I was shocked in 2013 after discovering the hidden progressive Texas Curriculum Cscope aka Common Core Curriclum implemented in our Texas School Districts. The powers at be have been working to transform of our society through our education system. Unfortunately, they are succeeding. Russian Communist Revolutionary, Vladamir Lenin quoted “Give me 4 years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted”.
The goal of the progressive United Nation’s education division, UNESCO is to transform America. A true classical education giving our children the opportunity to succeed on their own accord has taken a back seat to the progressive pedagogy of social emotional learning (SEL) The use of SEL is geared on changing a child’s attitudes, values, behavior and beliefs.
Our Texas Legislature along with the so called “Good Guys” through their votes have been instrumental in this transformation. The question as to rather it was intentionally is debatable.
I can say for a fact Gov Perry knowingly participated in this education transformation.
One of the most blatant programs in our public schools today is the International Baccalaureate Program which uses Marx’s Hegels Dialectic in rewiring the brain. More information on the IB program can be found here.
Below you see the front cover that UNESCO has published advocating the rewiring of your children’s brain.
Have you noticed how much our country has changed ideologically and how divided we Americans are as a people?
Trust me it is all by design.
A little over 3 years ago my mother, a former Texas Teacher and science author Janice VanCleave called me a political activist to investigate and expose the controversial pro Communist & Islamic Curriculum sold in over 90% of Texas Schools. At the time neither of us knew what we were uncovering. Despite the content Cscope was the implementation of a Cultural Marxist teaching philosophy into our Texas Schools. The same pedagogy goes by an assortment of names such as Common Core, Project Based Learning, 21st Century Learning, Social Emotional Learning, Out come based education, Competency Based Learning, etc, etc. The teaching philosophy behind all are not about creating an equal opportunity for students to succeed on their own accord but it has the end game in mind and molds children to that end.
One may wonder why this is happening. As I said earlier this is all by design and it is planned by the powers at be (George Soros, Bill and Melinda Gates, Aspen Institute, Bildeburgs, Rockerfellers, Bushs, etc, etc) in creating a planned economy and Global Society. How would one change a complete society? They would start with our children and that is exactly what they have done.
You hear politicians say that they have gotten rid of Common Core and given control back to the states. This is all a lie and smoke and mirrors. They passed the Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015 removing academics in America’s classrooms to complete the teaching philosophy of Social Emotional Learning.
The following individuals make up the Texas Commission of Assessments of Accountability and sent their final report to the Government asking to align our Texas State Standards with that of the federal ESSA standards.
• Chair: Andrew Kim, Superintendent, Comal ISD (appointed by Governor Abbott)
• Vice-Chair: Stacy Hock, Co-owner, Hock, LLC (appointed by Governor Abbott)
• Kim Alexander, Superintendent, Roscoe Collegiate ISD (appointed by Lieutenant Governor Patrick)
• Jimmie Don Aycock, Chair, House Committee on Public Education, Texas House of Representatives
• Erika Beltran, Member, State Board of Education, District 13 (appointed by SBOE Chair Bahorich)
• Paul Castro, Superintendent, A+Unlimited Potential Charter School District (appointed by Lieutenant Governor Patrick)
• Pauline Dow, Chief Instructional Officer, North East ISD (appointed by House Speaker Straus)
• Maria Hernandez Ferrier, President Emeritus, Texas A&M University San Antonio (appointed by House Speaker Straus)
• Michael McLendon, Dean, School of Education, Baylor University (appointed by Lieutenant Governor Patrick)
• Kel Seliger, Chair, Committee on Higher Education, Texas State Senate
• Catherine Susser, Member, Board of Trustees, Corpus Christi ISD (appointed by House Speaker Straus)
• Larry Taylor, Chair, Committee on Education, Texas State Senate
WOW!! Do we have anyone in our Texas Legislature care about this? Is this not alarming to you?
There is and has been for a few years now of a great group of Conservative Activist working to expose what is actually happening in our Texas Education and across the country that is detrimental to our children and the country.
COMMON CORE MATH IN TEXAS? WHY TEXAS SCHOOLS SHOULD NOT USE CENTRALIZED GOVERNMENT CONTROL
Part 1 of the Series: Common Core Math War Rages in Texas
By Carole Hornsby Haynes, Ph.D.
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN, Texas – In 2012 the Texas State Board of Education approved new math curriculum standards. Since then, chaos has erupted over these standards.
Randy Houchins and John Pendergraff, two mechanical engineers with children in Texas public schools, are very adamant that the Common Core process standards have managed to creep into their children’s math materials and STAAR tests.
Since Common Core is illegal in Texas, how could this happen?
And why shouldn’t Texas schools use Common Core math if they prefer? This series seeks an answer to these questions.
One of the national experts for the Texas math curriculum standards review was Dr. James Milgram, who has been highly critical of Common Core math. Milgram, professor of mathematics emeritus, Stanford University who was a member of Common Core’s Validation Committee and the only content expert in mathematics for the standards, refused to approve the standards.
Core Math Standards, according to Milgram, have very low expectations.
Milgram compares U.S. requirements with those in high achieving countries where students study Algebra I and the first semester of Geometry in Grades 6, 7 or 8 and by Grade 9 will have completed much of our Algebra II content and Geometry at a more sophisticated level than U.S. students. Students from high achieving countries are expected to complete a standard Calculus course to graduate from high school with over 90% of the populations typically being high school graduates.
By the end of 7th Grade, Core Standards are roughly two years behind. Common Core math includes “most — but not all — of Algebra I and about 50% of regular Algebra II, as well a ‘strange’ Geometry course,” says Milgram.
Professor Jason Zimba, lead writer of Common Core’s mathematics standards, has admitted that Common Core prepares students only for a two-year college. When asked whether Common Core prepares students for a STEM career, Zimba replied, “Not only not for STEM, it’s also not for selective colleges.” (Emphasis added)
Why did writers of Common Core Math decide only Algebra I is essential?
The answer to this question lies buried in the history of the birthing of Common Core – which is linked directly to Hillary Clinton.
In 1989, the National Center for Education and the Economyformed a commission under the U.S. Department of Labor. The NCEE is a highly connected “nonprofit” with a role akin to that of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s funding of Common Core.
Along with other key players, the commission included Hillary Rodham Clinton, NCEE leader Marc Tucker, Michael Cohen (key in Clinton’s Goals 2000 and later Common Core), and HillaryCore architect, Ira Magaziner.
On November 11, 1991, Marc Tucker sent the famous “Dear Hillary” letter, laying out a master plan for the Clinton administration to seize the entire U.S. educational system to serve national economic planning of the workforce.
Tucker’s plan is “to remold the entire American system” into “a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone,” coordinated by “a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels” where curriculum and “job matching” will be handled by counselors “accessing the integrated computer-based program.”
This ambitious plan does not address teaching children how to read, write, or calculate. Instead, public schools will change from teaching academic basics and knowledge to training for the global economy in jobs selected by workforce boards – training for American collectivism.
Tucker told Hillary that “radical changes in attitudes, values, and beliefs are required.” He said the way to overcome this resistance was “consensus building” among governors and Congress.
It was this same game plan, along with many of the same people and organizations, of Common Core.
Tucker’s comprehensive plan was implemented in three laws signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994:
1. The Goals 2000 Act
2. The School-to-Work Act, and
3. The Reauthorized Elementary & Secondary Education Act.
These three laws create the following mechanisms to restructure public schools:
· All elected officials on school boards and in state legislatures would be bypassed by making federal funds flow to the Governor and his appointees on workforce development boards.
·
· A computer database, a.k.a. “a labor market information system,” would be established so school personnel could compile and track personal information for each student and his family from birth or preschool onward, identified by the child’s social security number: academic, medical, mental, psychological, behavioral, and interrogations by counselors. The school, the government, and future employers would have access to the computerized data.
·
· Centralized government control would come through “national standards” and “national testing” that take over tests, assessments, school honors and rewards, financial aid, and the Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM), designed to replace the high school diploma.
Tucker’s plan uses the German system which trains children for specific jobs to serve the workforce and the global economy instead of educating them to make their own choices. Marc Tucker’s plan prepares public school students for the workforce only – our “worker bees.”
This education structure that Hillary helped to design is the forerunner of Common Core. It was Hillary who sold the idea of national standards to Obama. Common Core fulfills some of the education agenda that she failed to get passed.
In 2013 Marc Tucker discussed the key findings of the NCEE study about college and career readiness. Of the students in U.S. colleges, 45 percent attend community colleges which provide not only most of the nation’s vocational education, but are also a main pathway to four-year colleges. Algebra II is not a prerequisite of community colleges so NCEE recommended that schools abandon the requirement that all high school students be required to take Algebra II.
Further, Algebra I should be delayed until Grade 10. Of critical importance is that this delay precludes high school students being able to take Calculus.
Also of critical importance, says Dr. Milgram, is that,
“This [NCEE] report does not consider the question of which four-year colleges will accept just one year (Algebra I) of high school math. Virtually all the higher rated ones…require at least four years.
“The study ignores what will happen if the community college student transfers to a four-year college.”
In my next posting, I’ll explore what happened during the math TEKS review. Dr. Milgram, Niki Hayes, Randy Houchins and many others have candidly spoken with me about the events surrounding this curriculum review and how things went awry.
Texas declined the federal government’s efforts to force Common Core Standards into its schools. Yet now Texas is rushing headlong into implementing the ‘New Common Core.’
