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CSCOPE FOR BABIES & DATA MINING

Jun 10
Posted by Ginger in Featured Post
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CSCOPE-for-Babies[5]

       “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” ~Lenin 

Texas Trash Talk
by Colleen Vera

Many thought that when TESCCC promised to remove lesson plans from CSCOPE the children of Texas were safe – for now.

The plan by the liberals to bypass our Governor and State Board of Education  in order to slip Federal Common Core Standards into Texas schools through the backdoor – secretly using public funds hidden within a private non-profit corporation – had been uncovered, investigated and thwarted.

For the time being, Texas kids were safe from Bill Ayers and Linda Darling Hammond. Lessons designed to brainwash Texas kids against Capitalism, American Exceptionalism,  Christianity, etc. were gone.  Texas teachers were no longer forced to teach all kids the same CSCOPE lessons on the same day in the exact same way.

All was well. Right?

I am sorry to report that a more sinister web is now being quickly spun as you read. A plan that includes:

 

  • Implementing Obama’s new pre-K plan to
  • Use local Harris County tax dollars to fund a
  • Private non-profit corporation to
  • Grab Harris County kids from birth to 4
  • Including HOME VISITS…. then
  • Gradually expand statewide until the
  • State has control of all day care programs
  • Under Federal pre-school Common Core standards.

Thus leading to the ultimate utopia for liberals – government control of child rearing – hidden behind the guise of “kindergarten readiness.”

This is all being planned secretly behind closed doors at the Harris County Department of Education.(HCDE)

What makes it worse is that the HCDE  Board President, Angie Chesnut, 143-Chestnut_09.jpg  is supposed to be a Republican. She even serves as Vice President  of the Kingwood Area Republican Women – who list CSCOPE as a “hot topic” on their website.

Yet Ms Chesnut is allowing each board member to meet privately with the team planning Obama’s Pre-K Common Core program so they can gain information and ask questions WITHOUT having to discuss the plan in front of the public in an open meeting.

I guess she has never read the “Republican Philosophy” document nor the “Republican vs Democrat” beliefs page posted by her own club.

More troubling is that at the HCDE meeting to  replace a resigning board member, Ms. Chesnut threw out board policy, introduced a new Democrat to the list of board candidates, and proceeded to vote with the Democrats to approve the new candidate –  thus guaranteeing a Democrat majority – and the passage of Obama’s Pre-K Common Core plan.

But thanks to the one true Republican on the HCDE Board, Kay Smith, the public is no longer being kept in the dark about the plan. She shared it with me so I could share it with Texas.

I have scanned the documents outlining the program and posted them below:

angie 18 angie 20

Some will say I can’t call this “CSCOPE for Babies” because a computer product is not being sold. But the  similarities of this plan to CSCOPE are too remarkable to be a coincidence.

Three examples from their business models are:

  • Just as CSCOPE uses public funds to run a private non-profit corporation to hide its operations from the public, HCDE plans to more than double its tax rate to raise $24-30 million per year and GIVE IT via contract to a start-up non-profit to be called “Harris County School Readiness Corporation (HCSRC)” to operate the program.
  • Just as CSCOPE started as a simple service to local school districts and spread to over 800 districts statewide with plans of expanding out of state, HCSRC plans to start in Harris County with “on-line resources, parenting classes and in-home visitations” and grow to create “ a single state entity” to “GOVERN ALL early childhood education functions.”
  • Just as the legality of CSCOPE’s actions were suspect, the legality of Harris County School Trustees collecting the Equalization Tax to give to a private non-profit corporation instead of distributing the funds directly to the ISDs  as dictated by Texas Education Code 18.14, is highly questionable.

But the most remarkable similarities are in the people connected to this program.

James J Heckman from the University of Chicago, who was an advisor to President Obama’s 2008 campaign, provides the evaluation claiming this program will “strengthen Texas’s economy.”

The link in his material to www.all4ed.org  shows the organization to be theAlliance for Excellent Education who just happens to have Linda Darling Hammond (of CSCOPE fame) on their board. Like Heckman, Hammond served as President Obama’s education advisor during his 2008 campaign.

chesnut 11

Even though her own charter school at Stanford failed academically, Bill Ayres thought so highly of Ms. Hammond that he posted a petition on MoveOn.org to have her named as Secretary of Education.

angie16

Some other  Alliance Board members of interest are:

  • Vijay Ravindran who was the chief technology officer of Catalist LLC—a  political technology company started with $1 million from George Soros that built a national progressive voter database of  more than 260 million people. During the 2008 election, Catalist worked with ninety progressive organizations, including Planned Parenthood, SEIU,  and the Obama presidential campaign, to name a few.
  • Daniel Leeds is founder and chair of Education Voters of America,the Education Funders Strategy Group, and the Alliance for Excellent Education, for which he serves as chair of its governing board. Mr. Leeds is also president of Fulcrum Investments LLC.

