under the laws we have cited, are given as much authority over the child as the parents, and who may declare uncooperative parents of uncooperative children to be "child abusers" or "neglectful" and, in consequence, without substantive due process, remove the child from the home into state operated "residences" and prosecute the parents for child abuse or neglect, or demand that the parents subject themselves to psychological counseling or therapy until such time as their attitudes have changed to agree with those the state requires.

None of this remains speculative because of the experience of "pilot" schools in Oregon designated to lead the way in the restructuring effort. One of those is the Cottage Grove High School in the South Lane School District.

Documents used in that school reveal that the "outcomes" which the law said should be determined locally, and which were actually handed down by the state, originated in a special commission of the federal Department of Labor, and are contained in a document called the "SCANS Report for America 2000." The substantive contents of that report were produced by the organization known as the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), a private organization mentioned earlier. This is an organization funded and controlled by the Carnegie Corporation, and is a central funding agency for grant money supporting OBE programs and experimentation using funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and similar sources.

Teresa Deatherage, a School Board Member and mother of a student in the Cottage Grove high school, relates that regular subjects such as English, history, literature, political science and geography have been eliminated from the curriculum and replaced by "junk" culture courses (her description of the thematic, or block courses operating under OBE). Furthermore, students have been required, as a condition of graduation, to perform twenty hours of a specified community service. They were not allowed to pick and choose such service voluntarily. Since the School Board had its authority taken away from it by HB 3565, it is powerless to intervene.

One of the major determinants of the "strand," or course of study a student will be assigned for the last two years of his secondary education, is a Values Appraisal Scale. Basically it is a measure of beliefs and attitudes about cultural factors and value-sensitive ideas. These are then computerized and portrayed on a computer-generated scale, and the results entered into the "electronic portfolio" that is the state's permanent record of the student.

There are batteries of tests on social attitudes such as concerning the subjects of suicide or death. There is a module called "Death and You" in two parts, asking such questions as "Is death ever a good thing, either for the individual or for society as a whole?" and "How much has religion influenced your attitude toward death?" and "What are your attitudes towards funerals, cremation, burials, euthanasia?" Specific "right" answers are required, else remediation is required until the student displays the right attitude.

In 10th grade sexuality tests it is asked, true or false, that "Everyone ought to be free to do what he/she wants sexually," and " Contraceptives and abortions should be available to teenagers without parental consent." Again, these questions are designed to determine whether the student has the politically correct attitude, not simply to determine what his attitude is.

In the first class subjected to the Certificate of Initial Mastery requirement at Cottage Grove High School, 58 percent failed to obtain the certificate on the normal schedule, but were retained as IP (In progress).

According to Barbara Tennison, parent of a student at the school, reasons for failure to award the CIM included:

- failure to do homework, resulting in disallowed makeup because student had not accomplished "seat time" requirement, which made irrelevant his/her ability to do the work

satisfactorily.

- failure to have a proper attitude as defined by the teacher.

- because one's CIM presentation was too long or too short.

Barbara Tennison also reported that in the elementary schools of the district, teachers did "home evaluations," in which the teacher made an appointment to go into the child's home, not for a parent-teacher conference, but to investigate the environment of the home. They refused to tell the parents the reason for the visitation, but the school district policy was to do so in order to identify and evaluate "at risk" children. It is assumed that a parent who refuses admission of the state's agent into the home provides confirmation that their child is "at risk".

Under the old system a truant officer might knock on the door of a home to enquire why Johnny was not at school the day before, and the parents were invited to school on an evening or afternoon to confer with the teacher about Johnny's progress.

Under the new system an agent of the school invades the home to inspect --- search, if you will --- for evidence that Johnny is being abused or neglected by parents who both happen to work or may be filling Johnny's head with politically incorrect beliefs and attitudes, which makes them developmentally at risk and "targets them for services to families."

There is nothing voluntary about this visit. The inspection will take place whether the parent likes it or not. The only issue is whether the parent acquiesces quietly or submits by coercion. There is no doubt that a family's Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy is not violated due to investigation of suspected child abuse and search of their home and children as long as the state uses due process based on a report alleging real child abuse and not merely a difference in family values or attitudinal norms compared to those thought proper by the State.

There is no interest of the state that can justify a standard practice of what in effect is a fishing expedition directed against families who happen to fit the "criteria" established by Administrative Rule. Here we have no reports alleging neglect or abuse. A family simply fits a profile designed by educational social engineers. Such a practice directly challenges the notion that "Free personal choice in matters involving family life is a fundamental liberty interest of parent, inasmuch as parents' claim to authority in their own household to direct rearing of their children is based in the structure of our society." (Poliovchak v Meese, 774 F.2d 731, ca 7 Ill 1985) That we find the representatives of the Department of Education and their associates asserting their will to change the structure of that society is relevant fact bearing upon these issues.

The definition of "at risk" in this context is unspecified, and the criteria that turn a pair of working parents into "abusive parents" are unspecified, since only probable suspect family situations are identified by the criteria in OAR 581-19.075. For example, by definition, a child of parents who both have careers is "at risk," and so is the family. Mrs. Tennison also questioned whether teachers are qualified to make such judgments. The issue here is whether or not such visits and other school-initiated interventions constitute unconstitutional searches of the homes and invasions of parental and family privacy.

