As most school reform critics know, throughout the 90s the reform movement was dominated by a system known as Outcome Based Education(OBE) and its various offshoots and permutations. One of these was known as ODDM (Outcomes-Driven Developmental Model) which presumably differed from OBE by its systemic approach to school reform which encompassed every aspect of a school district's operation. The jewel of this movement was located in the Johnson City, NY school district. The program became a national model when it received the prestigious national Program Effectiveness Panel validation in 1985 and again in 1994. It also enjoyed the reputation of being the keystone of the Mastery Learning Movement(ML).
Throughout the 80s and 90s bus loads and plane loads of teachers and administrators from most states came to Johnson City to behold the wonders of the model. In January of 1994 I, as a resident of Johnson City, wrote a guest column in the local paper pointing out the shortcomings of the program and indicating that it was nothing more than OBE in sheep's clothing. I later published a report showing not only the weak results of the state tests taken by the students at every level, but the extent to which Johnson City teachers were having problems with the system. I was of course ostracized by district officials.
It was true, however, that ODDM had enjoyed a long history. It was started by John Champlin, a superb "change agent" who was appointed superintendent in 1971. The horror stories told by veteran teachers and administrators of how ruthlessly he brushed aside anyone and anything standing in his way are matched only by an article he published in 1994. Entitled "Leadership: A Change Agent's View," it may well serve as a how-to manual for change agents. In it he not only describes with relish the ruthless methods he used to establish ODDM, but in the last paragraph he proudly boasts of the fact that, like Frank Sinatra, "I Did It My Way."
Champlin left Johnson City in the early 80s to establish a National Center for OBE in Scottsdale, Arizona whose name was recently changed to Institute for Quality Learning. There he established and still controls a journal dedicated to the promotion of OBE/ODDM/ML/QDM (Quality District Model=the latest permutation) through articles and conferences. The journal has likewise recently changed titles from "Quality Outcomes-Driven Education" to "Journal of Quality Learning."
The Winter, 1999 issue contains an article by John Champlin which literally proclaims the death of ODDM as practiced in Johnson City. Perhaps it would be best to use his own words describing the inevitable demise:
"Some of our readers have asked me to reflect on the decline of the Johnson City (NY) school district from its nationally validated program. You deserve the opportunity to hear more about it for no better reason than to learn that greatness has a great price.
"Johnson City's program was truly Camelot. It was the product of a 'dream,' now popularly described as a vision. We knew from our knowledge base what could happen with thoughtful design, honest implementation, and a dedication to constantly renew and grow stronger. The era began in 1971 and extended into 1990. This was a long, successful run by any standards. Johnson City proved what could be done, and it also proved what can and will happen when energies are directed elsewhere instead of maintaining the highest standards in the program.
"Johnson City was, without contradiction, the most exciting and productive school district in the annals of American education's history. Without any intended sense of priority, let me lay out some critical issues for your consideration."
The issues listed by Champlin relate to (1) the lack of sustained leadership "courage and tenacity," which led to a "Rube Goldberg type creation of the 'takeover leaders';" (2) the loss of will to "sustain significant change," and the resulting tendency to "rest on laurels, [which] guarantees an eventual demise;" (3) the unwillingness to maintain high standards, which "sealed the fate of a once great program;" and (4) the dangers of surrendering to "contingency." In further defining the "toxic takeover" that occurred in the district, Champlin fingers the "Christian Right" that had "descended on the district" and to the "Quislings" who like the Norwegians who during the Nazi occupation of their country "found it convenient to check their values and ethics at the door and to assume new behaviors to please the occupying forces."
So we now have the inventor of an early form of OBE delivering a coup de grace to his own offspring, causing embarrassment and consternation in such supporters of ODDM as William Glasser, William Spady, and several others. Hopefully this is the first of the many dominoes constituting current school reforms to fall. Perhaps others will follow. The tragedy is that obsessive school reformers/change agents/educrats inevitably leave behind a terrible shambles which, like the Johnson City system, resembles a Humpty Dumpty that can probably never be put together again. Treating education as a plaything exacts a high price indeed.
email: Aldo S. Bernardo, PhD
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