The Alliance was a founding partner in the Data Quality Campaign to develop education data systems in every state to “improve student achievement.”CSCOPE is a data mining program.

The Alliance partners with Learning Forward to provide standards training.

Learning Forward published one of Hammonds reports for SCOPE –Stanford Center for Opportunity in Education.

ESCs link to the Alliance and to Learning Forward on their websites.

Presenting for Learning Forward Texas in June and July is Ervin Knezek  (ofCSCOPE fame –) who now owns his own company called lead4ward.  Currently working for him are:

angie 12

Note: As a retired teacher I find it odd that Learning Forward Texas, an organization that specializes in training educators, has no training programs listed on their calendar for the entire summer – the busiest season for teacher workshops.

The brochure produced to promote this new program in Harris County lists the board members of the Texas Gulf Coast School Readiness Committee on the last page.

The Chair of the committee, Stephen M Kaufman, is the Managing Director ofFulcrum Investments LLC  whose President just happens to be the founder and chair of the Alliance for Excellent Education, Education Voters of America and the Education Funders Strategy Group.

Corporation wiki lists Mr. Kaufman as the President of the Rauch Foundationwhich focuses on similar education issues on Long Island, NY. The small program there appears to be the model for what they want to do in Texas.

And what a coincidence that it is all right in step with President Obama’s newPre-K Initiative.

angie 14

This includes  national standards for preschool – thus the phrase “Common Core for Babies.” Then there is the plan to grow this Harris County program into a statewide government entity. A look at Colorado shows us what we have to look forward to if we allow this to move forward.

“Legislators in Colorado …  passed an additional 96 pages of regulations in attempt to reduce regulations for preschools. These new laws banned whole milk for preschoolers, require a certain percentage of “ethnic dolls” in dollhouses, and mandates state reports of how many crayons per child the daycare provider offers. And preschools like Montessori have to get state board approvals to operate in Colorado if they use wooden stools or puzzles, because these are just too much of a safety risk.”                                                          Karin Piper

But I think the scariest part of this plan is the Home Visitation Programwhich provides regular home visits to families from pregnancy through the child’s second birthday, ”intended to promote good health and parenting practices.”

It is bad enough when the bureaucrats over-regulate schools and businesses, but when they have the right to enter your home and regulate how you care for yourself and your children, they have crossed the line.

This program may not be a computer only product, but it is a control mechanism and data mining process just like CSCOPE.

It is the Federal government trying to sneak in the back door just as they tried with CSCOPE, but this time they have come for our babies.

We are kicking them out of our ISDs and now we need to make sure we keep them out of our pre-schools and our homes.

What you can do?

Because Angie Chesnut sold out the HCDE Board to the Democrats, contacting HCDE is a waste of time.

This will need to be stopped in Austin.

You can contact:

  • Senator Patrick, Chair of the Senate Education Committee

    (512) 463-0107 … email

  • Rep. Aycock, Chair of the House Education Committee

   (512) 463-0684 … email

Ask them to investigate the Harris County Department of Education (HCDE) and stop their plan to bring the federal pre-k “Common Core for babies” program in the back door by funding a private non-profit corporation with equalization tax dollars.

Note: For those who don’t know what HCDE is, it is the assumed name of the Harris County School Trustees.  Years ago, county boards ran public schools in Texas. When Texas moved to ISDs, every county but two, Harris and Dallas, closed their county boards when they no longer had schools to run.

Harris County still elects County School Trustees who  still have the authority to collect a countywide education property tax (called the equalization tax) almost 50 years after all students in Harris County moved out of the countywide school system and into ISDs. It is the only school board in Texas elected by Party.  You can read more here.