During the U.S. House proceedings for Every Student Succeeds Act that replaced No Child Left Behind, Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, made the stunning statement that Common Core is being redefined as social-emotional learning (SEL), which must come first in the learning hierarchy — with academics ranking second!
Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, confirmed in a prepared statement that he was proud “the legislation includes language to help expand and make the teaching of social and emotional learning [Common Core] more effective!”
SEL is a dominant feature in the recent federal legislation, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind. The federal focus on education has shifted from academic learning to the “affective domain” — feelings and emotions — with requirements to measure progress.
Teaching character has been an important lesson in American public education until recent years. Students learned to be polite, honest, independent, resilient, and respectful of others. They learned to exhibit self-control, accept challenges and personal responsibility, value family and self, show empathy for and get along with others. There were no tests to measure their progress. No funding was required for additional teachers, textbooks, materials, and special teacher workshops.
However, the purpose of public education shifted under John Dewey’s teaching philosophy which is embedded in every government school. The focus on academic learning has turned to non-academic learning with the classroom serving as the engine for social and political change. Moral relativism replaced the teaching of character with its emphasis on ethics and morality. Love of America and pride in our national heritage were replaced with hatred for America, its Judeo-Christian heritage, and its traditional family values. With the loss of a moral compass, the school climate has turned deadly as students become violent, disrespectful for others, lacking in self control, and irresponsible.
After decades of being used as social engineering tools, students are so emotionally fragile that, as they enter college, many cannot cope with the rigors of the university and demand “safe spaces” where they can flee from reality.
Now in an effort to “fix” the problems that the public schools have created, the latest education fad of social and emotional learning is sweeping the nation.
In some independent school districts entire social and emotional department have already been created. The social engineering officially continues, now under the guise of “teaching the whole child.”
In the Austin, Texas independent school district, skills such as understanding and managing emotions, forming positive relationships, solving problems, and being optimistic have been integrated into the curriculum. Teachers are asked to spend 30-45 minutes a week teaching a lesson on an explicit skill. They have hired expensive consultants and created new programs and materials to formally teach what we once did for free.
In Dallas, Texas the Dallas Morning News (DMN) reports that the Dallas Independent School Board (DISD) has “…quietly passed a policy pushed by trustee Dan Micciche that requires social and emotional learning — already used informally in some schools – to be taught in all classrooms over the next 10 years.” The DISD notes the program will follow that of the Austin ISD and questions whether federal funding can be obtained.
ESSA requires that at least one non-cognitive trait be assessed by the states and incorporated into their accountability systems. The dilemma is how to measure the progress.
Already policy makers and corporate leaders are demanding measurement. If a school district uses any taxpayer funding for their SEL program, they will be required to file more reports and to collect more highly personal information for student permanent records. Government-appropriate thoughts and behavior will be taught by the latest round of “experts.”
Already new consulting groups are hawking their wares and profiting handsomely at the expense of children who are labeled “human capital.”
Under ESSA, there will be even more federal controls despite what our Congress promised us.
But can social and emotional traits such as character be measured? Should we turn social and emotional learning into high stakes metrics for high stakes accountability? Not according to noted character psychologist,Angela Duckworth, who wrote, “But we’re nowhere near ready — and perhaps never will be — to use feedback on character as a metric for judging the effectiveness of teachers and schools. We shouldn’t be rewarding or punishing schools for how students perform on these measures.”
What once was free and inherently taught now will cost the taxpayer billions of dollars while the students are psychologically manipulated to alter their beliefs, values, and world views and forced to take psychological assessments. In a nutshell, their mental health will be evaluated according to government standards.
ESSA is an unconstitutional piece of legislation that is very dangerous for our American freedoms. Parents must demand that their state legislators stop the implementation of ESSA. Having one’s child psychologically profiled is yet another reason why school choice is sweeping across the nation.
I have been trying to alert parents and taxpayers of the progressive teaching philosophy that is sweeping our country even in Texas. You will often hear “educrats” use terminology such as “Critical Theory” “Critical Thinking”, etc. It all sounds great on the surface but there is an underlying agenda to this teaching philosophy and one that is not good. Want to know more about this movement please tune into the following webinar, January 26.
In the aftermath of World War II, America stood alone as the world’s premier military power. Yet our sense of cultural inferiority remained. Many of our elites embraced not only the war’s refugees, but many of their ideas as well. Some of them argued that truth was only a social construct and that meaning was based on what the individual wanted. As a result, although we had just won a war against the forces of nihilism and fascism, the New Nihilists set about dissolving the bedrock of the country, from patriotism to marriage to the family to military service; they have sown (as Cardinal Bergoglio – now Pope Francis – once wrote of the Devil) “destruction, division, hatred, and calumny” – and all disguised as the search for truth.
The Devil’s Pleasure Palace exposes the overlooked movement known as Critical Theory and explains how it took root in America and, once established and gestated, how it has affected nearly every aspect of American life and society.
Michael Walsh is a journalist, author, and screenwriter, whose work includes six novels, seven works of non-fiction, and a hit Disney movie. The former classical music critic of Time magazine, he co-founded Big Journalism with the late Andrew Breitbart and is now a regular contributor of political and cultural commentary to PJ Media and National Review, and an occasional op-ed columnist for the New York Post. Among his awards are the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for distinguished music criticism, in 1979, and the American Books Awards prize for fiction for his gangster novel, And All the Saints, in 2004.
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“Amazing News: Tex. Gov. Greg Abbott Is Two for Two”
By Donna Garner
6.20.15
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is “two for two.” Not only did Gov. Abbott make a wise choice in appointing Donna Bahorich to be the new Chair of the Texas State Board of Education, but today Gov. Abbott also vetoed SB 313 (please see both articles posted at the bottom of this page).
With these two critical moves, Gov. Abbott has helped to stabilize two important structures in Texas upon which education reform is built – a strong SBOE Chair and the Type #1 curriculum standards (TEKS) that make our state the most unique and patriotic state in the United States.
Besides giving our heartfelt thanks to Gov. Abbott, we also need to thank so many of the grassroots citizens of Texas who took their time to contact him and request that he (1) appoint Donna Bahorich as Chair and (2) veto SB 313.
These are the comments about SB 313 that I sent to Gov. Abbott on 6.18.15, and many other concerned Texans did the same thing:
Gov. Abbott, we beg of you to veto SB 313 so that Texas can retain the most fact-based, patriotic curriculum standards (TEKS) in the entire United States. No other state set up the parameters BEFORE a single word of their curriculum standards was written. Texas did.
We said that our TEKS had to be knowledge-based, academic, grade-level-specific, clearly worded, increasing in depth and complexity from one grade-level to the next grade level, and measurable with largely right-or-wrong answers. This is what is called the Type #1 philosophy of education.
If allowed to go forward, SB 313 would open up all of the TEKS in a helter-skelter, rushed manner and would invite those on the Board who are not conservatives to delete/change the wording, moving the TEKS into the same Type #2 philosophy as seen in the Common Core/CSCOPE products.
Type #2 (instead of emphasizing facts and academic knowledge) emphasizes process over the right answer, emphasizes feelings, opinions, beliefs over facts. Type #2 stresses subjectivity, relativism, and opens the door to the social justice agenda to indoctrinate children’s minds. SB 313 is not needed, and its only purpose is to trash our present TEKS.
The Texas State Board of Education and the Texas Education Agency have a well-orchestrated plan for revisiting the TEKS; and the English / Language Arts / Reading TEKS are beginning that process right now with the other TEKS in Science, Social, Studies, and Math going through that same, well-planned, systematic process in years to come.
SB 313 with its unrealistic mandates would throw that well-planned process into mass chaos. Chaos always breeds chaos which is exactly what the Type #2 proponents want to happen. Again, we beg of you to do the right thing and to veto SB 313. Thank you.
…Senate Bill 313 was one of the more visible ones nixed by Abbott. The bill, by state GOP Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo, aimed to tailor the state’s K-12 standards, but critics considered it a potential back door to the Common Core national education standards dreaded by the GOP base.
Many in Abbott’s own party had urged him to veto the bill, including the Texas GOP leaders who had unanimously passed a resolution urging him to reject it. On Saturday, Abbott took to Twitter to announce his veto of SB 313 before releasing his veto statement, which said the bill “potentially restricts the ability of the State Board of Education to address the needs of Texas classrooms.”
…Abbott wrapped up his work on vetoes by 2 a.m. Saturday, well ahead of the deadline at midnight Sunday to take action.
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To learn more details about why these two decisions by Gov. Abbott are so important to the future of our Texas public school children, please see these two articles:
The new Math TEKS were implemented this school year, 2014/2015. The math Teks greatly aligned with the common core standards. Due to the outrage not only from parents and teachers relating to the complexity of the new TEKS the Texas Commissioner of Education released the following statement stating that the STAAR scores for grades 3rd through the 8th were excluded from the state accountability system. In other words there was no repercussion to the students that did not pass the math STAAR test.
Aransas County ISD seems to want to capitalize on their student’s failures. The following was sent to a student at Aransas County’s Live Oak Learning Center stating the student failed the STAAR Math and needed to attend districts Summer School program. Why? . Surely the district is aware the students math STAAR scores were excluded for grades 3-8.
Unfortunately, today your children will be indoctrinated with the Islamic religion at your local Texas public school. The Islamic faith is making its way into every facet of our life.
The day when students were taught to read and write using Gods word, praying at school, singing Christmas carols is a distant memory.
Your local ISD’s with the use of Cscope, Common Core, International Baccalaureate or a similar Marxist curriculum are working to destroy your children’s values with the use of Hegel’s dialectic manipulation.