This coercive approach is similar to that used in Head Start programs, in which parents must sign consent forms and permit home evaluations else their children will not be admitted to the program.

It is interesting to observe that the 1995 HB 3180, Section 13(1) specifies that if Children's Services Division cannot confirm that a child is being abused or neglected, it will refer the case to the local commission on children and families "for voluntary services." However, (2) of that section provides that "the commission shall notify the division of any family that has twice refused voluntary services." The implication, of course, is that CSD will then bring its biggest legal guns to bear on the recalcitrant family.

That is what the character of OBE and its ancillary programs have brought upon the children and families of Oregon. The socially and psychologically oriented character of OBE, as opposed to traditional subject-oriented education, lies at the heart of it.

Dr. William Coulson, who with Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow developed the psychological techniques and principles taken up by the designers of OBE, and who once was an advocate of the system, has since repudiated OBE and its psychological orientation and is working "to bring this inappropriate method that I now see as quasi-amateur nondirective group therapy (in) American schools to a stop --- to work to change the direction back to the traditional methods of teaching." (Reported from a seminar address by Dr. Coulson, by Diana Finlay in the San Marcos Daily Record, San Marcos TX, Sunday, May 23 1993, page 1B.)

Instead, our schools under OBE are using the nondirective technique developed by psychotherapists. It works in the environment of the therapist's office. It is, Coulson avers, totally destructive in the classroom.

Finlay reports, "Coulson sees this amateur psychotherapy in the classrooms as not only taking valuable time away from academics,....but 'We are prying open the mouths of all of the children in the classrooms and pouring down their throats medicine---clinical psychological therapeutic medicine---which would be appropriate only for a few of them and then only if properly diagnosed and properly delivered---but all the kids are being made to take the medicine and only a few of them need it. All of the children are being forced to drink in this medicine because a few don't have an upbringing any more. And when you complain about this you hear "But the families are not doing their job..." Well, it is not all families who are doing the job. The parents in this room are doing their job or they wouldn't be here tonight. Yet your children are getting the medicine as if you weren't...and they are suffering academically as well.'"

Far from preparing our children to compete successfully on the world economic stage as the deliverers of OBE assert, Coulson said "We are cheating our children out of a fair chance in global competition." Coulson's remedy: "We need to return to the teaching of subject matter, not to turn the clock back---because it couldn't be done even if we wanted to---but rather to help our children grow confidently...possessing the same kinds of intelligence that we have.

"Children used to have an adult intelligence and that is because their parents would lend them their own---but by nature they don't have an adult intelligence. Left to their own devices, children turn out to be imbeciles. But before they never were left to their own devices.... And now, our children are being left without direction."

Dr. Siegfried Engelmann of the University of Oregon, in his book, "War Against the Schools' Academic Child Abuse," laments, "At present there are strong advocacy groups for the spotted owl, the killer whale, the Alaska fur seal and hundreds of other 'endangered species.' Paradoxically, millions of our kids are endangered... They will suffer a very real form of child abuse. Yet these kids have far less real advocacy than the spotted owl does."

However the courts do offer protection to children, families and parents. In Stough v Crenshaw County Board of Education (1983), we read that "Interest of a parent in making decisions concerning the education of his or her child is a 'fundamental' personal liberty protected by the Constitution." That is, "Liberty of a parent to direct education of his or her child can be viewed as part of the citizen's Fourteenth Amendment Liberty or First Amendment freedom of association or a combination of both."

This principle was best stated by Mr. Justice McReynolds in delivering the opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Pierce vs Society of Sisters of Holy Names, in 1925, in affirmation of an injunction enjoining enforcement of an Oregon statute "requiring all children between the ages of eight and sixteen years to attend the public schools." While several constitutional issues were at stake in the case, one in particular pertains to the issues raised by HB 3565. That is the interference the law created since, in the words of one of the attorneys, it "unconstitutionally interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control."

One of the attorneys for the state argued that "the state stands in the position of parens patriae, and may exercise unlimited supervision and control over their (the private schools') contracts, occupations, and conduct, and the liberty and right of those (parents and children) who assume to deal with them." He further argued, as one might relative to HB 3565, that "It being conceded that the state has power to compel attendance at some school, it follows under familiar principles that the legislature has a broad discretion in selection of a means by which the results desired may be brought about."

Arguing for the Sisters, their attorney made a simple point: "The parent has the common-law or natural right, to direct the education of the child," citing legal precedent that assures it. And this right is precisely what has been taken from the parent in many ways on many levels.

Mr. Justice McReynolds replied for the Court. "The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize children... The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations."

As so eloquently asserted by Shirley McCune to the Governor's Conference, the advocates of OBE have no concept of the child as anything but a creature of the state, a mere tool to be transformed for the advantage of the social order which they presume to foist upon our children and their families through the instrument of OBE and its ancillary programs.