Colleen Vera
colleen@TexasTrashTalk.com

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As you know, Linda Darlng-Hammond is tied to Columbia Teachers’ College. Yes, the data mining that will be utilized if HB 2103 is signed into law right here in Texas is enough to make any person scared, and the national database under Common Core Standards is a similar entity.  All the data from 20 years back that is contained in PEIMS, in the TEA, in the Texas Higher Education Commission, and in the Texas Workforce Commission will be subject to sharing with government and private entities even  outside Texas. From this data, the Obama administration will be able to screen out people who have a freckle on their left earlobe! – Donna Garner

 

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Texas Superintendents…..$$$$ and more $$

Jun 10
Posted by Ginger in Featured Post
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6-10-2013 6-51-20 PM

 

Texas progressive liberal superintendents are working over time to transform the Texas Education System They have been laying the foundation for this Education Transformation with a Marxist/Progressive teaching philosophy called Project Based Learning (PBL). Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) & Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) which are funded with your TAX DOLLARS through membership fees and conferences, contribute to this transformation. Why are taxpayers having to pay membership fees and conference expenses to fund these progressive liberal organizations that are contributing to the demise of our children and country with a leftist progressive ideology that does not cherish America’s Heritage and views Communism in a positive light? We have seen this with the CSCOPE lessons where they had Texas students drawing a new Communist flag.

The 2012 TASA/TASB Conference was held last Sept. I am not sure what the fee was for last years conference but if the cost is near what they are charging for the 2013 TASA/TASB conference this September taxpayers need to be speaking out.   This is the attendee list of those who attended the 2012 TASA/TASB conference. Check out the number of individuals that have attended from your school district. Why are taxpayers having to pay for their registration fees along with meals and hotel expenses? OUTRAGEOUS! There is nothing about this conference that is truly going to benefit students

The following is a snapshot of TASA/TASB 2013 Conference Fee schedule.

tasa2013

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ELEMENTARY SCHOOL BEGINNING TOY GUN TURN-IN PROGRAM

Jun 10
Posted by Ginger in Featured Post
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nerf gun

by WILLIAM BIGELOW

Breitbart

Strobridge Elementary Principal Charles Hill has a brilliant idea: he’s holding a toy gun exchange next Saturday in which students of the Hayward, CA school can turn in a toy gun to receive a book and a raffle ticket to win one of four bicycles.

Really!!

Hill believes that children who play with toy guns may not think real guns are dangerous. “Playing with toy guns, saying ‘I’m going to shoot you,’ desensitizes them, so as they get older, it’s easier for them to use a real gun,” he claims.

Hill was inspired by a school photographer, Horace Gibson, who was upset about the number of police shootings of young people in Oakland.

At Strobridge Elementary Safety Day, a local policeman will demonstrate bicycle and gun safety, (does he get to use a real gun?), while the Alameda County Fire Department will speak about fire safety. Just to show that local governments can do surveillance too, there will be opportunities for the children to be fingerprinted and photographed, with that information transferred to CD’s if it is ever needed for a missing child case.

Hill, defending his take-away program, asserted that police are justifiably afraid when they face armed suspects, and toy guns have been mistaken for real ones.

But Yih-Chau Chang, spokesman for Responsible Citizens of California, said, ”Having a group of children playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians is a normal part of growing up.”

 

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10 & 16 YEAR OLD BEHEADED IN AFGANISTAN

Jun 10
Posted by Ginger in Featured Post
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TALIBAN BEHEADINGS

OBAMA’S PEACE PARTNERS, THE TALIBAN, BEHEAD TWO BOYS IN AFGHANISTAN

 

Obama loves these savages. They are on the vanguard of the tsunami of Islamic supremacist movements that Obama empowered, armed and supported. Their resurrection, after Bush decimated them, is due to Obama’s support and sanction.

Taliban beheads two boys in southern Afghanistan Reuters, June 10, 2013 (thanks to Lou)

(Reuters) – Taliban fighters beheaded two boys aged 10 and 16 as a warning to villagers not to cooperate with the Afghan government, local officials said.

The boys, named Khan and Hameedullah, had travelled to Afghan army and police checkpoints near their home in the southern province of Kandahar, scrounging for leftover food to bring to their families, the officials said.

“The boys were on their way back … when they were stopped by Taliban insurgents who beheaded them,” the chief of Zhari district, Jamal Agha, told Reuters. “Both of them were innocent children and had nothing to do with government or foreigners.”

The militants have beheaded dozens of people in the last two years, accusing them of aiding the government and its foreign backers led by the United States.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said the group was not involved in the boys’ killings.

The Kandahar governor’s spokesman, Javid Faisal, said the incident occurred on Sunday. Several hours later their bodies and severed heads were left in their village, he said.

Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban and one of Afghanistan’s most restive provinces.