Watch this video to understand how this manipulation occurs.
This past week a student from Starrett Elementary in Arlington ISD told his father that the teacher had the english class doing an English lesson on Islam but they were not allowed to bring it home. The students father, Shane Cooper insisted that his son bring home the paper as you will see below is more Islamic indoctrination.
Texas has 20 Education Service Centers located throughout the state. Texas education service centers were initially set up to assist rural district with services. The ESC’s are funded with some state money as well as your local school district through service contracts and professional development and conferences. The ESC’s have become retirement homes for superintendents who have funded them through ISD’s with your tax money.On TEA’s website states that the guiding principles for the ESC’s are…..
Accountable – ESCs are responsible and answerable to TEA and the commissioner, the Texas Legislature, the ESC Board of Directors, stakeholders, customers, and the general public. Accountability comes in many forms and is used in all aspects of ESCs’ daily business. I am laughing in my seat at this statement. The ESC’s are the ones who started their own non-profit company, Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC) and leased a secretive online curriculum management company to 900+ school districts called Cscope. They requested teachers to sign a non-disclosure statement that saying the contents of the curriculum would not be released or they would not say anything negative about it the product.
Communication – ESCs communicate with internal and external stakeholders in a manner that is clear, concise, and accurate. The stakeholders in this communication circle are those that can profit of the backs of our kids. Public education is no longer about giving your children a proper academic education. it has become a haven of corruption while they try to tranform the philosophy of education based on the Collective.
Cost Effective – ESC decisions and business transactions have a greater benefit than cost. COST EFFECTIVE? SERIOUSLY? The audit performed by the Texas Attorney Generals office shows there is 6.1 Million dollars are missing from the Cscope debacle and the corruption did not stop there. Unfortunately, the corruption continues today. They have tried reviving Cscope under with a name change, Teks Resource System and continue to LEASE it to the school districts. TEACHERS, parents and students hate it. There is nothing on the Cscope website any longer. There are NO lessons, NO Tests. There is a vertical alignment that can be downloaded for free on TEA’s website. ****Now this beats anything I have seen. The original Cscope director, Ervin Knezek was housed of ESC 13 (Austin). In 2010/2011 the 81st TX Legislature awarded a Rider 42 grant giving the ESCs and TEA 150 Million+ to do professional development (PD) to align with the new TEKS. Ervin Knezek went to the PD training and then left ESC 13 and started his own company Lead4ward. Lead4ward (Knezek) started selling the same services he was trained to do for ESC 13 to the ESC’s and ISD’s. Knezek even took with him numerous employees from ESC 13 that worked with Cscope including the last Cscope director, Wade Labay. In a nut shell the Rider 42 money was to give professional development for teachers free of charge but our ESC’s are outsourcing their professional development to Lead4ward costing taxpayers millions. I can bet there were no other organizations considered for this outsourcing. Another interesting fact is ESC 10 even hired Ervin Knezek to speak on Cscope for over 10,000. The corruption never ends.
Customer Centric – ESCs demonstrate putting customers and partners at the center of everything. Who are their customers? Our School District that spend our tax money.
Efficient – ESCs maximize productivity of all personnel and capital resources of the center. LIE!
Ethical – ESC employees visibly demonstrate ethical, honest, and clear behaviors and outcomes and follow through to the best of their ability in the timeliest manner possible to produce results that benefit school districts, charter schools, and the public. ESCs adhere to the requirements of Texas Administrative Code §247.2 – Code of Ethics and Standard Practices for Texas Educators. Another lie!! Cscope proved of how unethical our ESC’s are. We also have ESC employees that have confirmed how unethical their employer is.
Focused on Improvement of Student Performance – ESCs’ main focus is student, school district, and charter school performance, both academically and financially. ESCs stress the importance of student improvement in activities, products, and services developed and provided to school districts and charter schools. ESCs analyze student improvements achieved. ESC’S main focus is trying to stay viable by creating a means to draw in more cash out of the school districts across the state. Unfortunately for students and taxpayers they have been successful.
Teamwork – ESCs operate as a system of 20 education service centers with a unified approach to improve public education across the state in alignment with individual education service center strategic plans regionally designed to meet the unique needs of the school districts and charter schools within the region.The ESC’s were setup as regional centers in helping the district in their area and today they have partnered with each other in creating companies within the system selling those service to school districts giving way for more government bureaucracy and corruption.
Transparent – ESCs ensure facts, figures, and processes are visible, predictable, and understood by all who come into contact with the ESCs. Seriously? I will never forget the day with ESC 6 Cscope director, Lindy McCullogh confronted me after testifying at a Willis ISD school board meeting as a private citizen stating “If you want to know anything about Cscope you can come see me in front of my lawyers”. This statement was a red flag for me and I knew we had a serious problem in our education system.
Unfortunately, the corruption continues which entails a lot of work on behalf of the grassroots in alerting our legislatures of the corruption taking place. Cscope, Common Core and the International Baccalaureate program are all part a plan to radically transform our education system from a traditional system to a Marxist one, based on the collective as well along with data mining your kids.
The ESC’s are slowly becoming a household name with a bad reputation. The Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) is coming to their defense sending out the following brochure to all Texas Superintendents.
ESCs are now tooting their own horn on social media in attempting to keep a positive image. To late and millions of dollars short on their attempt. Below was their latest tweet on twitter attempting to promote the idea that the ESC’s save our school districts money. I would like to see the study showing how much the ESC’s save the average school district. I would also like to see who has done the study. If the study was or is to be preformed by RESOURCES for LEARNING, the study should be thrown in the trash. Linda Wurzbach is the President of Resources for Learning. She used to work for the Council of Chief School Officers which is closely tied to Obama’s Common Core Standards. She graduated from the University of Texas, taught in the Austin ISD, and worked for the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Her company performed the following study called the Cscope Science Teks Review. I wonder what ESC 13 have to paid for that? The tangled web in Texas education is wide and deep.
Texas Education Service Centers (ESCs) were established to provide service to school districts in different regions of Texas. Schools in rural areas have different needs than do schools in cities.Thus, 20 ESCs were established to provide specific services to met the needs of school districts within each region.
The ESCs were originally supported by the state. In 2003 the state legislature allowed the ESCs to sell products and services to bring in more funding. This ended these agencies being a service to schools and opened the door for poor quality products and programs to be produced and sold to public schools.
The ESCs are allowed to be self-governed, thus there has and still is no one who evaluates the quality of the ESC products.
State legislatures, TEA and the State Commissioner of Education, like the ostrich in the illustration seem to keep their head buried in the sand. They certainly were not paying attention when the ESCs created a one-size-fits-all K-12 instruction material for core curriculum (math, science, ELAR, social studies). To add a touch of credibility to this unvetted material called CSCOPE, the ESCs advertised the CSCOPE lessons as being “state lessons.” This is printed on the original CSCOPE materials. Since the ESCs are not held accountable for what they do, the original CSCOPE lessons had plagiarized content. This was not discovered because Texas school superintendents forced their teachers to sign a non-disclosure contract with the ESCs. Teachers signed or they had no job. They agreed to reveal the content of the CSCOPE lessons. The penalty could be legal court action. This divided the staff in Texas schools. As a teacher, I would not respect a superintendent who cared so little for his/her staff that such a contract was mandatory for employment.
Q1 Who is suppose to oversees the ESCs to confirm that state grant money is spent as directed?
A1 TEA is responsible for confirming that grants from the state are used as described. I cannot testify to all grants given to the ESCs from the state of Texas, but the outside evaluation of the Rider 42 PD grant of $150 Million dollars was spent and the product and services were far below par, yet
yet TEA paid the ESCs the grant money.
Q2 Are the boards of trustees for each of the ESCs doing their job?
A2 Some of the ESC employees say having a board of trustees for the ESCs is a joke. The ESC directors handpick these trustees for their ESC.
Q3 Isn’t the Commissioner of Education suppose to oversee the ESCs to make sure they use money correctly?
A3 State Commission of Education, Michael Williams, allowed the ESCs to develop the rules governing the ESCs.
Basically all the Texas Education Service Centers are given “blank checks” with no real checks-and- balances for verifying what money is used for. Only a very small handful of top directors within each Education Service Center are privy to what happens to the yearly inflow of multi-millions of dollars received by each ESC. The ESCs receive Federal Grants as well as grant money from the state. How much and what the money is to be used for is only known by the elite few within the ESCs.
The long and short of it is that the ESCs have evolved from service centers to being part of a very corrupt network. It is difficult to follow the money trail because of the secrecy and misappropriation of funds. It is all hush hush when it comes to where grant money goes.
Q4 Why did Robert Scott resign from being the state commissioner of education?
A4 Scott resigned soon after the midwinter TASA conference when he basically did an 180 degree turn from where we all thought he was on many things. Most people considered Robert Scott to stand behind conservative education values.
When the superintendents at the TASA conference gave Scott a standing ovation for supporting TASA’s goals, we realized that he had been a wolf in sheep clothing or had for some reason been persuaded to support TASA’s goals of implementing Common Core and its assessments.
Q5 I personally think the TEKS and the STAAR do not meet the expectations described. The science TEKS are very vague, and some science TEKS are not correct. When I ask for clarification or to report an error, the answer is always that I just do not understand the objective of the TEKS. Is this attitude the same for everyone who asks questions?
A4 Their patronizing attitude is how TEA and the ESCs get away with so much. It intimidates so many including good educators who might work at TEA or the ESCs. We are patted on the head like we just don’t understand the big picture. We get the picture, shut up and do what we say and don’t ask questions.