HOW LEGAL PRECEDENT SPEAKS

The central feature of the people's objections to HB 3565 and its associated statutes, is their search for relief from a system that challenges the beliefs, values and attitudes of the family, not only in school, but in parental education designed to elicit the creation of an entirely new set of attitudes and beliefs on the part of both parents and their children. To support their plea for that relief, we cite the opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas, who rendered the finding of the United States Supreme Court in the case of West Virginia State Board of Education, etc., al., Appellants, v. Walter Barnette, Paul Stull and Lucy McClure (319 US 624-671).

Recognize that under OBE, in the state of Oregon, a child whose instilled family values and beliefs are assessed to be different from those expected by the state will be "remediated" and his family placed at risk for parental reeducation or worse forms of intervention until such time as the child in fact changes his beliefs or pretends to. Nor can he leave and find education more to his liking elsewhere in the public schools. He is bound to the school for at least one year more of remediation before the system will allow him to go to another OBE school to see if it can do a better job of remediating him. Nor may we forget the ultimate threat of removal of the child to a state "residence" and prosecution of the parents for child neglect or abuse.

In asserting the rights of the child and its parents to be free from such governmental duress, Mr. Justice Jackson (630) observed in an opinion of the Supreme Court,, "The freedom asserted by these appellees does not bring them into collision with rights asserted by any other individual.... (T)he refusal of these persons to participate in the ceremony (read "OBE") does not interfere with or deny rights of others to do so. Nor is there any question in this case that their behavior is peaceable and orderly. The sole conflict is between authority and rights of the individual.... Here we are dealing with a compulsion of students to declare a belief."

What the state requires, said Mr. Justice Jackson, is nothing less than (633) "...the individual to communicate by word and sign his acceptance of the political ideas it thus bespeaks. Objection to this form of communication when coerced is an old one, well known the framers of the Bill of Rights.

"It is also to be noted that... (OBE) requires affirmation of a belief and an attitude of mind. It is not clear whether the regulation contemplates that pupils forego any contrary convictions of their own and become unwilling converts to the prescribed (education) or whether it will be acceptable if they simulate assent by words without belief and by a gesture barren of meaning. It is now a commonplace that censorship or suppression of expression of opinion is tolerated by our Constitution only when the expression presents a clear and present danger of action of a kind the State is empowered to prevent and punish...."

Unfortunately for the children of Oregon, the cleverness and sophistication of the psychological tests and remediation processes are such that simulation of assent is not believed possible. They must become "converts" or the various processes of intervention and coercion descend upon them.

Relative to OBE, we find particularly cogent the remark of Mr. Justice Jackson (634), "To sustain the compulsory flag salute (again, read OBE) we are required to say that a Bill of Rights which guards the individual's rights to speak his own mind, left it open to public authorities to compel him to utter what is not on his mind."

"The question (636) which underlies the.... controversy is whether such a(n education) so touching matters of opinion and political attitude may be imposed upon the individual by official authority under powers committed to any political organization under our Constitution."

If such authority were allowed, it "would resolve every issue of power in favor of those in authority and would require us to override every liberty thought to weaken or delay execution of their policies." And this is exactly what the system of Outcome Based Education, as implemented in Oregon, is designed to do under the cloak of free public education.

(637) "Free public education, if faithful to the ideal of secular instruction and political neutrality, will not be partisan or enemy of any class, creed, party, or faction. If it is to impose any ideological discipline, however, each party or denomination must seek to control or, failing that, to weaken the influence of the educational system. Observance of the limitations of the Constitution will not weaken government in the field appropriate for its exercise.

"...The Fourteenth Amendment, as now applied to the States, protects the citizen against the State itself and all its creatures --- Boards of Education not excepted.... That they are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes."

Here in Oregon, the State indeed is intent on strangling the free mind at its source, and with premeditation is teaching youth a relativism that in fact discounts important principles of our government as less than mere platitudes. All this is done in the name of preparing our youth and our society for an imagined world of a decade or two hence, not for national unity, but for social conformity in a global, rather than a national society.

This was not what Mr. Justice Jackson meant when he wrote, (640) "National unity as an end which officials may foster by persuasion and example is not in question. The problem is whether under our Constitution compulsion as here employed is a permissible means for its achievement.

"Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by good men as well as by evil men... As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever increasing severity. (641) As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be. Probably no deeper division of our people could proceed from any provocation than from finding it necessary to choose what doctrine and whose program public educational officials shall compel youth to unite in embracing.... Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard."

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us."

Mr. Justice Murphy, in concurring (645) with Mr. Justice Jackson, found the West Virginia law objectionable, stating "Thus not only is the privilege of public education conditioned on compliance with the requirement, but non-compliance is virtually made unlawful. In effect, compliance is made compulsory and not optional.... But there is before us the right of freedom to believe, freedom to worship one's Maker according to the dictates of one's conscience, a right which the Constitution specifically shelters...

"The right of freedom of thought and of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution against State action includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all, except...as in the case of compulsion to give evidence in court."

"I am unable to agree that the benefits that may accrue to society from... (OBE) are sufficiently definite and tangible to justify the invasion of freedom and privacy that is entailed..." Which elegantly sums up what has been written here.

-- Bill Bonville

If you have any questions or comments please send mail to: bonville <at> uci.net.