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$100,000 Spent by Ector County ISD to Advertise Itself

Apr 07

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

[4.4.13 — The Ector County ISD administrators told the teachers that the school district did not have enough money to fund the very inexpensive handwriting books (Zaner-Bloser) that are needed to help teachers to teach cursive writing in Grade 3 as required by the Texas curriculum standards (TEKS).

Please remember that Ector Co. ISD announced on 8.1.12 that they were spending $1.7 Million on CSCOPE –http://www.oaoa.com/news/education/ecisd/article_98bbdf11-f50c-5370-9773-b39a999191f4.html?mode=jqm .

Yet Ector Co. ISD has the money to fund an advertising campaign with “friends” at a local advertising agency. The new advertising slogan is “Educate. Connect. Inspire. Succeed. Dream.” Perhaps if Ector Co. ISD actually did what its slogan claims, the taxpayers would not be so upset. However, the most recently released STAAR/End-of-Course test results from last year indicate that Ector Co. ISD’s students fell far below the state average. Something is wrong with this picture! – Donna Garner]

4.4.13 – Odessa/Midland newspaper – oaoa.com

$100,000 ECISD news campaign begins

An electronic ad for ECISD displays on a billboard at Dixie Avenue and Eighth Street.

Posted: Thursday, April 4, 2013 8:27 am

BY LINDSAY WEAVER, lweaver@oaoa.com

http://www.oaoa.com/news/education/ecisd/article_3fb0fd64-9ca5-11e2-a13a-001a4bcf6878.html

How will the community know that its public school district is finding success in its classrooms, helping students realize the college dream, inspiring excellence and connecting families and teachers?

The answer for Ector County ISD is to do it with a positive advertising campaign costing the district $100,000, which was approved by a 7-0 board vote.

However, the steep price tag and the push to feed the community only positive information is not sitting well with some.

TV commercials, magazine ads, newspaper ads, two billboards and a secondary informational website created by Hunt Advertising and Consulting Inc. have been out since Monday. Board members and ECISD staff say it’s a good move for ECISD because other Permian Basin mainstays such as Odessa College, the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and Odessa’s two hospitals utilize professionals to put out their message via media. The decision had been a long time coming, several trustees said.

“The multimedia approach, we as a school district have never done before,” Director of Communications Mike Adkins said.

The Hunt Advertising team gathered for a meeting at its office with Adkins to discuss the project in person about each facet. Months ago, the team brainstormed and came up with using ECISD as an acronym for“Educate. Connect. Inspire. Succeed. Dream.” The phrasing and color theme carries throughout the new website www.ecisd.info, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the advertisements.

“We hope it will be in everybody’s minds,” Jed Duesler, Hunt’s social media consultant, said.

When asked how many visitors the new website received on its first day, the team declined to divulge. Webmaster Michael Horton said the web traffic did exceed expectations.

Social media is rolled into the contract as well, though Adkins is still responsible for keeping those pages updated and responsive to readers. They’re adding a YouTube channel where media can check in and use video footage produced by the communications department or of school board meetings if needed, Duesler said.

Mary Hunt, president of the firm, said she invited the OA to her office to offer “their side,” adding that the $100,000 contract did not come from the $129.75 million voter-approved bond fund as has been suggested by some, she said. However, everything spent by ECISD hails from tax-supported money, which has ruffled the feathers of some Odessa watchdogs.

“When and what mechanism compels the school district to tell us the ugly truths about where we are at ECISD? Everybody is for the good news and happy news … but sometimes we have to deal with the present,” Jason Moore said.

Moore is a local radio show personality and parent of ECISD students. His afternoon radio show is 5 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday on 1070 a.m.

Moore questioned why a second website was needed when the information on the new site can be found on the old ECISD site.

“It’s getting disgusting when the alarm bells go off that the apocalyptic event of cutting something happens … then they always come up with money to frivolously waste on a PR site,” he said. “That’s the nature. They know they’re the blob of government that goes on in perpetuity, and wears the citizenry down.”

Former school board member Doyle Woodall is challenging incumbent Tom Pace in Place 4. Woodall said he would have never voted for the contract.