In July last year in the same district, a 16-year-old boy accused by the Taliban of spying for the government was beheaded and skinned. The next month, a girl aged six and a boy of 12 were kidnapped and beheaded in separate incidents in Kandahar and the east of the country.

Such incidents highlight the difficulty that Taliban leaders have in enforcing discipline across an estimated 20,000 fighters spread from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

The leadership is trying to improve the group’s image in case it wants to push forward tentative reconciliation steps and perhaps even enter mainstream politics. But some militant units have proved hard to control, roaming the countryside and killing or maiming those they deem immoral.

The beheading occurred the day before seven Taliban insurgents including suicide bombers attacked country’s international airport in the capital, Kabul.

Also on Monday, six insurgents with suicide vests and heavy guns attacked a government compound in the provincial center of Zabul, wounding at least 18 people.

Concerns are mounting over how the 352,000-strong Afghan security forces will cope with an intensifying Taliban insurgency once most foreign troops leave by the end of next year.

(Reporting by Ismail Sameem and Sarwar Amani, writing by Mirwais Harooni, editing by Dylan Welch and Mark Trevelyan)

 

 

 

WAKE UP AMERICA

 

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RIGOR, RIGOR, RIGOR

Jun 10
Posted by Ginger in Featured Post
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RIGOR

 

Common Core: Cry Me a Rigor

By Merrill Hope

 

As the federally mandated public education Common Core standards steamroll over the nation’s classrooms, plenty of parents and educators have taken to the public forum in protest to “stop common core.” Yet, the program’s proponents tell Americans they have nothing to fear because the Common Core is “rigorous’. In fact, “rigor” has become the go-to word to describe the Common Core. College board president appointee David Coleman, an architect of the Common Core standards, reminds us that the Common Core allows us to talk about “rigor” more concretely and these days, we hear the word “rigor” enough to be sure of one thing — no one is quite sure what “rigor” means anymore. So, let’s clear it up!
”Rigor” has a rich etymology from its Latin roots to the old French meaning of “to be stiff,” which birthed the medical term “rigor mortis.” Later, “rigor” entered the mouths of Middle English speaking serfs to mean “rigid” and “rigor” has maintained that definition for centuries. Even today, Merriam-Webster defines “rigor” as “harsh inflexibility in opinion, temper, or judgment” and as “the quality of being unyielding.” Encarta calls it “something that obstructs progress and requires great effort to overcome…”

Harsh. Severe. Stringent obstruction. Yup, that’s old school rigor, the kind that even William the Conqueror and Geoffrey Chaucer would have understood. But one definition, “the application of precise and exacting standards in the doing of something,” jumps up like a page from “The Giver,” Lois Lowry’s brilliant dystopian novel where “precise language” is king. ”The Giver” itself stands not too far from the realities of “rigor.” This 1994 Newberry Medal winner awarded by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, was also challenged and/or banned on and off in the late 1990′s and again, from 2000-2009 by the very same organization — the American Library Association. Lowry packs intricate themes into this cautionary tale about trading in freedom for security, providing tremendous insight into “rigor” as redefined for the 21st Century.
But, fret not. Because of the Common Core, “rigor” doesn’t mean “rigor” anymore. No echoes of Sir Lancelot’s voice here. Instead, “rigor” in the new and improved internationally bench marked lexicon means, well, something that is associated with “high levels of rigor.” It’s about rigorous content and rigorous instructional practices. It’s a refreshed and recycled rigor where it’s all about rigor. Go on! Google it! See how rigorous rigor can be. Scaffolding thinking! Staircase of complexity! Dual intensity! Hey, it’s authentic rigor sans the crotchety old back-to-basics. Nope, not your parent’s rigor. Rigor is now a higher-order brain process that is rigorous. Really rigorous rigor.

Equally exciting is that “rigor is for everyone,” writes academic Barbara Blackburn, Ph.D., in “Rigor is NOT a four-letter word.” She defines “true rigor” as “creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, each student is supported so he or she can learn at high levels, and each student demonstrates learning at high levels.”

So, that’s rigor, folks. And now that you’ve got rigor under your belt, don’t forget to read Robyn Jackson’s “Rigorous Instruction for the Classroom” where she introduces another very important Common Core word: ROBUST.
Merrill Hope is a contributing writer who, over the years, has inked articles for The Hollywood Reporter, Backstage West and a host of lifestyle publications. More recently, she blogs online for Save America Foundation. Most importantly, though, she is a wife, a mom and a dachshund lover. You can reach her on Twitter at Merrill Hope @outoftheboxmom.

