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.
Unfortunately our Texas education system has changed radically in the last decade and not for the better. A good classical education has been replaced with technology and a progressive teaching pedagogy of social emotional learning in order to change a child’s attitudes, values and beliefs and behavior. We are seeing that played out across the county with a rapid decline of allegiance to our country or God.
In 2013 I discovered a curriculum system within over 90% of our Texas schools called Cscope (Common Core). Cscope encompassed the progressive pedagogy mentioned. In addition Cscope was found to promote Islam, Communism and globalism. In 2013 a Senate hearing put a damper on the program itself but the transformation of our classrooms continued at a rapid pace. Though Magnolia ISD had not purchased the actual Cscope program they had implemented the same teaching philosophy. Read HERE.
April 1, 2012 the Magnolia ISD school board unanimously signed Texas Association of Schools Board’s (TASA) resolution promoting the progressive transformation. At the time Commissioner Charlie Riley sat on the board and signed up for this. Why? Honestly, Riley was working his way up the ladder to be Montgomery County Commissioner of PCT 2. If he had known what he was signing up for he would not have taken a stand against it making waves with the administration voting block of Magnolia ISD and jeopardize he win as Commissioner. Instead in reality our children today are guinea pigs in this experiment of changing the American society to a more global one with global values not American values.
Eleven reasons not to give Charlie Riley a second term.
Voted for Toll Roads
Voted in favor of homosexual and transgender adoptions.
Voted for Common Core education transformation
Voted to limit bow hunting rights for hunter.
Is under indictment.
Is currently under Grand Jury investigation for abuse his office.
Violates Ethics laws and uses School District to campaign.
Voted himself a pay raise making 160,000+
Violated nepotism laws creating a position for his wife Deanne in Constable Hills office.
He lies to protect himself.
Bonus Refuses to call out his tribe of supporters for their abusive actions and behavior.
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.
I don’t think I have personally witnessed such a huge money laundering scheme in my life. Texas homeowners are burdened with huge property value increases. We have school districts passing school bonds screaming they need more money to better educate our children. I assure you MONEY is not the problem MONEY MANAGEMENT is the problem.
This became quite clear when I and others discovered and researched the Texas online curriculum management system in 2013. Cscope was not purchased by school districts but rented by 90% of Texas School Districts yearly from their local Education Service Centers for thousands of dollars.
The Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott requested a State Audit of Cscope in 2014. The State Auditor’s Report showed there was over 6 Million unaccounted for. As of today no one person responsible for this has been indicted and the money laundering scheme continues.
After Cscope’s damaged reputation to recover some viability the name was changed to the Teks Resource System. They removed the horrible lessons and Assessments. What is remaining and rented for up to millions statewide is criminal.
What is remaining can accessed off of the TEA website for FREE. But that would be to easy and financial responsible. Do our Texas Representatives care?
Below you will see that Frenship ISD rented the Teks Resource System for the 2015/2016 school year for $46,290.00. Superintendents are funneling money into these Cesspools securing them a place to retire among other things.
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.
In light of the Cscope Audit released by the Texas Attorney General’s office 6/14, it is apparent that our Texas Education Service Centers are negligent with their our tax dollars. The report verified that there is 6.1 Million unaccounted for. Do our Texas legislators care? As for as I know no one has been held accountable and we keep shoveling money their direction with no oversight. This is ludicrous and needs to STOP!
We have 2 Cscope directors (Ervin Knezek and Wade Labay) and other Cscope employee’s that have left ESC X III (home of Cscope) and have created their own business called Lead4ward. They now are selling their services back to the ESC’s and school district for thousands on top of thousands of dollars. ESC XIII has even funneled money to this company owned by their former employees. Seems like a conflict of interest to me. You may wonder where this business is located. Well just like Cscope it has no official business office or address. The Secretary of State has the business address in a Residence in Austin, Texas. John Fessenden also a former ESC XIII employee has partnered with Ervin Knezek in forming Lead4ward.