“If a school district has full disclosure, if everything is transparent, if all of your policy and board decisions are in the best interest of teachers and children, you don’t have to do any advertising,” he said.

“It’s definitely a waste of money. That’s $100,000 we could have bought school supplies and equipment,” Woodall said.

Candidate Teri Wheat Ervin, a lifetime educator who is facing Fay Batch for Place 2, said had she been on the board, she might have “looked harder on how we can reach out to the public than to spend $100,000 on advertisement,” she said. Ervin suggested less costly ways like utilizing the current website or getting children involved perhaps via a newsletter.

The Hunt Advertising bid was the only one submitted for the job that was posted last year and voted on by the board in January with no dissenting voice from school board members.

In 2006, ECISD’s strategic plan was finalized that included one on communication that says the district should recognize those who have carried out the message of the district, training for ECISD leaders, using market research data to determine expectations, utilizing public service announcements, holding a monthly press conference and organizing town hall meetings as appropriate.

ECISD’s five TV commercials feature: Sheila Wilson, a Milam Elementary School teacher; Mike Hinojos, parent; Gerardo Ramirez, New Tech facilitator; Renee Earls of the Education Foundation; and Jorrion Wilson, Permian senior. Each person volunteered to star in the commercials and each takes on one of the keywords in the ECISD acronym.

The bottom line, Adkins said, is this is an opportunity to show off the positives of the district.

“We’re emphasizing the good work, the accomplishments taking place,” he said.

Tom Pace, who is seeking re-election, said the approval of the contract came after settling on a strategic plan that gathered the input of employees, parents and others nearly five years ago. Part of the plan is to better communicate with the community on the positives at ECISD, along with providing ways to get information to households. The ad campaign is completing that service, he said, though he hadn’t had the chance to look at the website yet.

Trustee Luis Galvan said he’s tired of seeing “bad news” on the news and that ECISD “wants to show the good news.”

In response to the question of why ECISD needs to advertise when there’s no competition in town, Galvan said that there is competition with the charter schools (Compass Academy, Richard Milburn Academy and Harmony) and people should know “we’re providing an excellent education.”

[Message to Ector Co. ISD constituents: Harmony has been usurped by Obama’s takeover of the public schools through Common Core Standards. Because Harmony applied and received the RTTT-D grant, Harmony must now teach its students the social justice agenda of the Common Core Standards. This is indoctrination – Donna Garner]

The campaign is not a recruiting tool, Adkins said.

Galvan said the commercials are a great idea because children might see them on TV and it can start a conversation about school.

“It’s a great thing. I have to advertise my business to get attention, so why can’t we boast about the good things happening here?” he said after an ECISD workshop Tuesday.

[To state the obvious: “Galvan does not use public tax dollars to advertise his business. Ector Co. ISD does. If Galvan does not run a fiscally responsible private business, he goes belly up. – Donna Garner]

Under the “educate” page on www.ecisd.info, the results for Permian and Odessa High’s TAKS science scores are listed with this tagline: “With consistent, structured curriculum, there has been an 11 point increase in math and science test scores. All classrooms are teaching the same thing so students don’t miss anything.”

When asked why some positive stats are being used over others, Adkins said since CSCOPE was implemented in science and math first the district believes the large gains on those tests are linked. And anytime test scores come out, they’re put on the main ECISD website, sent in a press release and covered in the media repeatedly, he said.

“This is an image campaign,” Adkins said. He added that the .info site is another avenue for the community and because the current .org site has so much information with every department of ECISD’s 27 school system. It’s the largest employer in Odessa with more than 3,400 employees.

He said the current site can prove difficult to navigate because of the sheer information amount and template they’re bound to use for now, Adkins said.

The .info site is intended to be “an information portal that hits on the most asked questions,” Adkins said. The Communications Department — of Adkins and assistant Gabriella Granado — will eventually have to maintain that site once the contract expires Aug. 31, unless it’s renewed.

“It’s providing a clearer view of what New Tech Odessa is all about, that it’s not a career and technical center, it’s all about 21st century learning,” Interim Superintendent H.T. Sanchez said. He said the parent perspective and teacher perspectives in the ads are more than showing off accolades for ECISD but an opportunity to get involved to be a valued partner in Odessa.