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CSCOPE ……. WHAT A JOKE!

Jun 09
Posted by Ginger in Featured Post
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cscope humor

ESC-Region 10 is holding a CSCOPE conference. Since teachers are not being forced to attend, ESC-10 is not charging the teachers a fee. The ESC director for ESC Region 10 has even hired a humorist. Maybe teachers can tell jokes to parents whose kids passed CSCOPE assessment if given again and again and again. But since all the CSCOPE assessment did not have correct answers, kids failed the STAAR. 
Instead of hiring humorist, ESC 10 needs to give back some of the $5.5 million dollars for the Rider 42 TEKS professional development academies that were not advertised. Instead, ESC 10 was busy selling and promoting CSCOPE. ESC Region 10 cannot be a vendor and fulfill its duties as a Texas State Education Service Center. Making money as a vendor takes up too much time.  
This is the link to ESC Region 10’s CSCOPE conference. They are looking for speakers. Got any funny stories?
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OBAMA & TEXAS EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION

Jun 06
Posted by Ginger in Featured Post
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 6-6-2013 10-55-44 AM

Business woman LYDIA DOBYNS is president of  NEW TECH NETWORK a progressive organization in California working across the country on implementing Project Based Learning (PBL). I am not quite sure if Dobyns has ever taught in the classroom. New Tech Network is working along side others progressive companies and educators in hopes of radically changing our education system as we know it.  Ms. Doybys states the following in her bio  “New Tech is emerging as one of the fastest-growing approaches to transforming high school education in the U.S”. Sound familiar? Sadly So!

 

Manor New Technology High School outside of Austin, Texas welcomed his truly President Obama in early May. Ms. Dobyns must of flown in for this heart felt moment and later wrote about it in the Huffington Post. WAKE UP TEXAS PARENTS, TAXPAYERS!!! Do you want your Texas School System TRANSFORMED?

 

6-5-2013 7-46-21 PM

images

Lydia Dobyns

New Tech Network

No one loves a happy ending more than me. Today was a personal once-in-a-lifetime movie moment: I welcomed President Obama to Manor New Technology High School. Before the president spent 45 minutes with students showing off Project Based Learning, I got to engage in a conversation with him about the kind of innovation taking place in 100+ public school districts across New Tech Network.

 

It was no accident that Manor was selected for its transformative educational methods and focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). The faculty and founding principal Steve Zipkes epitomize the persistence, vision and creativity needed to re-imagine a high school that truly prepares learners to be the innovators of tomorrow. They did not achieve this remarkable success on their own or overnight.

At New Tech schools, we have found a way to close the achievement gap regardless of whether students reside in urban, suburban, rural or underserved areas. Our 2013 Student Outcomes Report offers compelling evidence that the vision we have to transform schools within public school districts is being realized.

The President said about Manor New Tech, “Every day this school is proving that every child has the potential to learn the real-world skills they need to succeed in college and beyond. You’re doing things a little differently around here than a lot of high schools, and it’s working.” He went on to say: “We also have to make sure we help every student get the skills like they do here at Manor New Tech to compete in a high tech economy.”

Back to my fervent hope for a happy ending. The President today called again for support for the $300 Million High School Redesign he proposed in the State of the Union speech. He also reiterated that he wants to see universal access to quality public pre-school and to make college more affordable. For my happy ending to come true, three things have to happen. Congress and the White House have to agree on the best ways to invest in education innovation. State policy-makers and the business communities around this country have to come together to provide financial and material support in K-12 education innovation. And school district leaders need to move from asking, “should we innovate?” to “how do we find the funds to invest in innovation”? Should all three of these things happen, I will get my wish. And children everywhere will be able to experience the kind of education that enables them to thrive in ways we can’t even imagine.

As President Obama said today, “Every young person in America deserves a world-class education.”

I wholeheartedly agree. Let’s do this and do it now.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

The following is an except from the 2012 TASA/TASB Convention program. You will see that TASA and TASB are working along side other progressive organization on implementing their radical progressive Agenda through ‘ Visioning Network”.  I have highlighted some of the “buzz words”. 

 

6-6-2013 10-22-12 AM

 

The Obama is working deligently to transform the political landscape of America and they are doing it though our Education System as you will see in the Article below

May 9, 2013     Bloomberg

Obama Austin Tech Tour Raises Democrat Profile in Texas

President Barack Obama urged lawmakers to approve more federal spending for technology education, training and jobs, holding up the Austin, Texas, area’s economic boom as an example for the rest of the country.