Wade Labay was the Cscope director during the Cscope Senate hearings during the 83rd Legislature defending the product.
150 Million was given to Texas Education for professional development PD) through the Rider 42 Professional Development Grants. Millions were given to the ESC’s to train district teachers. Seems strange that Ervin Knezek and Fessenden would need to sell (PD) to the ESC’s and school districts after they were trained to implement PD through the ESC’s to districts. Texas taxpayers are being ripped off!!
Cscope is still being sold to school districts by the name TEKS RESOURCE SYSTEM. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
****After reading this I am sure the ESC directors and the other powers at be will be traveling to Austin to suck up to legislators, staying is plush hotels, eating at the nicest restaurants all on the back of the taxpayer’s dime. You can bet on it! Texas Education is a Cash Cow for the powers at be and the children and teachers suffer.
The Texas State Auditor, John Keel, investigated the ESCs and following is a part of the report. Notice that the ESCs admit to a hap hazard method of record keeping. Remember that the ESCs are suppose to be non-profit agencies.
“During the 2012-2013 school year, the 20 education service centers in Texas provided access to a curriculum management system known as CSCOPE to 70 percent of school districts in the state, according to information that the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (Collaborative) provided. Those education service centers reported they collected a total of $73.9 million in revenue from the sale of CSCOPE services to school districts, charter schools, and private schools from September 2005 through August 2013. For that same time period, the education service centers reported a total of $67.8 million in CSCOPE-related expenditures.”
“However, auditors were not able to verify the total amount that education service centers reported they paid for the development, installation, distribution, and marketing of CSCOPE because some of the education service centers did not separately track CSCOPE-related expenditure transactions. Some of them also did not separately track CSCOPE-related revenue transactions. As a result, 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.”
Q1
With just a very surface investigation of the ESC’s finances, $6.1 Million dollars cannot be accounted for. Yet, state and federal funding continues to pour into the 20 ESCs. How much of the money received by the 20 ESCs is being “misplaced?”
A1
The state auditor discovered that the 20 ESCs make no effort to have accurate financial records. No doubt the ESCs were surprised to have the state auditor investigate some of their books. For years the Sunset Reviews as well as the State Comptrollers have given the ESCs not only passing grades, but praised these state agencies for providing such economical services to Texas schools.
The fee of $73.9 million is considered inexpensive because, according to ESC 11 director, Clyde Steelman, school districts using the CSCOPE materials do not need to hire a district instructional director. CSCOPE has everything needed.
The State Senate Education Committee Hearing resulted in the ESCs being banned from selling CSCOPE lessons or even having the lessons in their possessions. The CSCOPE lessons were found to contain Un-American, pro-Islamic, and incorrect content. Director Steelman as well as all 20 ESC directors are still promoting the gutted CSCOPE materials now called the TRS Curriculum.
In 2011, the Marlin ISD district instruction director, Jamie Johnson and district superintendent, Marsha Riddlehuber, informed me that I could not see the 5th grade science or math CSCOPE lessons.I requested the lessons because I was tutoring kids after school.
I asked about textbooks. NOPE! Marlin ISD no longer used textbooks because the CSCOPE Instructional Materials were so comprehensive. Also, CSCOPE was an online product and was more current than textbooks. The CSCOPE lessons were copyrighted and not visible to anyone unless they signed a non-disclosure contract stating they would not reveal the content of the lessons.
The ESCs threatened Legal action against teachers if they told parents the content of the CSCOPE lessons.
Q2 How much evidence does it take for a thorough investigation of the Texas Education Centers to be required?
A2 Our Texas leaders have smiled as they falsify reported praise for the 20 ESCs. Yet, all the while, like a child, have their fingers crossed behind their backs. It is time to step up to the plate and take action. Lobbyist DO NOT represent our children or their parents. Get out of the Ivory Towers in Austin and spend some time in classrooms. Don’t arrive like the King or Queen of England, take clues from the TV program called, Undercover Boss. Apply for a teaching position at different school districts. Ask to visit classrooms. Get contact info and call the teachers later. Some will tell you the truth, others are too afraid of losing their jobs. There is little job security for teachers.