WHERE IS THE MONEY BEING SPENT?

It took several email and phone calls to get the specific breakdown of where the money was spent. During questioning on the breakdown Adkins interjected that the scrutiny given to ECISD on this issue shows the bias of the OA against ECISD, over say UTPB or OC, who Adkins guessed spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars” with the OA in advertising.

Here’s how Hunt Advertising figured the $100,000 budget:

$22,185: Television ads, on KMID, KOSA, KWES, KPEJ, 229 paid spots and 228 donated matching PSAs.
$18,000: Web development.
$15,000: Broadcast production.
$10,000: Creative concept.
$10,000: Print and billboard production.
$8,216: Odessa American ads, eight ads at the nonprofit rate.
$7,725: Billboard ads (Eighth Street and Dixie Boulevard; West County Road and University Avenue).
$5,000: Social media development.
$3,690: Magazine ads in “An Apple A Day,” a free health publication with a circulation of 3,000 (three ads paid, two ads donated) and “The Odessan,” a paid magazine (two editions of May/June and July/August).

“An Apple A Day” lists Mary Hunt as the publisher and her name is listed under “sales” on page 3 of the April issue that’s distributed in local doctor’s offices and stores such as Walgreens.

The OA requested how much of ECISD’s money was used to publish the ads — produced by Hunt Advertising — in Hunt’s magazine, but did not receive the information as of press time.

Hunt said “An Apple A Day” is a “good publication whether I published it or not” and said she would have recommended placing ads in it nonetheless.

To Woodall, he said it’s a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

“When you’re paying for two superintendents and now you have someone paying themselves to pay for something you’ve hired them to do already. … You can call a skunk a pussy cat, but it still stinks,” he said.

Donna Garner

Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

Tags: CORRUPTION, Cscope, DOLLARS, ector county isd, Education, JASON MOORE, Texas

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LET’S TALK CSCOPE… TX MARXIST CURRICULUM