TEA keeps dreaming up new ways to disrupt the focus of the core curriculum: reading, writing, math, science, and social studies.
TEA and the 20 Texas Education Service Centers have more than 80% of the Texas School Districts indoctrinated with the progressive common core education philosophy –AKA– Discovery Learning. This method of education puts the student in charge of his/her education. The teacher just present problems and the students on their own discover the necessary facts to solve the problem. Discovery learning is successful with gifted and talented students, but only if they are self-disciplined and self-motivated.Thus, discovery learning is unsuccessful with the majority of students.
Discovery learning is a method where students take charge of their education and teachers are only to be “guides on the side.”
What is the point of requiring teachers to have college degrees if students are to take charge of their own education?
The discover learning method depends on students coming to school with a desire to learn and information that they can share with other students. The idea is that each student has something different to contribute, thus by brain storming students can solve problems themselves. I started my teaching career in 1966. Teachers were expected to be in control of their classes. Teachers were expected to be knowledgeable about the subjects they taught and they were to provide students with the basic facts necessary to solve problems. During my teaching career I taught many different sciences at different grade levels and in different school districts. I started out with one if not the best mentor ever, Ms. Marcille Hollingsworth, who wisely taught me that a teacher must have control of the class in order to present the concepts necessary for problem solving. That was 49 years ago and now veteran teachers like Ms. Hollingsworth are encouraged to leave the teaching profession. They are considered trouble makers because they do not agree with what is being called the “Twenty First Century Progressive Discovery Method” of teaching.
How is the 21st Century Progressive Discovery Method working out?
I recently volunteered to mentor a new 8th grade science teacher and help create a science lab room. To say that I was shocked at the behavior of the students doesn’t come close to describing my experiences. Teacher friends had told me that students were difficult and the new teaching philosophies made it next to impossible to maintain order in the classroom. You cannot come close to imagining how the progressive discovery method has destroyed the learning environment of our public schools.
Some of these 8th grade students must have their tests read to them. Yes, there are 8th grade students who cannot read well enough to read their tests and are in regular class rooms without any particular assistance. The idea is that by being in regular classes these non-readers will learn more than if in a small class with teachers trained to help them. It is really sad to see a student making every effort for other students not to know they cannot read. By working in groups non-readers have learned to copy the work of other students even though they cannot read and understand what they write. Some are behavior problems. Some misbehave instead of doing any work because they cannot read and their writing skills are so poor. They would rather be viewed as being disobedient instead of thought of as being dumb.
Mixing students of different abilities is called Inclusion and is hailed as a system to provide equal education to all students.
I do understand that parents want their children to have the best education. Parents of students who have learning disabilities have fought for the rights of their children. They won the right for their children to be in the same classes with children having no specific learning disability. Now, instead of their children being in small classes with several specially trained teachers to help overcome and/or learn in special ways, children with learning disabilities have less special assistance. All inclusive classrooms move at the same pace. Administrators promote the idea that teachers are able to provide individual assistance to students who need extra assistance. Teachers are to prepare lessons for students with different abilities, thus gifted students and students with learning as well as emotional disabilities all receive lessons designed especially for them.
STOP!
First of all students are suppose to be taking charge of their own education–working in groups and sharing ideas with teachers not giving them facts—remember teachers are to be guides on the side. But with inclusion there are students who are not capable of taking charge of their education. The truth is that no student can do this in elementary and few in upper grades. When questions about students with learning disabilities, administrators “craw-fish” and put the responsibility of providing special lessons for these students.
Public education is a mess.
Some of the 8th graders I work with can read but have little comprehension. Most of the students have little self-discipline. None of the students have the skills to design a science investigation to discover the answer to a problem. This is because all of the students have very little science knowledge to draw on. They have been in charge of their own education for so many years that many have such a poor education they could not apply for the most basic jobs.
The teachers are also trained to use the Fundamental Five Steps of teaching taught by “Lead Your School.” This requires teachers to have students working in groups among other things, such as having the perform critical writing at the end of every class period. I read the book for this course and it gives no clue what is considered critical writing. Basically students are to summarize what they learned during the class period.
Students do not have textbooks that they bring to class. Instead, a worktext is issued and it remains in the classroom. The pages in this book are perforated so they easily tear out. These books were originally developed for common core standards. The publisher had a group of Texas educators to revise some of the sections so that these worktexts can be said to align with Texas standards called TEKS. These hodgepodge revised worktexts have students doing mindless busy work. A few students who are either self-disciplined enough to want to learn and/or have parents who encourage them to learn do the work and those in their group copy the answers.
In Waco ISD, students who want to learn are allowed to attend classes with other students of the same mind set. Waco ISD has a special school for these students. I’ve had the honor of being invited to work with these students. It was like stepping back a few years when teachers were in charge of their classes. Yes, traditional education, which has been described by our Texas Educational service systems as old fashion, not acceptable in our modern 21st century technology education systems. What a joke.
In classes where teachers are not in charge, students often tend to be loud and not focused on the lesson. .Why are teachers being blamed for the failure of our education system when those at the state level force teachers to allow students to be in charge of their own education. The 8th graders that I work with would not have a clue how to behave in the event of a true emergency. During one of the labs, I tripped and fell on the floor hitting my head on the edge of a cabinet. There were students near me but none made an effort to help me. I was not badly injured and purposely remained on the floor as I screamed–
“I’ve fallen, will someone help me.”
The teacher in the adjoining room came in immediately, but most of the my students never acknowledged my cry for help because they were loudly talking to each other. I cannot control the behavior of these students. I ask the administration for help and was told to have a discipline plan–rules for students to follow and consequences. There are no consequences that these students fear.
Are is there? I recently observed something I’d never seen in the school before.
A substitute teacher who has never been indoctrinated with all the CSCOPE and Lead Your School nonsense monitored classes for one of the 8th grade teachers. For the first time I saw 8th grade students sitting quietly as they did their individual work. The substitute was busy assisting the teacher by grading papers. Had the teacher been there, he would have been reprimanded for sitting at his desk and grading papers.
It appears that only substitute teachers are allowed to have a quiet classroom. Only substitute teachers are not allowed to sit at their desks. Regular teachers must be walking around the room guiding and encouraging students who are working nosily in groups or making poster board projects etc…… Students are to appear to be enjoying the class. A quiet class with students doing individual work is only to be observed during the multitude of testings.
All the TEKS are to be taught before the STAAR tests in April
I am discovering that there is really not enough time to teach students the content of the TEKS before the assessments (STAAR/EOCs) are given.
Think about it:
Some days are cut short so that teachers can be trained to encourage students to go to college. This is called “No Excuses University.” Teachers are given a book to read so they can better encourage students to go to college. This book has nothing to do with the content that each teacher is hired to teach. I read the book—It would be good for teachers training to be teachers. Those in the professions should know everything in the book. But, since our 20 Education Service Centers are now training people to be teachers, principals, and even superintendents, maybe they do not know how to teach–or lead.
Think about this:
The 20 ESCs are forbidden to write and sell lessons to schools because of the faulty, antiAmerican, anti-Christian CESCOPE lessons. Yet, these same people who purposely created instruction materials that were never reviewed are in charge of training people to teach our children; training people to be principals and superintendents as well as training school board members. In other words, the 20 ESCs have more control over Texas Public Education than TEA, the Commissioner of Education, and all the legislative education committees.
Since many students cannot read well and have little comprehension of what they read, TEA has solution for these problems:
1. Make the TEKS and STAAR/EOC tests more rigorous.
2. Add more for teachers to present as they guide from the side.
Now teachers are to incorporate College and Career Readiness into their “lessons.”This is another education scam–meaning that more material can be sold to schools–more programs sold to schools for college and career readiness when time needs to be spent teaching students to read.
DUH! WILL SOMEONE IN AUSTIN LISTEN?
MANY OF OUR CHILDREN CANNOT READ AND WRITE. MAKING THE TESTS HARDER DOESN’T IMPROVE THEIR READING SKILLS.
I WANT SENATORS AND STATE REPRESENTATIVES TO SPEND TIME IN CLASSROOM. I INVITE YOU TO VISIT THE CLASSES THAT I WORK WITH. CONTACT ME HERE
WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM IN TEXAS?
PEOPLE WHO DO NOT CARE AND LOVE OUR CHILDREN HAVE TAKEN OVER EDUCATION. IT IS ALL ABOUT MONEY AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH EDUCATION.
“Tortured language” has been an important government tool for years. (Just ask Jonathan Gruber, chief architect of ObamaCare, who bragged about the use of tortured language in writing that controversial piece of legislation.) Such “tortured writing” uses euphemisms and flimflam when taking falsehoods and twisting them so that people will misconstrue them as truth.
ESC 11’s chart claims that Common Core and TEKS are equal in content and scope. Therefore, they say schools can buy Common Core-aligned materials and feel safe that the materials support our TEKS. This is pure flimflam – “tortured language.”
I was a member of the Texas math curriculum standards writing team when we wrote the new 2012 Math TEKS. I can state unequivocally that the new Math TEKS that we wrote and the Texas State Board of Education adopted are not the same as the federally-driven Common Core math standards.
First, our TEKS document is a brand name product that was developed by 80 citizens who put in 12-hour days during three separate meetings over four months. We were charged with developing quality standards that would benefit our children and Texas citizens. We built our TEKS starting with a draft first created by a panel of mathematics experts that was commissioned by the Texas Education Agency (TEA); then we researched specific states with outstanding math standards at the time (such as Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Indiana). Most importantly, we brought to the table professional knowledge and experiences as educators in Texas classrooms. We knew our state’s children and their needs. The TEKS were personal to us.