How long this will continue depends on our newly elected Governor and Lt. Governor. Will they follow through on their promises to improve Education? It also depends on who the Governor appoints as the Commissioner of Education.
Q3 How much longer are the leaders of Texas going to allow the ESCs to have any input or control over what is taught or how it is taught in our Texas classrooms?
A3 Like the previous Answer, the ball is in the court of the Governor and Lt. Governor.
Things for the Governor and Lt. Governor to think about:
1. The 20 ESCs created an illegal company claiming this company owned CSCOPE. The name of the company was TESCCC. Each of the 20 ESCs directors paid $200,000 each to be a member of the collaborative who owned TESCCC. Where did this money come from?
2. The trustees of TESCCC (ESC directors) filed with the state a change showing that if TESCCC was ever dissolved the Federal Government would receive any proceeds. Originally, the state of Texas was listed. Not only were the ESC directors creating what they thought was a company unconnected to the ESCs, but they wanted the company to not be associated with Texas.
Some of the present and past employees of the Texas Education Service Centers (ESCs) want the public, the Texas legislatures, the Lt. Governor, the Attorney General as well as the Governor to know the truth about the ineffective use of money poured into the ESCs each year.
The ESC employees providing answers include directors, specialists, consultants, and general staff representing many of the ESC regions. While remaining anonymous in this report, those providing answers assure me they will gladly speak directly to state legislatures, the Lt. Governor, the Attorney General as well as the Governor. The Commissioner of Education is not on this list because he as did his predecessor, Robert Scott, supports the actions of the 20 ESCs directly or indirectly by allowing these agencies to govern themselves.
Not everyone who works at the ESCs is involved in the misappropriation of funds or the creation and promotions of Anti-American instructional materials. Many ESC employees would like the Commissioner of Education and the state legislatures to cut off all funding to the ESCs. When the “chee$e” is removed, the rats will look for “chee$e elsewhere. The ESCs can then return to being Service Centers, instead of vendors with a monopoly over instructional materials.
When action is taken against the ESCs, school supervisors will no longer have any reason for not doing their jobs. They will no longer have the “common core” look-alike programs produced and sold by the ESCs promoted by TASA. WOW! I remember how wonderful Texas education was before TASA and long before TEKS and TAKS and STAAR. Texas education was modeled by other states. The textbooks that Texas selected were also selected by other states. Now few Texas schools have real textbooks and the education standards are at rock bottom. How can our Texas Commissioner of Education show his face when students can pass state math assessments by only answering less than 40% of the questions, yet many students fail?
Q1 & Q2 refer to CSCOPE, which the ESCs now refer to as TEKS Resource Service (TRS). The ESCs have been banned from selling CSCOPE lessons.
Q1
What was the objective of the CSCOPE conventions (now called the TRS conventions)?
A1
The ESC staffers who actually present CSCOPE workshops that have been describe them as cheer-leading sessions to build support for CSCOPE or provide general overviews that use ppts that are within the CSCOPE site.
The ESC staffers who present CSCOPE workshops generally are not invited to the CSCOPE conventions. Instead, mostly the ESCs send about a dozen ESC consultants who do no CSCOPE support work with schools using CSCOPE. These are Special Education and other specialists that never work with districts in regard to CSCOPE. We did ask why they were going and got no answer.
FYI: There is a lot of unnecessary money spent sending ESC specialists to conventions and workshops that have nothing to do with the area they work with. No one confirms that money spend on travel is necessary. No one confirms that training, even in other states, is ever used to train educators.
ESC staffers are basically kept in the dark, but are supposed to do CSCOPE workshops as well as our regular ESC workshops. No compensation is given for the extra work. As previously stated, many who attend the CSCOPE conferences do not present CSCOPE training to educators.