Apr 05

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

LET’S TALK CSCOPE

CSCOPE is the controversial online curriculum currently used by about 875 school districts in this state. It’s the one that has taught Allah is GOD, Christianity is a cult, and that dumping British Tea was a terrorist act. Students have even designed a flag for a new Socialist /Communist Country. Wow ! Everyone is doing CSCOPE. It must be terrific. Has anyone heard of any field testing that might have been done? Does anyone know anything about the the writers and consultants hired to put this together? Is anyone aware that students have been asked to read material from Socialist Robert Owen who promoted Agenda 21 where people no longer own private property but all things are granted to them through a kind Socialist Government? An article in the Brownwood Bulletin, written by a BISD staff member, defended CSCOPE Sunday, March 10, 2013, but failed to mention controversial material in the program.
CSCOPE curriculum was developed by leaders and staff of the twenty Texas Educational Service Centers using contract writers, outside curriculum consultants and technology. It is a comprehensive K-12 program, providing an early foundation, then adds layer after layer of information as the student progresses through the program. The indoctrination begins when the child enters Kindergarten.
The online curriculum system is designed to develop COMMON scope and sequential learning across the District, and most of the State. The material covers language arts, math, science and social studies. These are the four core subjects that make up Texas education standards. Throughout these core areas, CSCOPE authors have chosen words and ideas which indoctrinate rather than educate students.
Socialist doctrine is presented as an ideal state for society through writing and presentation. The material also contains factual errors, grammar/usage mistakes, and inappropriate content. Lessons are taught and there is built in frequent assessment to determine mastery of the information.
CSCOPE content has not been reviewed, monitored or controlled by the Texas State Board of Education. Classified as supplementary materials, that oversight was avoided. It is based on the premise that education should be more about how students feel about things, rather than facts. It becomes important to promote positive feelings for what they want society to be, rather than what society actually is. Thus the ongoing lessons about Socialism, the down play of the Christian religion, and the promotion of Islam. This confluence of various writers who have chosen to push their political and personal ideology has created an end result that is neither trustworthy or to be respected.
It is important to note that Region 4 Service Center Director, Dr. William McKinney, serves on the Board of Directors for Fetullah Gulen’s International Science Fair Organization. Perhaps that is why Islam has been given such extensive positive coverage in CSCOPE, and Christianity given such a short mention with negative connotation. There are about fifty Gulen Charter Schools in Texas where taxpayer funded school busses stay late, and students participate in after school religious Islam education. They are then driven home in taxpayer funded vehicles.
Although CSCOPE was paid for by taxpayers, CSCOPE leaders chose to illegally form a Private Corporation to copyright curriculum material. It is rented to the Districts each year. Parents have not been allowed to view the lessons, and teachers have had to sign non-disclosure statements.
Parents and educators brought their concerns about CSCOPE to the Texas Legislature and a Senate Hearing was held in January, 2013. There much of the controversy over the material became public. Texas Service Center leaders became testy and defiant during the hearings, and provided conflicting information to the Senate Committee. CSCOPE staff had consistently denied the existence of controversial material in the curriculum, but admitted the existence during the Senate hearings. They defended the non disclosure to parents and public stating public viewing would infringe on the copyright. The Committee recommended sharing all information, while test materials would be kept private.
Changes to allow more public and parent material review were promised. This was touched on by a BISD representative in an article published in the Brownwood Bulletin March 10, 2013. Despite the January hearing, there remain many unanswered questions about the material and limited access for parents and interested taxpayers to see what they have bought. We must remember at a 2012 training session, the following document was handed out:
“To support implementation of this detailed curriculum, districts must have processes and people in place to insure that there are sustained monitoring of the curriculum and that individual teachers do not have the option to disregard or replace assigned content.”
CSCOPE was developed, in my opinion, by Common Core advocates who were unable to get the Common Core standards pushed by Washington established in Texas through the legislative process. Consequently, CSCOPE was born. Common Core Standards are those authored by the Federal Government which define what students should learn and form the basis for national tests. The Feds used money to encourage adoption of Common Core Standards, and they are now in use in 45 states. They were adopted by those who believe mental sugar pills will make all students college ready with little thought or consideration of the dangers inherent in the acceptance and use. Common Core is a transparent attempt by the Obama Administration to nationalize public education and eventually control curriculum content with little parental oversight.
That appears to be the direction CSCOPE is going with little thought to what it will do to education in Texas. I believe the project was begun with good intentions, but went awry quickly as writers and consultants injected radical ideology.
The Texas Association of School Administrators has been lobbying vigorously for federal “Race to the Top” funds, which are contingent on the acceptance of Common Core. They will soon use state dollars to attend a conference in California where radical activist and documented Bill-Ayers associate Linda Darling-Hammond will speak. According to some, Mrs. Darling-Hammond is actually writing C-Scope material, though she is listed as a professional development consultant in CSCOPE project materials.
As an aside, perhaps many of you do not know about Obama friend Bill Ayers. He is a committed Communists/Socialist terrorist who bombed the Capitol, the Pentagon, and was instrumental in the murders of federals officers in the early 70’s. His conviction was overthrown, and he has been free all these years to spread his radical ideology as an education professor at the University of Illinois. Most recently he organized and taught in the “Occupy” movement and he remains active and committed in to destroy the free market system of the United States and bring about Socialism. He is a colleague and dear friend of Linda Darling-Hammond, whom he endorsed for US Secretary of Education prior to Arne Duncan’s appointment.
District leaders are using textbook funds rent CSCOPE each year at a cost of approximately $7.00 to $10.00 per student. The program has never been evaluated except by the users . It should be.
Many Texas Association of School Administrators members don’t know a whole lot about education. They do know a lot about perks if they follow TASA leaders. CSCOPE is a group think, collective product, adopted by districts with no research or study. It is the prelude to Common Core which your school Administrators will be learning about from the Radical Activists. . Administrators want it because of Federal money it will bring to their District., It is possible CSCOPE could, with some modification be approved by the US Dept of Education as equal to COMMON CORE and generate federal funds for the districts. In fact, there is a section in CSCOPE Corporation documents which state the federal government can take over the curriculum if Texas Education Service Center CSCOPE Corp. dissolves. Aha! Never mind this product is toxic. Remember, as soon as someone tells you something will save education; hide your children and your back pocket.
Information provided by BISD about CSCOPE indicates that all 8 principals, four teachers from each campus and three central office staff will attend the state CSCOPE conference in the summer of 2013. Conference attendees will then return and set up district staff development and learning communities to train all staff.
Parent access will probably be on demand, and they may see only what the leaders show them, rather than having blanket access.
Brownwood Independent School District should establish a parent/community review committee made up of interested parents, retired teachers trained in the subject matter, or perhaps subject matter specialists from a neighboring University. CSCOPE material should be reviewed by this committee before students are given access to the material. If that is not possible the material should be removed from classrooms, and the $100,000 or so the district spends then spent on quality supplementary materials.
Is this what is to become of Public Education? School Choice may now be almost the only option for parents who insist on quality education. When school choice is available education dollars stay with the student, rather than the district. Top charter schools that promote factual information and pride in our heritage as Americans can and should be developed. The Muslims are doing their thing in Charter Schools all over Texas. Texas families who want quality programs for their children can do it too.
There is danger ahead. Texas School Superintendents may hand Texas Public Schools over to the Federal Government without another thought, in exchange for dollars. This cannot happen .