In contrast, Common Core is a generic brand created largely by unknown individuals outside of Texas. Some of the main writers, whose names were finally released publicly, had never even been classroom teachers. For many reasons, not the least of which is cost, numerous states are now struggling to back out of their federal Common Core contracts.
Even though Texas was one of the few states that said “NO” to the Common Core, one of the Texas Education Agency staffers tried to urge our Math TEKS writing team to use the Common Core Math Standards to craft our Math TEKS. As a member of the Grade 3 – 5 team, I made it clear that we should not be looking at the Common Core Standards for guidance since Texas had refused to adopt Common Core Standards from their inception.
The same TEA staff member resisted efforts to have the required use of the “standard algorithms” specified in the TEKS. (This is the procedure used in multiplication and division that our parents and grandparents learned and which is used internationally.) The staffer said standard algorithms are considered a “traditional math” approach and were thus considered inferior by many math reformers.
I also wanted a restriction against the use of calculators for daily problem solving in elementary grades. Reformers on the writing team supported the push for technology in K-12 rather than the traditional methods (paper and pencil) of student learning.
Even though I vociferously advocated for standard algorithms and the restriction against calculator use among elementary students in Grades K-5, I was losing the debate. Therefore, I contacted Dr. James Milgram, one of the panel experts hired by TEA, and asked for his help. He stepped forward, and a higher-up official at the TEA also got involved. References to the Common Core by the TEA staff ceased. The required teaching of standard algorithms and the restricted use of calculators in Grades K-5 were adopted in the final Math TEKS document.
Despite some philosophical differences on what we should include in the Math TEKS, our group did agree that the standards had to be explicit, direct, and clear. They had to be understandable not only for elementary teachers (many of whom fear mathematics and need clarity and brevity in instructions) but also for parents as well.
Our TEKS writing team agreed that the new TEKS standards had to be measurable with objective criteria and that each element had to be testable through objective measurements. Our team knew that the new TEKS would not be perfect but that they needed to be traditionally oriented standards (a.k.a., Type #1) as compared with the 1997 TEKS which were “fuzzy” standards (a.k.a., Type #2).
The chart that ESC 11 has created attempts to show that Common Core’s “process standards” match our new TEKS “process standards” and that makes Common Core and TEKS similar in scope. That is ridiculous! The new Math TEKS standards that our writing team finally produced in 2012 has strong and specific expectations listed in the “Introduction” before each grade level. No such clear, explicit, competency-based language is found in the Common Core.
Next, the public needs to look at our final TEKS Math Standards and compare those definitive and clear statements with Common Core’s wordy, complex explanations, many of which are not understandable because of the confusing and complicated wording. (Federal or state curriculum standards are also not supposed to mandate pedagogy [how to teach]; that is to be left up to the local educators.)
Below is a comparison example from the Math TEKS and from the Common Core:
TEKS, Grade 5, Number and Operations 3.H:
“Represent and solve addition and subtraction of fractions with unequal denominators, referring to the same whole using objects and pictorial models and properties of operation.”
Common Core, (same standard but labeled NF1 and NF2):
“Add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators (including mixed numbers) by replacing given fractions with equivalent fractions in such a way as to produce an equivalent sum or difference of fractions with like denominators. For example, 2/3 + 5/4 = 8/12 + 15/12 = 23/12. (In general, a/b + c/d = (ad + bc/bd). Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions referring to the same whole including cases of unlike denominators, e.g., by using visual fraction models or equations to represent the problem. Use benchmark fractions and number sense of fractions to estimate mentally and assess the reasonableness of answers. For example, recognize an incorrect result 2/5 + 1/2 = 3/7 by observing that 3/7 < 1/2.”
In numerous cases, there are additional Common Core standards that, if utilized, would add to the already packed TEKS. This would not help educators prepare their students for the STAAR-End-of-Course tests. Why risk wasting time, energy, and money on unproven and generic materials (Common Core) when the traditional approach to math has been proven successful for generations, in spite of those educators who say it hasn’t?
Speaking of time, it is time for many of these education “leaders” to have to teach for one year in a classroom and use the directives and requirements they have put on classroom teachers. These leaders should also be required to receive the credit or the blame for any poor student achievement.
More to the point, why are Texas education service centers, administrators, and political leaders allowing ESC 11’s false narrative and chart to be presented to teachers and parents as truth, especially when it is against state law to use Common Core materials and standards in Texas as stated by the Texas Attorney General (TAG). (Re: Use of the Common Core Standards Initiative by Texas school districts to teach state standards. RQ-1175-GA — https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions/opinions/50abbott/op/2014/pdf/ga1067.pdf)
Why are Texas leaders ignoring the TAG’s ruling and flaunting the law by using public tax dollars for illegal purchases by school districts and ESC’s?
I believe if Texas leaders had led their classroom teachers to teach the new Math TEKS when adopted in 2012, rather than waiting until they were required to do so in 2014, students’ scores on this year’s STAAR and End-of-Course math tests would have shown considerable improvement.
School leaders should make sure all students in Texas public schools have instructional materials that teach the fact-based, clearly stated, explicit, grade-level specific, measurable requirements as outlined in our state’s Math TEKS.
Texas children, teachers, and parents deserve clarity, not confusion, from their leaders on education issues. That includes their not being victimized by curriculum materials such as Common Core that use “tortured language” and make material unnecessarily difficult to understand.
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CORRECTION TO PODCAST: In 2012 the Math TEKS (Texas’ curriculum standards) were adopted in K-12 by the elected members of the Texas State Board of Education; however, the K-8 Math TEKS were not required to be implemented fully into the schools until 2014 when the textbooks (e.g., instructional materials – IM’s) were available for purchase. The high-school Math TEKS are not required to be implemented fully until 2015-16 when the new Math IM’s will be available for districts to purchase.
12.3.14 — PODCAST – Alice Linahan of Women on the Wall — conference call with Nakonia (Niki) Hayes, the author of The Story of John Saxon
In 2011 Education Week reported that Texas was pulling out of the Council of Chief State School Officers, a influential Washington Organization due to philosophical differences. Robert Scott the Texas Education Commissioner at the time felt the values of Texas and CCSSO did not line up not to mention the CCSSO was behind creating national standards aka Common Core. The organization Achieve is another Washington group (surprised?) behind creating the Common Core standards and the philosophy behind it. Achieve Texas is a subsidiary of the Washington group.
Unfortunately this week the current Texas Education Commissioner, Michael Williams appears to be proud that Texas is now becoming a national leader with meeting some of the goals of CCSSO. You can read his comments below.
Informed activist across the state knew that HB 5 was just another step to be completed for those behind the national education reform. Setting students up on Career Pathways before they are old enough to have any true life experiences in making an educated decision as to a career path is a shame. Students today have become to the state cogs in a wheel for the powers at be. Along with the education reform comes data collection from the time a child enters the public school system through out their career. Texas has implemented the Longitudinal Data System. All data is open to 3rd parties and the data collected ranges from test scores, disciplinary actions, medi,cation religion, political affiliation, etc.
After finding a social studies assignment within the controversial curriculum Cscope, sold by the Texas Education Service Centers calling for students to draw a new Communist Flag I am greatly concerned where we in Texas are heading.
BOB KELLOGG
Bob Kellogg is a freelance journalist. His work regularly appears on OneNewsNow.com.
PARKER, Colo. – Having grown up in communist China during Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, Lily Tang Williams of Parker, Colorado, says the Common Core national standards being imposed on America’s public education system scare her.
She came to the United States from China to further her law degree. But after a time, she decided she loved the freedoms and opportunities that America provided and decided not to go back. She now has three children. One of her two sons was just graduated from the Air Force Academy and the other is working full time and going to school part time. Her 15-year-old daughter is a sophomore in high school. In the midterms, she ran for a seat the Colorado Legislature as a Libertarian.
Recently, she decided to educate herself about Common Core. She says there are things about it that remind her of her education growing up in China. She tells EAGnews that her number one concern is the data collection, the data mining, of children and their parents.
“That’s what we had in China…every child will have a file, actually every citizen in China has a so-called ‘personnel file.’ And this ‘personnel file’ will document everything. When you are in school, they document your family political class, your gender, your age, your home address, your grades, you behaviors, political correctness. So everything is in that file.”
Common Core encourages such data collection. Jane Robbins of the American Principles Project says schools implementing the Core are increasingly conducting surveys to acquire very personal information about students. It’s a means of getting state and federal funding. She says the surveys are not directly related to Common Core.
But she says, “It’s all part of an educational progressive mindset. [Educational progressives] have got to have every school doing the same standards and ultimately with the same curriculum. And [they’ve] got to collect data on anything and everything because otherwise how can they know what’s effective and what’s not effective.”
Robbins says they’ve got to know everything in order to control everything.
Williams says the personnel files in China follow a person throughout his or her life and exerts a lot of control over individuals, where they can live and where they can work. She says she doesn’t want to see the same thing happen in this country.
Williams is also very concerned about the Common Core curriculum and standardized testing. She says the ‘Advance Placement U.S. History’ course, for one thing, is worrisome because they’ve taken out a lot of the American exceptionalism, information about the Founding Fathers and capitalism is only mentioned three times. Entrepreneurship is gone.
“So basically what they teach our kids is basically the leftist agenda and focus on what they want your kids to learn,” she says. “And that really worries me because I came to this country because of the Constitution, the rights, the values, individual liberties….that sounds like music to me because I never had those in China.
