No PolitiFact Texas, The Texas GOP IS Calling For Schools to Stop Teaching Critical Thinking Skills

As readers of this blog know, I am a frequent defender of independent fact checking operations such as PolitiFact, FactCheck, and The Fact Checker. These operations are necessary to promote critical thinking and reality based political discourse. However, the people who run these operations are human and do occasionally make mistakes (although quite a bit fewer than some would have you believe). I believe a recent PolitiFact Texas article is indeed guilty of one of these mistakes. The article examined a claim by New York Times columnist Gail Collins in which she claims "The current Republican state [Texas] platform calls for an end to the teaching of ‘critical thinking’ in public schools." PolitiFact Texas argues this was taken out of context and assigns a rating of "Half True" to the claim. But did PolitiFact do a satisfactory job justifying this rating?

As PolitiFact notes, Outcome Based Education is not a concrete idea.

"So what the heck is it? The news stories we read indicate outcome-based education takes different forms nearly everywhere it's applied. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram gave a description in an Oct. 30, 1996, news story about opposition to OBE-like elements in the state's planned education overhaul:

Under outcome-based education, academic and personal goals are set for students before they can graduate. The program stresses that children are not allowed to fail, so they might be given the same test or report over and over until they do the work satisfactorily. It also may eliminate traditional grades, competitive student assessments and distinct subjects and grade levels.

Methods of implementing outcome-based education include awarding group grades instead of individual grades and eliminating honors programs.

The "founding father" of OBE, education reformer William Spady, gave an example in an interview for the December 1992/January 1993 issue of Educational Leadership magazine, published by ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development). Asked whether an outcome might be "The student will be able to list the five causes of the Civil War," Spady replied: "No, sorry; that is not an exit outcome. But, 'Identify and explain the fundamental causes and consequences of the Civil War' would be an enabling outcome worth pursuing en route to some larger exit outcome.""

That is interesting, but could that be what the Texas GOP is actually referring to? PolitiFact takes a look at their 2010 platform:

""The primary purpose of public schools is to teach critical thinking skills, reading, writing, arithmetic, phonics, history, science, and character . We oppose Outcome-Based Education (OBE) and similar programs.""

Based on what PolitiFact has found as a description of OBE, nothing in the Texas 2010 platform seems to apply here. In fact, the earlier Civil War example sounds like an attempt to actually understand the civil war instead of just memorizing a few facts. It is the difference between telling a student to "list" and "explain." The former is mere memorization. The latter includes thinking critically about the causes and outcomes. So why again does the GOP not support OBE? Let us look again at their 2012 platform:

"We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." (emphasis mine)

Humans are not natural critical thinkers, so behavior modification is necessary for critical thinking. And critical thinking necessarily also involves challenging fixed beliefs and authority. So it sounds as if the reason the Texas GOP wants to ban OBE is actually because of qualities necessary for critical thinking. If they want to ban qualities necessary for critical thinking, does it not follow that they must therefore want to effectively ban critical thinking all together? Donald Prothero of SkepticBlog explains:

And the last phrase is almost too bizarre for belief: they explicitly don’t want their kids to think critically because their ideas might challenge “the student’s fixed beliefs and undermine parental authority.” That’s it in a nutshell—the classic dogma of fundamentalist churches and authoritarian states. Don’t think for yourself, don’t ask questions, don’t rock the boat, because the Church, the GOP and your parents are the ultimate repository of truth, and we don’t want to have the lies we told you as children undermined by anything like education.

So PolitiFact is correct that critics have failed to take note of the OBE part of the GOP platform. But given how they describe OBE, it is clear they are talking about what essentially boils down to critical thinking. So the distinction should have made this article score a "Mostly True" at worst.

In addition it is striking is that PolitiFact falls for the GOP's weasel word use of the term "critical thinking":

"Both [2010 and 2012] platforms support critical thinking when it comes to "controversial theories" such as evolution, which "should be taught as challengeable scientific theories ... Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.""

There is strong evidence to suggest "critical thinking" in this context has little to do with actual critical thinking skills. It is essentially used as a weasel word for unsubstantiated challenges to the theory of evolution and climate change. The fact that the Texas GOP called the theory of evolution "controversial" speaks volumes as to what they are saying. The theory of evolution is accepted by nearly all biologists and scientists all over the world. It is far from controversial outside the minds of a generally scientifically illiterate public. Any kind of actual controversy within the theory of evolution is far above the level of any high school student. The "controversies" they speak of are actually a large number of widely debunked creationist arguments unfit for science education. This is not critical thinking. Just because the Texas GOP calls it critical thinking doesn't mean they support critical thinking skills. This is an obvious fallacy. For example, I could say I support a good diet but claim people should eat at McDonalds every day. Do I really support a good diet? Would someone not be justified in claiming I do not actually support a good diet.

So it sounds as if PolitiFact has missed the point. But this is to be expected every once in a while. Although PolitiFact is a great source of information in a world filled with disinformation, they are not always right. Should you dismiss them because they are not always right? Of course not! You would have to dismiss all information because the people that produce that information are all imperfect. PolitiFact has an excellent track record. So chances are their analysis is correct. All this post does is reinforce what fact checkers such as PolitiFact (as well as skeptics in general) have tried to say. Think critically and don't take anything for granted. Do not pick and chose what you are skeptical of based on pre-existing biases, and know when to reasonably accept a claim. Do not be a denier.