The Texas visit today was one of a series of events across the country that the administration says are meant to build pressure on Congress to adopt economic ideas laid out in Obama’s State of the Union address this year.

“We’re poised for a time of progress, if we’re willing to seize it,” Obama said in an address to executives and workers at Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT), which makes products for the semiconductor, display panel and solar industries worldwide.

Obama met with students, local residents, investors and entrepreneurs as he made his way across the city. He announced competitions for three manufacturing innovation centers and an executive order requiring government data to be released in a form that entrepreneurs and researchers can use to generate applications and new services.

Obama blamed political posturing in Congress for blocking his proposals, which he said would foster research that benefits technology companies and help train workers for those industries.
Sending Message

Obama told company workers that when they talk to their elected officials, “You’ve got to remind them, we don’t want government to do everything for us but it’s got a role to play” on infrastructure and research funding.

Addressing a group of “angel investors” during an earlier stop at an incubator for technology startups, Obama said government can play a “beneficial” role in helping the private sector spur job creation.

He said he was concerned about the impact of the automatic, across-the-board federal spending cuts known as sequestration. The cuts are “effectively freezing basic research” spending over the next one to two years.

“We could end up losing our edge” to economic competitors in Asia, he said.

Obama said Austin is an example of the kind of cooperation between government and business that can foster innovation.
Austin Economy

The metropolitan area centered by the state capital, which has about 820,600 residents, had a March jobless rate of 5.3 percent, compared with 7.6 percent nationwide. Computer manufacturer Dell Inc. (DELL) is based in nearby Round Rock, and Apple Inc. (AAPL) has announced plans to double the size of its 3,500-employee customer-support center in Austin over the next decade.

“I’ve come to listen and learn and highlight some of the good work that’s being done,” Obama said at Manor New Technology High School in the Austin suburb of East Manor, where he inspected solar and robotic projects developed by students. “Folks around here are doing something right.”

Education Secretary Arne Duncan in 2010 cited the school as boosting opportunities for low-income and minority youth. Of the school’s 341 students last year, 46 percent were economically disadvantaged, 48 percent were Latino, 25 percent were white and 21 percent were black, according to data provided by the school district.

TAXPAYERS & PARENTS WAKE UP AND GET INVOLVED

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Parent says….Thank You CSCOPE!

Jun 05
Posted by Ginger in Featured Post
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thank you
By Tony Mooney
Dear CScope,

Thank you.
Thank you for teaching my son fear.
Fear of failure.
Fear of testing.
Fear of his teachers and school.
Fear of society.
Fear of his peers and their impressions.
Fear to be himself.
And most of all, fear of learning.

Cscope, you have truly performed your task of differentiating kids to the point that they segregate themselves in the classroom as well as outside the classroom.
Kids no longer strive to achieve but instead strive to “get past the test”.
And yet, once the testing is done and they think they can breathe, they get loaded down with all the projects that couldn’t be done during the year due to all the assessments and teaching to the test.

Thank you for the sleepless nights due to stress.

Thank you for the tension headaches in an 11-year old child.

Thank you for the pervasive fear of failure and the belief that they are nothing if they don’t pass that test.

Thank you for the systematic destruction of self-confidence and happiness.

Thank you for the half-baked lessons and poorly worded questions.

Thank you for slowly killing the desire to learn new things.

Oh, and Cscope, I must tell you, because you are an inadequate learning tool created by idiots, foisted on us by buffoons and supported by cretins, I am being sarcastic, facetious and disengenuous. I apologize for using words your creators don’t understand but that’s what happens when you are taught to think and not regurgitate.

And tell your twin brother, TASB iCloud, you can put lipstick on a pig but…well, why finish it, when I doubt you understand.

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TEXAS PARENTS: Did your Child Fail Because of the STAAR Test?

Jun 04
Posted by Ginger in Featured Post
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bumper-sticker-for-failing-staar-300x105

 

Students can be awarded certificates for being on the school honor roll all year and then told they failed because of grades on the state test called STAAR.

Some honor roll students are being required to attend summer school to take make-up classes in a subject they made an A or B on in class, but failed on the STAAR.  Since teachers do not know what a student missed on the STAAR test, they will be re-mediating students using the same materials used during the school year. Thus, honor roll students are being asked to learn material they already know.