Q2
When the ESCs were banned from selling CSCOPE lessons, were the ESC staffers aware that the CSCOPE lessons were to be given to school districts? Also, were staffers aware that the gutted CSCOPE instruction material would continue to be sold to Texas schools?
Q2
We get few to no answers when we ask about CSCOPE. This program was brought in and we were told that it would be used. No questions asked. I can tell you that what we know about CSCOPE in-house is different from the verbiage given to the public. We get little to no clarification about what is going on —basically we know to just keep our mouths shut and don’t ask questions.
Q3
Project Share– Is this something established by TEA?
FYI: Project Share is a website where Texas teachers should be able to find free instructional materials for all grades and subjects. The first materials mandated by the 81st legislature in the Rider 42 grant to be posted on the Project Share website were TEKS transition materials. These were professional development materials that compared the old TEKS for TAKS with the new revised TEKS for STAAR. Academies or teacher professional TEKS training were to be given free and the training materials were to be posted in the Project Share website. $150 MILLION dollars was given to develop materials for the Rider 42 grant math, science, ELAR, and social studies academies as well as create the Project Share website. To this day, 2/18/2015, there are Texas teachers and Texas school superintendents who are not aware that Project Share exists. Few Texas teachers attended or even knew about the Rider 42 PD academies.
Ervin Knezek was an ESC employee when CSCOPE was developed as well as when the Rider 42 grant of $150 MILLION dollars was being spent developing the Rider 42 academies and “Project Share.” Knezek resigned from ESC 13 in June, 2010 and established the company Lead4Ward in Washington, State in June, 2010. What was suppose to be part of CSCOPE and wasn’t is on Knezek’s Lead4Ward website. What was suppose to posted on the Project Share website can be found on Knezek’s Lead4Ward website.
A3
Yes, TEA rolled Project Share out and every school district is supposed to have access.
But there are levels of access to the Project Share website. ESC staffers used Project Share like a linked-in account to share ideas or materials. This was the original idea for Project Share. Not only were the Rider 42 academy PD materials to be available, but teachers were to be able to publish materials that they found successful. Also, teachers were suppose to be able to have accounts where they could share ideas with other educators.
Interestingly, some of the ESC staffers have now been blocked to our share boxes. We had access to these share boxes last year, but now there is a public outcry about the CSCOPE lessons, a lot of information is no longer available. We are not sure why except that there is such paranoia in all the ESCs. If what is being told to the public is true about the CSCOPE lessons, why has the ESC leadership become so secretive about files that were freely accessible last year? What was open is not very hush hush and private. The directors of the ESCs seem to be concerned about information shared on the Project Share website. They must be trying to keep up with the answers they are giving about CSCOPE since they give different answers depending on who asks the question.
Overall, most consider Project Share, like the Rider 42 PD academies expensive projects that have been very ineffective. This is due to the ESCs not developing the website and TEA not following up to see that they do. Like all grant money, once the money is gone regardless if the project is not complete, the ESCs are on to doing what ever brings in more money.
The “jig” will be over if the ESCs are ever thoroughly investigated by someone who doesn’t benefit in some way from the actions of the ESCs.
Q4
Did State Education Commissioner Robert Scott initiate the idea for Project Share?
A4
The plans for Project Share apparently have been bubbling for a while. Scott was so focused on internal issues that we are not sure he was very aware of Project Share, sad to say.
Q5
The Rider 42 grant provided the initial money for Project Share, thus the ESCs were to develop the content posted on this website. Project Share is affiliated with Epsilen, which is a Common Core company. Why is TEA and the ESCs using a Common Core Company when Texas is forbidden to implement Common Core? Has everyone just turned a blind eye to what grant money is used for?
A5
We totally agree with this– No one asks or even watches what the ESCs do. As to Common Core, TASA promotes Common Core and TASA and the ESCs work together. In fact, wha ever the ESCs sell, Texas school superintendents generally buy it because TASA promotes what the ESCs sell. TASA is after all the Texas Association of School Administrators.
