Conspiracy for the Day -- July 2, 1993
           ========================================
                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")

  "Outcome-Based Education": Spiritual Child Abuse as Reform
  =============================================================

by Susan Welsh

[Excerpts]

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

"All over the country, public school systems are adopting the
latest generation of New Age education reform, known as 'outcome-
based education' (OBE). Stunned parents are told that from now
on, their children will no longer be subjected to such 'old-
fashioned' 'tortures' as academic course requirements and
grades."

"Parents are told this is a program that was developed in their
state, through 'grass-roots meetings.'"

"Yet exactly the same thing is being done in 26 states (so far).
High-priced consultants... are flown in to brief the locals and
get the ball rolling."

"In Pennsylvania and Iowa, people have gotten smart, and
citizens' groups mobilized to defeat OBE -- at least in its
current form. But veterans of those battles know the war is not
over."

                    -+- What is OBE? -+-

"Outcome-based education is a top-down national policy... funded
by corporate piggy banks like RJR Nabisco... In all the OBE
propaganda circulated by the states, no evidence is presented
that OBE has improved learning anywhere, any way. There's plenty
of evidence that it has not."

"[OBE] is based on certain specific *outcomes* in terms of
achievement, attitudes, and behavior... OBE is a framework that
is being used to push through the gamut of New Age 'reforms'
which are being implemented throughout the public schools anyway,
even without OBE. These include:"

    *** Environmentalism. One of [OBE's] goals is
    'environmental stewardship.'... Man is supposed to have
    'stewardship' for Gaia, the Mother Earth goddess.

    *** Multiculturalism. This racist doctrine, masquerading
    as anti-racism, denies to oppressed people the right to
    master the most advanced principles of science and
    culture that human civilization has ever achieved, on
    the grounds that such principles are 'imperialistic.'

    *** Homosexuality. In Massachusetts, the State Board of
    Education May 18 voted up school guidelines aimed at
    fostering the acceptance of homosexuality... In
    Pennsylvania, a parent who complained that the proposed
    OBE 'goals' would lead to homosexuality and promiscuity,
    was told by a spokesman for the State Board of
    Education, 'Look honey, it doesn't matter -- it's a done
    deal.'

    *** Eastern mysticism, trancendental meditation,
    hypnosis. [One program] uses hypnosis and meditation to
    get children to 'feel good about themselves' -- whether
    they've done something to feel good about or not. The
    potential for manipulating children in a hypnotized,
    suggestible state, is enormous.

                 -+- Some State Profiles -+-

Iowa: "The Department of Education announced May 6 that it was
dropping its plan to implement OBE on a state-wide basis, because
there was too much criticism and no adequate 'marketing plan' to
sell OBE to the public... Among the 'reforms' to which Iowa
parents and teachers objected was the Bettendorf Survey, a
psychological profiling test... [The psychological profiles]
acquired become a part of the state's computerized data bank."
 

Pennsylvania: "Under intense pressure from parents, the House of
Representatives on Feb. 8 blocked implementation of OBE -- for
now... Pennsylvania parent investigators were particularly
outraged to discover that the Department of Education was
maintaining a data bank based