Students that might pass a subject with a C in a subject also attend summer school if the fail that subject on the  STAAR test. As with honor roll students, teachers do not know what the student missed on the STAAR. It doesn’t matter, summer school is not designed to individual students. Instead, a set of prepared materials are taught in a short period of time.

If a student fails a subject in class as well as on the STAAR, the student goes to summer school and then passes to the next grade. Think about this. If a student doesn’t understand math and fails, how could this same student within the few days of summer school be taught all the math concepts presented during the school year and understand them?

After attending summer school, are students given the STAAR again?

I’ll be researching unanswered questions in this blog.

If your child failed because of the STAAR,  I suggest that you challenge the administration. After all, it is your child that is being labeled as a failure. Questions that you might want to ask are:

  • Of what value are the class grades if only STAAR grades are used for promotion?
  • If a student fails in his classes, but passes the STAAR tests, is that student promoted?
  • Do you think that with 100% accuracy, the STAAR tests access the abilities of every student?
  • Is it possible that some students understand the material, as shown by class work, but do not test well?
  • Since my child has passed his class work, do you think his teacher(s) have inflated his grades?
    If not, then his class grades reflect his understanding of the material presented. Why is he being failed if he his teacher has assessed his understanding during the entire school year and has given him a passing grade?

If CSCOPE was used, point out that the vendor selling CSCOPE lessons has chosen to delete these lessons and never sell them again. In exchange the CSCOPE lessons will not be reviewed by the State Board of Education and the results publicized. Since there is evidence that some of the CSCOPE lessons were plagarized, some have incorrect information, some have biased political content, etc…… Ask:

  • What evidence is there that using CSCOPE lessons has prepared my child for the STAAR?
  • Is it possible that my child has learned the incorrect content of the CSCOPE lessons, thus failed the STAAR?

While you are asking questions, find out what material is being used in summer school. Also, ask if the school plans to return to using textbooks. Ask if CSCOPE has been removed.

Parents, please don’t let school administrators try to bully you. Any administrator worth his salt will sit on the same side of the desk with you instead of behind the desk where he/she is in charge. This is a meeting to discuss your child and what is best for him/her. It is not a court case or shouldn’t be.

Some administrators make an effort to confuse parents with education terms not familiar to most parents, nor do they have to be. Terms such as, vertical alignment, instructional information documents, year at a glance schedules, alignment with the TEKS, etc…………………… If you do not understand what is being said, stop the speaker as ask for explanation. Know that just because you do not understand what I call “Educaneze,” which is educational buzz words, don’t think you would be considered stupid if you admit this. It is unprofessional for school administrators to do this, but too many want to be in control. Keep reminding yourself that it is your child that will be punished if you do not stand up to this person. Also, you could very well be the one who gives other parents the courage to do the same.

Do not go alone. Make sure you have someone with you. Before you leave, restate what you understand and ask for confirmation that it is correct. Either record the meeting, which is best, or take notes and ask the administrator to sign them. Do not think about this making the administrator angry. It shouldn’t if they are providing accurate information. Just keep reminding your self that you are standing in the gap for your child.

The hardest part or at least it is for me, is to not get angry. Take deep breaths to keep your self calm. Don’t let the administrator rush you. After all, your child is being failed and you want evidence to support this decision.

Please share your experience so other can benefit from it. One parent questioned his child being failed and the decision was reversed. The honor roll student does not have to repeat an entire year of social studies.

 

by Janice VanCleave

www.txcscopereview.com 

 

 

 

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“The Story of Stuff” promoted by Texas A&M

Jun 04
Posted by Ginger in Featured Post
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I spent thousands of dollars sending my daughter to Texas A&M, what I thought was a conservative Texas University. I am finding out every day that A&M it is not as conservative as I once imagined. For example, the Texas A&M Aggie T-STEM department is all about transforming our education system K-16 from conservative traditional based learning to a progressive project based learning. This is being done via grants and the program is called Texas A&M T-STEM Academy. The goals of T-STEM are outlined  HERE.

Texas A & M T-STEM Academy is working with other T-Stem Academies including,  the Texas Education Service Centers (created CSCOPE) and the Texas Education Agency to accomplish their progressive goal of implementing Project Based Learning (PBL).

On the Texas A&M’s T-STEM Website  you will find information describing the vision and intent of T-STEM. After evaluating CSCOPE lessons, I didn’t think I could be shocked by instruction material, but I was wrong.