Comment from Janice
Think About This!
1. The ESCs provide superintendent certification training as well as training required for School Board Members. Thus, school superintendents and school board members are indoctrinated with constructists (common core progressive) education philosophy used in creating the CSCOPE instructional materials as well as the “Vision Learning” materials sold by TASA. Of course Common Core education philosophy is used in Texas Schools, but it has different titles, such as CSCOPE a.k.a. TRS Instructional Material, and Vision Learning.
2. Texas School Superintendents and School Board Members use district school taxes to pay for their personal membership fees into private organizations (TASA/TASB) who lobby for different education bills that benefit the primary objective of TASA/TASB, which is to TRANSFORM TEXAS EDUCATION.
Yes, our Texas legislatures are swayed by TASA lobbyists as well as the Microsoft lobbyist Thomas Ratliff (illegal member of the State Board of Education) to pass bills that promote Transforming Texas Education so that it is comparable to common core.
This is part I of a series of Questions from me and Answers from ESC # 1-20 staff past and present. The following will be addressed in following parts of this series on the “Unpacking of the ESCs.”
1. In Nov. 2011, Marlin school superintendent Marsha Riddlehuber and the district instructional director, Jamie Johnson would not allow me to view the content of the CSCOPE lessons used in Marlin ISD. Becca Bell the CSCOPE director also refused me access to the content of the CSCOPE lessons. Why? What were they hiding?
2. During the time that CSCOPE lessons were being sold to Texas public schools, the state comptroller, , allowed the ESCs to write their own evaluation. This is obvious since the wording of the comptrollers evaluations were word-for-word the same as publicity written by the ESCs to promote the CSCOPE materials. Did the comptroller ever ask anyone about the CSCOPE product that was not benefiting in some way?
These questions and many more will be coming soon.
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.
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.
Reported is, former Huntsville ISD superintendent Steve Johnson had retired leaving the school district looking for a new superintendent. If the truth be known, Mr. Johnson has secured a position at Education Service Center VI but not without first finalizing and approving thousands of dollars worth of contracts between Huntville ISD and ESC VI. Seriously? Is there not something wrong with this picture.
Mr. Johnson began his new “retirement” on 9/1/14 with a salary of $76, 814. If only all those who retired could be so lucky. The scratch my back and I will scratch yours is rampant throughout the Texas Education system. Huntsville ISD also has a school board member Sam Moak whose wife Kathy Moak works for ESC VI on the services provided to Huntsville ISD. I have yet to find where Mr. Moak has recused himself from voting on the contracts.
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.
Texas education is for from being autonomous. Federal agencies have their hand in every aspect of the Texas education system and parents and teachers are really starting to realize the reform taking place. I don’t see a need for the Texas Education Agency any longer.
Education is the biggest expenditure in the state and they keep screaming for more money but we all know it is not for the classroom. The corruption taking place is astronomical and the students are the ones that suffer.
The Committee of Economic Development partnered with the Texas Association of School Administrators and wrote the following policy brief. https://www.ced.org/pdf/Digital_Learning_Issue_Brief_Final.pdf which outlines the radical reforms taking place across the country with the implementation of common core even in Texas (though they don’t call it that here). It is not surprising that the research brief is funded by no other than the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
An assembly line approach to education is being implemented and equality, social emotional learning and the building of a global society is what our education system is becoming about. The destruction of America and it’s values will be the unfortunate result.
Texas Education Service Center 13 in Austin presently is looking for someone to fill their Gestapo position. It has to be a certified teacher of at least 5 years teaching experience and you can go fill this postition at a minimum salary of approximatley $50, 000. This individual also would benefit by having some knowledge of the Cscope system. Why? Cscope is about a Marxist philosophy of teaching based on the collective.
Below are Notes from the document above making reference to info and individuals involved in this process.
