The Design Group for the New Designs for the Comprehensive High School project used their first meeting to deliberate and make a keystone decision about the purpose and desired outcomes of the comprehensive high school. From a working paper by Pearce et al. (1991), the Design Group reviewed the history and current practices of aims and objectives for public schools as a way to look at possible learner outcomes. Keeping the 21st century as a target, the group interacted with a composite version of 1990 outcomes from carefully selected illustrations or examples of state and district outcomes. These examples represented ideas from the best in the current practice of outcome-based education. At the same time, the group considered two alternative sets of learner outcomes from Eisner (1991) and Giroux (1988). The Design Group determined that learner outcomes should: (1) be described in no more than one-half of a standard printed page in order to have a clear focus and provide direction to educators; (2) focus on the customers of the school; (3) survive tests from the stakeholders; (4) represent balanced attention to all areas of human talent and development; (5) involve reaching for a meaning of educational excellence that provides challenge and opportunity; and (6) convey the belief that they represent goals for all students. The group adopted the secondary outcomes developed by the Minnesota Board of Education. (YLB)