Mrs. Mickey Mathis (RetiredSchool Administrator and School Psychologist)

Tags: communism, Cscope, Education, MICKEY MATHIS, PUBLIC EDUCATION, TESCCC, Texas, WRECK

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CSCOPE TEACHES KIDS TO LIE TO PARENTS

Apr 04

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

Worst CSCOPE Lesson

By Janice of TXCSCOPE REVIEW.

The following is a section of a CSCOPE lessons that teaches kids how to use propaganda. The content of the roll playing script for the teachers is puts the teacher on the students side. The bad guys are parents as well as the principal and even the state board of education. Students have just finished a very unstructured activity in which students move around the room and even outdoors. Now they are back in class and news of how the class is to be restructured because of parent complaints. Be sure to get the picture that kids have been learning how our politicians mislead, lie, and stretch the truth with what is called political propaganda.

Now that the scene has been set, it is time to drop the bomb that they will have to use textbooks from now own because of parent complaints. This is what is called the Delphi Method, which is a method of presenting a situation in such a way that you control the response of the group.

What is most disturbing is that CSCOPE is using manipulating the thoughts of minors to support their own anti-book program. To make it more real to the kids, they throw in examples, such as manipulating parents when they want to go somewhere. Manipulating parents when they have a bad report card grade.

BOOTS ON THE GROUND ACTION STEP

Parents, no matter what I do. No matter how many senate education committee meetings and TV and radio announcements about CSCOPE, none of this is going to save your child. If you want something done immediately so your child has a chance of being educated instead of being indoctrinated, you have to stand up and take action.

1. Read each of the Boots on the Ground Action Steps.

2. Make an appointment to speak with your superintendent. Go in a small group so that
you have witnesses of what is said. Record the meeting if possible. Many phones have this capability and it works well.

3. Ask the superintendent to show you the CSCOPE Propaganda lessons being taught in high school. This is a US Government lesson, Unit Lesson ?.

4. This US Government lesson pits students against Parent and Authority.
When you send your children to public school, they enter a training camp. They are learning about propaganda techniques. Techniques to use against authority.

– See more at: http://www.standupfightback.us/cscope-teaches-kids-to-lie-to-parents/#sthash.NXQ0bg33.ireAu6rh.dpuf

Tags: Cscope, Education, JANICE VAN CLEAVE, LYING, parents, STUDENTS, TESCCC, TXCSCOPEREVIEW

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“F” For CSCOPE

Apr 04

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

Published in the Chandler & Brownsboro Statesman

“F” For CSCOPE

CSCOPE earns an “F”. Test results are in, a survey of the 2011-2012 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness/End-of- Course (STAAR/EOC) scores from over 950 Texas Independent School Districts show that CSCOPE students have 36% HIGHER UNSATISFACTORY RATINGS than do Non-CSCOPE students. CSCOPE is sold through the Texas Education Agency’s Service Centers as a “GUARANTEED & VIABLE CURRICULUM”. The Administrators of CSCOPE schools have some explaining to do to their parents, their tax payers and their School Board.