Education is the one industry that is making money by making changes from traditional learning to Project Based Learning (PBL). You might be asking yourselves, “So What’s the Big Deal?” The answer is that while learning styles come and go, but PBL is not just a teaching technique. PBL is a progressive movement that promotes setting facts aside and allowing students to create their own understanding of the world around them. Even this is not what PBL is. Instead, while students are given freedom to make their own choices, the list of choices are manipulative. Students are being trained via PBL to embrace progressive, socialist ideology.

Parents, you cannot trust the state or federal education agency to know what your child should be taught. This is because these agencies are no longer focused on educating students in reading, writing, science, and math. Instead, they are focused on their social and emotional development. This is the job of parents, not public schools. There are grants providing millions of dollars to PBL learning, which is focused on your child’s social behavior and emotional development. Project Based Learning is the framework of the CSCOPE lessons as well as Common Core. In other words, Texas Schools who have been using CSCOPE already have the framework of Project Based Learning implemented. Thus, CSCOPE schools have the Common Core Project Based Learning in place. Its a small adjustment to replace the TEKS with the Common Core standards. 

Teachers are no longer given the option to avoid standards that are biased toward socialism or some specific religion. Whether its the CSCOPE Micromanaging System or something else administrators (with a need to be in control)  implement, the state standards, be they the TEKS or Common Core have become law. Since TEA and the State Education Service Centers promote Project Based Learning, it really doesn’t matter what the state standards are, its how they are implemented in student lessons. We have seen this with CSCOPE lessons promoting the Islamic religion to satisfy the  state standard to teach about different religions. Yes, the standards do matter. But how teachers implement them is so much more important. 

The following information is from the TEA’s website. This lets you know that TEA is supporting Project Based Learning.

funding

aggie stem 

I found the following powerpoint on T-STEM site. The following is a screen shot of one of the slides promoting the environmental leftist propoganda website “The Story of Stuff”   which is filled with numerous untruths in hopes in indoctrinating our children.

story of stuff

As Lou Dobbs states in the following news cast on CNN “The Story of Stuff” video has no place in our school system.

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Texas Teacher Demonizes Christian Parents

Jun 03
Posted by Ginger in Featured Post
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 teacher talk

 

We unfortunately live in a society today where a sense of decency often is  something that is not valued. What is even worse is that many of those individuals who devalue decency have the job of teaching and instilling unfavorable behavior traits in our children. Such is the case with one Texas Teacher.

This Texas Teacher has shared with her students through twitter that parents that teach that evolution is a “LIE” are hurting the nation and killing innovation”. George West ISD’s 7th grade math teacher Mrs. Pawelek has two twitter accounts. She has set up one for her students where she she post comments and photos of her students (has she informed the parents that she is taking photos of their children and posting them on the internet?) I found Ms. Pawelek’s Tweet below disturbing! The fact that she could be so bold and insensitive to students who believe in Intelligent Design, be they Christian, Jew or just Creationists of any stripe is concerning and offensive.

Mrs. Pawelek has also put herself in a position above her student’s parents in challenging their opinion when it disagrees with her own. How dare she spew her indoctrination and demonize the parents of the children in her classroom. I wonder how Mrs. Pawelek would respond if her own child was in my music or dance class or whatever and I had a twitter account for the class where I told my students that any parent who denied creationism must be pagan and is going to Hell. I am sure that she would remove her child from my class and give me a good cussing, which I would rightfully deserve. The sad difference is the fact that it is not nearly so easy to remove my child from her grasp and my tax dollars pay her salary either way.

      Her classroom twitter account.

Brenda 3

As a side note, why is it that the progressive liberals can’t or won’t allow competing ideas on evolution, education, etc.? The evolution “science” takes more faith than it takes to believe in Creationism or Intelligent Design.

Brenda Pawelek has another twitter account where she exercises no restraint on her foul language. Do you find it funny that both of the posts by her below start out with the premise of Deity? “OMG” doesn’t the G stand for God? And how about “Holy S..t”, OK maybe that is a stretch, but the point is that while our teachers have a right to their first ammendment right as much as the next person, in my opinion they should always remember that our kids are looking. I don’t personally know Mrs. Pawelek but maybe since she believes we came to being via evolution over time which, when partnered with the concept of no God, leads to a life of no moral absolutes which frees oneself to act anyway they choose with no right or wrong behavior other than their own opinion.

Surely we can do better than this when choosing educators for our most precious resource, our children.

brenda 1

brenda..

 

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