“But now they’re going to teach our kids not to focus on those individual liberties and American exceptionalism, and capitalism and free market…and they’re going to teach another kind, leftist agenda that is like a garbage agenda.
“Haven’t we learned from the past that communism and socialism don’t work? We’re in trouble because children are our future. If they control our education of our children, they will control this country’s future.”
Another concern is the standardized tests that go along with Common Core. In China the National College Entrance Exam is very competitive. It lasts for three days and all kids have to take it. And if they don’t pass, they don’t make it into college and it is considered a great humiliation.
“Some kids even commit suicide either before the test or after the test because the pressure is so big,” Williams says. “So why do we want to become like China? Those kids have a low life. Those kids are miserable. It’s all about training them to be test-takers, test machines, not critical thinkers.”
She says she has become very passionate about speaking out against Common Core. She says she feels morally obligated to tell her story so she can wake up Americans. Recently, she testified before the Colorado Board of Education and told them: “Common core, in my eyes, is the same as the communist core I once saw in China…. Nationalized testing nationalized curriculum and nationalized indoctrination…. I cannot believe this is happening in this country. I don’t know what happened to America, the shining city on the hill. Chinese children are not trained to be independent thinkers….They are trained to be massive skilled workers for corporations.”
Williams has written an open letter she is releasing titled, “A Chinese Immigrant Mother Against Common Core.” She tells EAGnews she is sending the letter to the president, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Department of Education, her representatives in Congress and the school board members in her daughter’s district.
A video of her testimony before the Colorado Board of Education has gone viral and she says she’s been getting requests for radio and print publication interviews. She also has been invited to speak to New Yorkers United for Kids.
By virtue of her passion about the issue, she has become an activist who’s is trying to get others involved in opposing Common Core. Her website is http://www.lily4liberty.com and she encourages people to log in and download her letter so they can take it to their districts’ school board meetings and present it to their board members.
The revised elementary math TEKS are above grade level.
The math TEKS are designed for a 36 week school year. Since the STAAR tests are given in April, teachers have about 24 weeks instead of 36 weeks to teach all of the math TEKS.
The STAAR tests are given in April to provide time during the school year for retesting.
TEA sets the testing date early knowing that students do not have enough time to learn all the TEKS. Thus TEA is responsible for the low performance on the STAAR tests. Retesting is very expensive. Who benefits from the retesting? Not our children.
Once the STAAR tests are taken, students who pass are given busy work for about 6 weeks while students who fail are retested.
Not only are the TEKS increasing in difficulty, teachers are not given ample number of instructional days to prepare students.
The same is true for every course being tested.
What is the purpose of giving STAAR tests? It has nothing to do with education.
DALLAS, Texas — On the week of November 17-21, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) will reconvene for a final week of meetings in the ongoing Social Studies textbook adoption process. Called Proclamation 2015 to reflect the 2015-16 school year that these instructional materials will be implemented. The Social Studies textbooks were last updated last in 2002.
Breitbart Texas has reported on the Social Studies adoption process, noting Texas Freedom Network’s (TFN) beef with the open and transparent process that requires public participation. Breitbart Texas also reported on the troubling textbook findings that emerged — blaring historical omissions, factual errors and leftwing bias.
TFN education establishment progressives have painstakingly tried to convince Americans that the Texas public K-12 Social Studies department has been taken hostage by the Tea Party and Christian evangelicals.
Through TFN’s Education Fund (TFNEF), they “contracted” professors at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, the University of Mary Washington in Virginia and the University of Texas at Austin for a review independent of the one conducted by the SBOE, according to TFN.
Breitbart Texas looked at TFNEF’s Texas Rising, which seeks out “young leaders” on Texas college campuses for the group’s stated mission — to develop a “social justice-minded” generation to push “progressive public policy in Texas.”
On the other hand, TTT, also conducted an independent review. Coalition founder Ret. Lt. Col. Roy White told Breitbart Texas they formed for the “single purpose of improving the factual accuracy of social studies textbooks for the five million children of Texas who will use these textbooks beginning in the 2015-16 school year.”
These unpaid reviewers included scholars, curriculum accuracy experts and 100-plus volunteers who donated thousands of hours to reviewing the Social Studies textbook. Among them were Dr. Andrew Bostom, Associate Professor of Medicine at Brown University Medical School also known for his recognized analyses on Islam, Jihad and Muslim anti-Semitism; and Dr. Amy Jo Baker, the retired director of Social Studies for the San Antonio Independent School District and president of the Texas Council for History Education. She is affiliated with the National Council for History Education.
Dr. Sandra Alfonsi, who oversees textbook review programs for ACT! for America and Textbook Alert, also participated. Previously, she told Breitbart Texas that the textbooks were loaded up with bias — progressive bias.
TTT reviewed the same textbooks as TFN — from publishing giants Pearson, McGraw Hill, Discovery Education, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Worldview, Perfection, and Cengage.
TFN’s review netted hysterical headlines about Moses as the father of our country. A former SMU educrat trembled to the Texas Tribune that students would believe that the Hebrew lawgiver “was the first American.”
Barring leftwing hyperbole, someone thought he played some role. The perceived likeness of Moses adorns the US Supreme Court with the 10 Commandments. He is also the central of 23 historical figures hanging overhead in the House Chamber of the United States Capitol.
The Washington Post, the Associated Press (AP) and the Huffington Post all chimed in on TFN’s false narrative, alleging a fantastical rightwing grip on Texas public education, attacking the textbook adoption process itself for allowing Joe Public to participate, and slamming the Texas education state standards, which TFN opposes.
In their review, TFN bashed government and U.S. history textbooks that “suffer from an uncritical celebration of the free enterprise system.” They lamented that the “legitimate problems of capitalism” and “the government’s role in the U.S. economic system” were omitted. They targeted the Tea Party repeatedly. In one instance, they blamed constitutional conservatives for one government book espousing “anti-taxation and anti-regulation arguments.”
TFN’s never-ending left-of-left politically motivated agenda included the usual suspects — climate change science and social justice-based math, but what about the facts?
Ironically, TFN’s meme of textbook honesty has been “Those who don’t know history are destined to delete it.”
TTT’s review was equally revealing, addressing factual flaws that TFN academic sleuths overlooked or missed.
For example, in Pearson Magruder’s American Government, the pivotal role that the 40th U.S. President Ronald Reagan played in the Berlin Wall being torn down was omitted. In fact, the factually documented work of Reagan, Britain’s then Prime Minister, the late Margaret Thatcher, and the Pope in the fall of the Soviet Union was non-existent.
“The Soviet Union did not have the resources to implement a ‘Star Wars’ system that Reagan supported. Others have already chronicled the role Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul II played in the last great revolution of the 20th century. That it was largely a peaceful revolution in the context of decades of nuclear menace makes it all the more breathtaking,” the TTT review stated.
Sometimes facts are just facts and they have no political agenda. Case in point: In Pearson’s United States History 1877 to Present students are given an exercise to analyze a map. They are asked what can they predict about where the major battles of World War I would be fought.
Problem was “they have not yet been given any of the facts concerning any of the reasons for WWI or the countries involved,” stated Alfonsi.
Before predicting events, she said students “need to be given the facts upon which they are to base their analysis.”
In another example, Pearson presented a misleading statistic as fact, accounting for “more than 120 million who did not vote in the last presidential election.” The correct figure is 102 million. The TTT review explained that textbook writers erroneously folded into their calculation, 20 million resident aliens.
“Resident aliens are not allowed to vote in federal elections. Their voting in federal elections is a criminal offense that can result in one year in prison and deportation,” the TTT review noted.
This flub came up in McGraw Hill’s U.S. History to 1877 — three lessons on Islam were inserted into a chapter on North American development and history. TTT tagged it “irrelevant to the topic.”
Houghton Mifflin’s United States History: Early Colonial Period through Reconstruction also plunked irrelevant Islamic history into a Teacher’s Edition class exercise “designed to focus student attention on Islam,” wrote Baker and Alfonsi.
Discovery Education felt the same urge to plop the Arab world into 19th Century American history. In U.S. History: Civil War to Present, a drawing of the Arabian Coast in 1859 accompanies a drawing that describes how, with the advent of the telegraph in America, “companies rushed to put up telegraph lines all across the country and the seas.”
The American West’s cowboy was historically attributed to 8th Century North African Moors by Discovery Education. The role of the horse was credited incorrectly to the Spaniards first learning to handle horses and use them effectively as wartime tools because of the Moors. TTT noted that the Spain’s history with the horse pre-dated the Moors’ invasion.
Islamic historical intrusions appeared in other American history books. In a section about annexing the Philippines was instead a “story from the Byzantine Empire.” A Women of the West chapter linked to 10 videos on the women of Afghanistan in the “more to explore” section. Immigrant Women contained videos on Israel and the Middle East.
TTT scholars agreed that these videos were more appropriate in a World History and not US History textbook. Conversely, TFN lamented negative stereotypes of Islam in their report.
In a Houghton-Mifflin US History book, the importance of the Bill of Rights was omitted “even though events that are counter to those rights are addressed,” the review emphasized.
McGraw Hill’s American Revolution chapter in U.S. History to 1877 deleted the battles of Lexington and Concord. There was no mention of Paul Revere other than in a side reference to him as a former slave’s ride. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were the only Southern Generals acknowledged historically. Not even Braxton Bragg, namesake of Fort Bragg, was mentioned.