CSCOPE, the controversial Texas school curriculum in over 70% of Texas school districts, was never field tested, reviewed or approved by the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE). Perhaps this explains the FAILING GRADE by CSCOPE and why parents and tax payers are yelling at school administrators – OR SHOULD BE!

This CSCOPE Study was compiled by the 9th Grade Business Class, Blanket ISD, Blanket, Texas. E.W. Burt, Business/ Marketing teacher, being creative, was asked by his class what CSCOPE is and if it works. I told them, “Let’s find out if schools that use CSCOPE score better or worse compared to schools that do not use it.” Here is what we found:

Percent of test takers scoring unacceptable on STAAR/EOC tests – ALGEBRA I: CSCOPE/20.35% vs. Non-CSCOPE/13.74% (48% more CSCOPE students scored unsatisfactory than Non-CSCOPE): BIOLOGY 1: CSCOPE/14.86% vs. Non-CSCOPE/10.50% (42% more CSCOPE students scored unsatisfactory than Non-CSCOPE); ENGLISH WRITING I: CSCOPE/46.30% vs. Non- CSCOPE/39.48% (19.57% more CSCOPE students scored unsatisfactory than Non- CSCOPE); GEOGRAPHY: CSCOPE/23.30% vs. Non-CSCOPE 17.78% (37.06% more CSCOPE students scored unsatisfactory than Non-CSCOPE): AVERAGE 36.67% higher unsatisfactory scores among CSCOPE students on all tests. (Data used is publically available.)

OPT OUT: What can a parent do to ensure their children are not exposed to this failing curriculum, the socialistic teachings, ideology/ indoctrination and misaligned, inaccurate and inappropriate content?

According to the TEXAS EDUCATION CODE: Texas Statutes – Section 26.010: EXEMPTION FROM INSTRUCTION – – “A parent is entitled to remove the parent’s child temporarily from a class or other school activity that conflicts with the parent’s religious or moral beliefs if the parent presents or delivers to the teacher of the parent’s child a written statement authorizing the removal of the child from the class or other school activity.”

PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN, REQUEST THAT YOUR CHILD BE REMOVED FROM ALL CSCOPE CURRICULUM.

Bill Hussey,
Llano, Texas

Tags: Bill Hussey, Chandler & Brownsboro Statesman, Cscope, eoc, F-, starr, Texas

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CSCOPE & COW FARTS

Apr 03

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

There seems to be nothing new under the sun with the TEXAS MARXIST CURRICULUM, CSCOPE and their indoctrination of our Texas School Children. Every rock turned over leads to more deception and indoctrination aimed at our children.

I found this CSCOPE powerpoint outrageous on pollution.

If your in the cork industry you may be able to get a federal grant from the environmental agency and turn a profit by plugging up the behinds of our livestock. You see according to CSCOPE our students are taught methane gas produced from livestock flatulence contributes to our pollution! Seriously? Part of me wants to roll over with laughter but when it comes to the indoctrination that our children and what kind of America my children and grandchildren will have in the future I get ANGRY! Those responsible will have to answer for this. Sad their interest seek deep pockets and not the interest of our children.

It appears that I have become unpaid CSCOPE (TESCCC) employee. Every time I reveal their indoctrination they correct or remove it. Why? Would it be that they have used taxpayers money to fund the indoctrination of our children and don’t want to be found out or could it be they have yet to disclose where all the BIG MONEY has gone?

After blogging the above content TESCCC removed the powerpoint thought the instruction for using it in the lesson is still in there as you can see below.

Tags: CHILDREN, COW FARTS, Cscope, mARXIST, Methane, Texas

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TEXAS SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS MORE CONCERNED WITH CONTROL THAN CHILDREN!

Apr 02

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

“CSCOPE HEARING: Two Sides of the Coin”

by Donna Garner

4.2.13

*I took notes of this meeting as fast as I could, and I trust that the information presented is accurate.