Karla Burkholder
Here is another document put out by Texas Association of School Administrators.
Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) is funded with our tax dollars through our local school districts millions yearly. Their office is 2 blocks away from the state capitol and when the legislative session opens they spend their time lobbying our legislators for bills that will profit their agenda.
TASA has created a transformation program called Creating a New Vision, a plan to transform and reform our Texas School districts.
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.
Very few things are as repulsive to me than a superintendent to accuse parents of lying when it comes to bringing to light districts mistreatment of their children. Many things have taken place within the Alpine ISD school district. One parent stated to me personally “There is a huge list of parents who have much much much more serious problems with the school. Such as children left on the side of the highway alone. Four year old and an eight year old!!!“.
This past week a PreK down syndrome child was left in his urine until his socks were socked. The child wears pullups and is not able to speak yet. Superintendent Steve White says the school district is falsely accused. In other words he is stating the parent is LYING. Seriously? How unprofessional.
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.
Texas Teachers have had enough of the bureaucracy “crap” in their schools but unfortunately need a job and live in fear of losing it if they speak up. Many have gone to social media to vent under a pseudo name. Below are a few comments from Texas teachers who are concerned with the Texas Eduction Transformation. Who is responsible for this? The whole Texas Education Bureaucracy, Texas Education Agency, Schools, School Boards, Texas Education Service Centers, Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA), Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), Texas Higher Education Board, Texas Legislators, SBOE, etc… etc… etc…It is all about money and ideology today not students and what is best for them.
Texas School Administrators and School Board are trained and are experienced in intimidating questioning parents and citizens. DON’T STOP ASKING QUESTIONS…ASK THEM CAN I SEE WHAT YOU ARE TEACHING MY CHILD AND DO NOT BACK DOWN.
They are data mining any/all info on you child and your family. This has to stop!
Despite the controversy and public outrage surrounding Cscope, the Texas Education Service Centers (ESC) continue to lease Cscope to many Texas School districts. Due to Cscope getting a bad name they have changed the name to Teks Resourse System. What I want you to understand Cscope is leased to school districts yearly costing taxpayers thousands. From my perspective it keeps a job opening available for superintendents in the future, kind of like scratch my back and I will scratch yours.
Cscope is a Marxist curriculum management system bent on having all school district across the sate on the same page daily. It eliminates the creativity a teacher can bring to a class. Science Author Janice VanCleave asked the Cscope director Becca Bell from Region XII “What if I wanted to bring in a butterfly cocoon in teaching metamorphosis or bring in the fall leaves that are changing colors, with Cscope I am not allowed to do that, correct? ” Becca Bell confirmed that those would not be allowed to be taught in the classroom unless the Cscope Scope and Sequence called for it at that time but may be taken to another grade level that may be learning about that subject. Seriously? Many good experienced veteran teachers have left the profession due to the control Cscope has.
Cscope was and has not been a SBOE reviewed curriculum. Lessons were part of the leased product until is was found it was riddled with controversial material. Though they have removed the lessons from the password protected website we know that the ESC’s called from teachers to download the lessons before they were removed and ESC’s have sold USB storage devices with the lessons on them. To give you an idea of the mindset of those responsible for implementing this in our Texas Schools you can view some of the lessons HERE.
Parents and taxpayers need to wake up as to what your school district is purchasing and using to teach your children. A radical leftest turn has taken place with the funding from the federal government.
Dr. Brent Hawkins was the assistant directors from ESC VI in Huntsville. In a conversation with Dr. Hawkins regarding Cscope he told me I would not tear apart something they had implemented. Well 2 years later Cscope has become a huge controversy and Dr. Brent Hawkins has left the ESC to become superintendent of Livingston ISD. On the districts superintendent page I was surprised that Mr. Hawkins in going to phase out the product he was 100% supportive of. Why a change of heart? Don’t be fooled though I am sure Livingston ISD will write another curriculum management system bent on the same progressive/Marxist philosophy as Cscope.