TTT reviewers found that McGraw Hill’s U.S. History to 1877 largely ignored the checks and balance system of American government and left out that members of the courts (judiciary) have to be nominated by the President and approved by the Senate.
Examples of PC cherry-picked information in McGraw Hill’s American Government included “executive privilege” It was presented with former president Bush invoking six privileges, “including to avoid giving Congress information on the use of FBI mob informants” while President Obama was said to have invoked the privilege by executive order only one time for “Fast and Furious.” Reviewers noted biased diction that made Bush’s actions appear nefarious while Obama’s noble. President Clinton’s 14 executive privileges were not mentioned.
Partial truths ran rampant, according to the TTT review. Houghton Mifflin told half of the story of DDT, the insecticide, exposing the negative effects but none of the positive, primarily in curtailing malaria outbreaks in Africa.
TTT noted that Hispanic-rights groups La Unida Raza (La Raza) and MEChA were depicted only in a positive light, omitting Reconquista calls to overthrow the U.S. government. This radical ideology was the reason Tucson Unified School District shut down and banned its Mexican-American Studies program in Arizona.
In other textbooks, pro-lifers were depicted as aggressive “abortion foes” while pro-abortion demonstrators were portrayed as peaceful. Hezbollah was never mentioned as an Islamic terrorist organizations but again, the Tea Party was called out as “militant, radical and fascist.”
Another textbook stated that the U.S. has a “national government,” which TTT reviewers cited as factually incorrect. “The U.S. Constitution created a ‘federal’ government of nation-states that grant a federal system limited powers,” they stated. “Limited powers” of the federal government was omitted. Worldview’s American History left out America’s founding fathers.
Right now, publishers are responding to these textbook reviews and SBOE recommendations. White hopes that after reading TTT’s findings, concerned Texans will attend the final textbook adoption meetings. Public comments are encouraged at the meeting on Tuesday, November 18, at 1 PM in Austin. The SBOE votes on the Social Studies books on Friday, November 21.
I am receiving complaints from parents across the state of Texas including the Grand Prairie ISD School District in regard to the math that is implemented. Students are struggling and are frustrated and are crying to be home schooled. These radical changes are planned and are not implemented with the children’s best interest at heart. The Common Core standards are being implemented across the State of Texas. The math 5th grade TEKS align side by side with the 5th grade common core standards. Common Core is about collecting data on students and level the playing field for all students. The philosophy behind this transformation is a Marxist one based on the collective, school districts across the state are implementing it. They refer to it by a host of different terms, Project Based Learning, Outcome based Education , Student Centered Learning and 21st Century Learning.
Below you will see that Grand Prairie’s Fannin Middle School Math Department have linked to an online program called Think Through Math which aligns with the common core standards.
When CSCOPE hit the news, most of the attention was focused on the lessons.
Much less attention was paid to the money side of CSCOPE.
But there were so many questionable practices from contracting to accounting, that the Texas State Auditor was
asked to get involved.
The Auditor’s report stated that the ESCs had such poor accounting practices that:
“auditors were not able to fully answer the audit objective to determine the amount of revenue and expenditures
related to the development, installation, distribution, and marketing of CSCOPE.”
The ESCs collected $73.9 million for CSCOPE, but they couldn’t account for over $6 million of public funds.
No one involved suffered any consequences. They are all still on the public payroll because, according to the Auditors report:
“the education service centers do not have specific contract laws that they must follow “
“there were no specific state funds appropriated for the development, implementation, and operation of CSCOPE.”
And even though the CSCOPE contracts “lacked fundamental provisions to help protect the State’s and taxpayers’ interests,” none of it was illegal because
What I found, from the standpoint of financial accountability, is another “CSCOPE.”
But this time, instead of just having poor contracting and accounting procedures with public funds, I have a video of a government entity explaining how they defied the Legislature and by-passed Texas law in order to operate TxVSN, and their elected officials rationalizing their actions.
I don’t have enough room to print everything, so I have chosen a few highlights of my findings to share here.
The Texas Legislature passed SB 1788 in 2007 establishing the Texas Virtual School Network (TxVSN) and funding the
operations with state funds.
The Commissioner of Education was given authority over the network resources and instructed in statute to contract with an
ESC for“the ESC to operate the network.”
The Legislature chose ESCs to operate the network because one of their statutory purposes is to “implement initiatives
assigned by the legislature.” (8.220)
Texas Education Agency (TEA) issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) entitled “Central Operations for the Texas Virtual School Network” with the deadline for submission 3/5/08. Eligible proposers were limited to the 20 Texas ESCs.
The purpose was to “identify the regional service center to operate the network.” The RFP stated, “a collaborative of ESCs will also be considered.”
The RFP included other qualifications such as HUB percentages, an understanding of
TxVSN, etc. as well as a statement that the proposer had not
“communicated directly or indirectly the proposal or bid made to any competitor or any
other person engaged in such line of business during the procurement process for this
contract.”
According to discussions held in a public meeting on 2/26/13, The Harris County Department of Education (HCDE) wanted
to bid for Central Operations of TxVSN, but was excluded by the mandates of the legislation because they are not an ESC.
Excerpts from HCDE’s public discussion concerning TxVSN:
(Note: Translation is approximate because some is difficult to understand. Please watch video for exact wording.)
John Sawyer (HCDE Superintendent): “… we wanted to bid on the contract. So I negotiated with (ESC)Region 10 who said, “We don’t know how to do it.” And I said, “We do. But we can’t bid.” So they bid and we are doing about 70% of the infrastructure work. And they are the front of the Texas School. And they handle the money and the student registrations and all that. ..“
John Sawyer (HCDE Superintendent):“…When the law was passed the wording in the law said that the only people who could bid were Regional Service Centers…We don’t qualify as a Regional Service Center. I never could decide if that was purposeful or accidental, but it didn’t matter. We got our share of the business anyway…”
Kay Smith (HCDE Trustee):“I have a question just for clarification. We could not bid on this directly?”
Sawyer: “That is correct”
Smith: “So they bid on it and then they sub it out to us?”
Sawyer:“The director at Region 10 is a former school superintendent that I happen to know pretty well… When I realized that we were not going to be allowed to bid on the project, and the bid was due in Austin on Tuesday of (the) next week…I called Buddy and said, “OK. Here is the deal.” I told you that conversation. He said, “John, we don’t know how to do this.” I said, “We do. But we can’t bid.” So we sent a team to Dallas…And spent the weekend. Wrote the proposal. We delivered it to TEA on Tuesday. Jointly. I mean we helped them with the proposal. And they got awarded the contract and we get about 70% …”
(Note: After the discussion, only one Trustee, Kay Smith, voted not to approve the contract.)
Three weeks before the final proposal for Central Operations of TxVSN was due, TEA held a conference in Austin “to assist potential proposers in clarifying their understanding of the scope and nature of the work…” It was open to “all potential proposers.”
Records show exactly who attended:
ESC-11 sent 3 people
ESC- 4 sent 1 person
ESC-12 sent 1 person HCDE – not qualified to bid – sent 6 people
ESC 10 – DID NOT ATTEND
Yet, TEA awarded the contract to operate the Texas statewide on-line school to ESC-10, an ESC that:
did not even attend TEA’s proposers conference, and
John Sawyer claims said, “We don’t know how to do it.”
(Note: I requested to view the winning bid from ESC-10, but TEA asked for a ruling from the Texas Attorney General Open Records Division – brings back more memories of CSCOPE.)
Esc-10’s first TxVSN contract period was 4/10/2008 through 8/31/2008 for $750,000.
ESC 10 immediately subcontracted with HCDE
(NOT an ESC and NOT an HUB) to provide 74.5% of the work for $559,138.
The first sub-contract with HCDE covered the same dates, 4/10/2008 through 8/31/2008.But records show the work began months before the contract was formally signed. HCDE’s Board didn’t even vote to approve the contract until 2 WEEKS BEFORE IT ENDED.
4/10/08 – Sub-contract began
7/15/08 – HCDE’s expenditure sheet for $325,997.98
7/24/08 – ESC-10 signed sub-contract
7/28/08 – ESC-10 received $325,997.98 HCDE invoice
(Note: I did not find records showing the date HCDE signed the contract.)This sub-contract has been renewed or extended every year with the same discrepancies repeating themselves.During HCDE’s February 2013 Board meeting, HCDE Trustee Erica Lee Carter asks this question about their 12/13 TxVSN contract:“Why are we voting on a contract thatstarted last September?”
But dates and signatures are only part of the contracting concerns.
Documents show that ESC-10 did not request bids before it sub-contracted the development of TxVSN Central Operations
to HCDE.
Instead, ESC-10 claimed, “No bid required since professional services.”
But this was a TEA contract which had to follow State of Texas contract guidelines. Texas Government Code 2254 defines “profession services” as services within the scope of the following professions:
accounting
architecture
landscape architecture
land surveying
medicine
optometry
professional engineering
real estate appraising
professional nursing
Technology is not listed.
Appendix 1 of the TEA contract reads:
“No funds shall be used to pay for food costs (ie refreshments, banquets, group meals, etc.) unless requested as a specific line item in the budget by the contractor and approved (prior to expenditures occurring) by TEA.”
I did not find budget line items or TEA prior approval documentation, but I did find the following purchases in the HCDE check registry under TxVSN budget codes:
Statute dictates that an ESC will operate the network and TEA awarded ESC 10 the Central Operations contract.
