Texas teachers celebrate end of CSCOPE, say it will lead to improved student learning
By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org
AUSTIN, Texas – A number of Texans cheered yesterday when state Sen. Dan Patrick announced that CSCOPE will be sent to the ash heap of history at the end of August.
CSCOPE is a curriculum management system used by more than 800 Texas school districts that provides educators with pre-written lessons to use in the classroom. A number of those lessons came under fire from conservatives for promoting a left-wing, anti-American point of view.
While conservatives were understandably happy with Patrick’s announcement, it might have been Texas’ teachers who rejoiced the most.
KLTV.com reports that many teachers despised CSCOPE’s rigid, one-size-fits-all approach to education. After seven years of CSCOPE, those teachers are thrilled to be set free from the tyranny of the ready-made lesson plan.
Bill Martin, director of the Tyler Sylvan Learning Center, said the end of CSCOPE means teachers “get control back over their classroom again.”
“They get to use lesson plans that they feel are best suited for their class and their students in their class,” Martin told KLTV.com.
Martin added that he doesn’t know “a single teacher that likes CSCOPE. Not a single teacher.”
One Tyler ISD teacher, who spoke to KLTV.com on the condition of anonymity, said, “The end of CSCOPE means teachers will be able to teach English and other core subjects without watering them down. It means we can prep students for college. The need for college remedial courses will drop dramatically as CSCOPE lesson plans are removed.”
The end of pre-written CSCOPE lessons means teachers will have to spend a lot of time and effort to write their own. Judging from the comments of one teacher union official, not many of them seem to mind the prospect of extra work.
“We’ve got to meet the individual children’s needs so they can be successful and this (CSCOPE) curriculum just has not allowed that,” Jamie Womack, organizer of the Texas American Federation of Teachers in East Texas, told the news site.