But I found multiple contradictory statements as to who is actually “operating” the network:
The TEA website claims: “ESC Region 10 serves as central operations for the TXVSN” and “oversees the day to day operations of the network”
The ESC 10 website claims: “ESC Region 10, in collaboration with the Harris County Department of Education, has been awarded Central Operations of the TxVSN”
The TXVSN website claims: “ESC Region 10, in collaboration with the Harris County Department of Education, is Central Operations.”
The HCDE website claims:“Harris County Department of Education, in collaboration with the Education Service Center (ESC) 10, has been awarded central operations of the TxVSN.”
“Harris County Department of Education was awarded Central Operations of the TxVSN.”
Since TxVSN is online school for thousands of students across Texas, I decided to see who is really operating the network by checking who registered and owns “txvsn.org.”
The result? HCDE I checked the form participating school districts need to send to TxVSN Central Operations for the mailing address.
Whose address is it? HCDE
If you call the TxVSN Central Operations Help Desk…
Where is the phone answered?
HCDE
Then I looked at the original “Scope of Work” descriptions spelled out in ESC-10’s sub-contract with HCDE, it is obvious who is actually “operating” the TxVSN.
TEA / ESC -10
HCDE
But there are two major issues with HCDE operating the TxVSN. First – State statue dictates that an ESC will operate TxVSN. HCDE is NOT an ESC. (30A.052) Second – Documents show the name “HCDE” is actually an “aka” of the “County School Trustees of Harris County.”
Why would a government entity go down to the county courthouse and file documents in order to conduct business under an assumed name?
Well, HCDE is actually an old county school board leftover from the days when counties still ran the public schools (1889 to mid-1900s) – before Texas instituted our current ISD system. They still exist in Harris County because of a loophole in the law which allows them to remain in operation under old, repealed county school statutes.(11.301)
“After December 31, 1978, no state funds shall be used to support … a board of county school trustees…”
TxVSN central operations is funded with state dollars.(30A.152)
Would someone question a contract using state funds being issued to “County School Trustees of Harris County?”
They might.
Would someone question a contract using state funds being issued to “HCDE?”
Much less likely.
Just as with CSCOPE, I end up asking a whole series of questions….
When it comes to Texas education dollars, who is watching the store?
Do the ESCs and other government business enterprises like HCDE really operate unchecked?
Do the Commissioner of Education, TEA and the Legislature really not know what is going on – or are they part of the problem?
Could the answers to all of these questions be something as simple as… … follow the money? Is it just a coincidence that less than a year after leaving TEA, Robert Scott, the Commissioner of Education from 2007-2012, became a paid “consultant” for HCDE?
(Note: Notice this first payment from HCDE to Rob Eissler was 12/21/12 – while he was still officially the Chairman of the House Public Education Committee??? )
Is it also just a coincidence that emails show when HCDE’s Superintendent warned Rob Eissler this past May that his lobbying group’s $269,500 HCDE “consulting” contract may be in jeopardy, Eissler called a current member of the Texas House Public Education Committee,Rep. Dan Huberty, who then called HCDE Board President, Angie Chesnut, and the contract remained intact?
I am sure, just like the HCDE name change, they are all just remarkable coincidences.
With CSCOPE, the ESCs got off scott free because the Legislature left so many loopholes in the statute governing them.
But with TxVSN, the Legislature dictated the funding and the operations in statute so I have personally asked the State Auditor’s Office to investigate the contracting of the TxVSN.
If you agree, you may contact the State Auditor’s Office and urge them to investigate Texas Education Agency’s TxVSN contracting with ESC-10 and HCDE @ 512-936-9500 or email.
You may contact the Texas Senate Education Committee and urge them to request a state audit of TxVSN contracting @ 512-463-0355 or email
You may contact the Texas House Public Education Committee and urge them to request a state audit of TxVSN contracting @ 512-463-0804 or email
[10.7.14 — I wonder when reporters such as Terrence Stutz are going to try to investigate exactly why Texas’ public school students have lost ground on the SAT. Could it be (duh?) that leading up to this last round of SAT testing, at least 893 ISD’s, charters, and private schools in Texas have been using the Texas version of Common Core called “CSCOPE”?
CSCOPE was sold to Texas educators as being the answer to all problems! It was started in 2006; and in 2013 alone, the Education Service Centers collected over $15,000,000 ANNUAL fees from taxpayers for CSCOPE license fees.
With that huge amount of funding and the large numbers of schools using CSCOPE, Texas should have seen dramatic academic results on the SAT if CSCOPE (now referred to as the TEKS Resource System) were really working.
Obviously, CSCOPE (a.k.a., Common Core Standards) is not raising students’ SAT scores but instead is causing them to drop.
Texas has good Type #1 curriculum standards (TEKS). That is not the problem. The problem is that CSCOPE and Common Core are Type #2; and the subjective, constructivist philosophy of education is causing chaos in our schools and decreasing students’ academic results.
Taxpayers and parents should demand that their tax dollars not go to pay for CSCOPE, TEKS Resource System, Common Core, or any other Type #2 curriculum (progressive). Not only is that money down the drain, but students’ academic achievement is suffering because of the wrong-headed Type #2 philosophy advocated by those products. – Donna Garner]
AUSTIN — Texas high school students slipped to their lowest SAT math scores in more than two decades this year, while reading scores on the college entrance exam were the second lowest during that period.
Results being released Tuesday by the College Board, which administers the exam, showed that the average score on the math section of the SAT dropped four points from last year to 495. That was the lowest figure since 1992, when Texas students recorded an average score of 493. A perfect score is 800.
In reading, the Class of 2014 in Texas scored an average 476. That was down slightly from last year but still two points better than their worst showing in the past two decades. That occurred in 2012.
In writing, Texas students registered an average 461 for the third year in a row.
Students across the U.S. saw their scores in math drop slightly. But the long-standing achievement gap between Texas and the nation grew significantly this year. In reading, the average score nationwide increased slightly and remained well above the average in Texas.
State education officials have attributed the declining SAT scores in Texas to an increase in the number of minority students taking the exam. Minorities generally perform worse than white students on standardized achievement tests like the SAT and ACT, the nation’s two leading college entrance exams.
However, California students outperformed Texans by big margins this year — 15 points in math and 22 points in reading. Demographics of the student populations in the two states are similar: California is 52.7 percent Hispanic and 25.5 percent white, while Texas is 51.3 percent Hispanic and 30 percent white.
In addition, more than 60 percent of seniors in both states took the SAT. School districts have in recent years encouraged students to take either the SAT or ACT to get them thinking about what to do after high school.
The drop in SAT math scores is likely to rekindle debate over the state’s recent decision to no longer require that all high school students take Algebra II. Over the objections of business and minority-rights groups, the Legislature and State Board of Education dropped Algebra II as a requirement except for students in advanced graduation plans.
Among those groups were the Texas Association of Business and Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Bill Hammond, a former Texas House member who leads the influential business group, said at the time that the state’s retreat on Algebra II and other more challenging courses “dooms generations of students to a mediocre education and low-wage jobs.” Hammond also pointed out that research shows students who skip the course get lower scores in math on the SAT and ACT and are less prepared for college.
Officials for the College Board said an analysis of this year’s results shows that too many students missed opportunities that would have helped them do better on the exam and be better prepared for college-level classes.
Foremost is a more challenging lineup of courses that includes four or more years of English, and three or more years of math, science and social studies.
“The latest SAT results reaffirm that we must address the issue of preparedness much earlier and in a more focused way,” said Cyndie Schmeiser, chief of assessment for the College Board. “Students in the Class of 2014 missed opportunities that could have helped more of them make successful transitions to college and career.”
The College Board reported that just over a third of the 179,036 Texas students who took the SAT met its college and career readiness benchmark, which requires a score of 1,550 out of a possible total of 2,400. That was well under the national average of 42.6 percent who hit the benchmark.
Most minority students, as in the past, fell far short of the benchmark. Only 19 percent of Hispanic and 14 percent of black students in Texas met the college readiness standard. Both percentages trailed the national averages for those groups.
…In Texas, about 61 percent of high school seniors who took the SAT were minorities, compared with a national average of 47.5 percent.
Texas Associati0n of School Administrators (TASA) along with Texas School Districts and Texas Education Service Centers (ESC’s) are implementing what they would call a “Necessary Revolution” a plan to Transform Texas Education. TASA’s “Creating a New Vision” for public education has been working within Texas School districts by implementing a “Marxist” constructivist philosophy of teaching called “Student Centered Learning” or “Project Based Learning”. Teachers and Students hate it. Unfortunately, teachers are silenced out of fear of losing their jobs.
District Superintendents that have signed onto this TRANSFORMATION are called Future Ready Superintendents. Has your district signed on.. check HERE. This transformation is not only hurtful to students and teacher morale but it cost taxpayers thousands of dollars.
TASA has sought the help of Shannon Buerk and her company “Engage2Learn” to help implement this “new revolution”. School districts will contract with Engage2Learn and have them hold a community “consensus” meetings. They already have their agenda and plan in place and want the community to have the impression that their input is needed. With the use of the DELPHI TECHNIQUE public input is controlled. These meeting are a waste of time and taxpayers money. Learn how to diffuse the Delphi Technique here.
Now who runs Engage2Learn. Husband and wife team Shannon & Clark Buerk. Shannon worked for Coppell ISD and worked with Keith Sockwell @ Cambridge Strategic Services. More on Mr. Sockwell HERE.
Shannon’s goal is to transform Texas Education to a progressive/liberal one with Project Based Learning (PBL). PBL implement a collaborative learning style where absolute truth and American Exceptionalism isn’t taught. Students work on computer and in collective groups.