Same story, second verse — Back on Jan. 31, 2013, the Texas Senate Education Committee held a public hearing on CSCOPE. Today, April 2, 2013, another public hearing on CSCOPE was held by the same Sen. Education Committee; but this time the hearing was tied to a piece of legislation — SB 1406.

SB 1406 seeks to give the elected members of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) oversight and direction over CSCOPE.

TWO SIDES OF THE COIN

Basically two groups of people testified today. One group was made up of the school administrators and school boards who think they cannot live without CSCOPE. They claim CSCOPE is a much-needed management tool and that their districts cannot possibly afford the expense of writing their own curriculum. Hence, CSCOPE is the answer to all their problems! Never mind that qualified teachers have always been able to write their own excellent lesson plans for eons.

The other group was made up of the parents and the citizens of Texas who are concerned with the many very troubling aspects of CSCOPE and who either want the Texas State Board of Education to be given oversight and direction over CSCOPE or else want to put CSCOPE completely out of business.

The first group seemed more concerned about CSCOPE giving them a system to micromanage classroom teachers while the latter group talked about their concerns over what their children and other Texas children are actually learning in the CSCOPE lessons.

In other words, the first group was concerned about control; while the latter group was focused on students’ learning and the damage done to children’s

vulnerable minds from being taught erroneous and sometimes biased CSCOPE lessons.

It is important to point out that all of the many school administrators who came to testify were getting paid for their mileage, meals, time away from school, and overnight accommodations.

The parents and the public who came to testify did so on their own dime. They took off work or else left their families to drive all the way down to Austin. If I were a Texas Senator, I would take much more seriously the concerns of those people with no vested interests.

The school administrators all talked from the same playbook (as usual). Most of them had been misinformed about the bill and thought it was a bill to take local control away from their districts.

As Senator Dan Patrick stated, “Wouldn’t it make you sleep better in the future if you knew that the SBOE had looked over the lesson plans so that you won’t have to worry about what’s in them?”

Senator Campbell explained to the school administrators that legislators appropriate dollars for education and are accountable constitutionally (1) to make sure those funds are spent efficiently and (2) to see that an adequate education is provided for Texas’ public school students.

The Senator said that since CSCOPE is flawed with errors and had been shrouded in secrecy that a light needed to be shined on it. She emphasized that SB 1406 does not take away local control. It makes sure that legislators are held accountable for the funds that are entrusted to them by the taxpayers.

SBOE CHAIR REVEALED CSCOPE EVALUATION PLANS FOR SOCIAL STUDIES

Barbara Cargill, chair of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), described how she had been asked by Senator Patrick to appoint an ad-hoc committee. It met on Friday, March 29, in Dallas, Texas. The ad-hoc committee is made up of four SBOE members and three CSCOPE directors including the state TESCCC director.

Cargill explained that on April 22 – April 29, the public can start applying to be on the review panels. May 13 is the hard deadline for SBOE members to submit their panel nominations. Three to nine people will be chosen for each panel based upon the number of CSCOPE lessons assigned to them. Selected panel members will be notified by May 20, and passwords will be assigned. All of the reviews will be done virtually.

The end goal is to review all of the 400 lessons and tests in the Social Studies component of CSCOPE. (The total of CSCOPE lessons in all four subject areas is close to 1,600).

The panels are to finish going through the first two six weeks of lessons between June 3 – 16. If the panel members need to meet, they can go to their nearest Education Service Centers and participate through videoconferencing. This will keep the costs down and will keep the panel members from having to travel and be gone from home.

The SBOE approved operating board rules in its January 2013 meeting; and taking the objectives for instructional materials approved by the Board, Cargill hopes to combine these to form an easy-to-use, objective checklist that the panels can utilize in their evaluations.

SB 1406 does not require TESCCC/CSCOPE to implement the recommendations of the review panels, but it is hoped that TESCCC/CSCOPE will choose to do so rather than experience the public’s animosity if the SBOE’s good faith gesture is ignored. Cargill pointed out that the SBOE is doing this review without any cost to TESCCC/CSCOPE and that they should be glad to utilize the panels’ findings.

TROUBLESOME EXAMPLES PRESENTED FROM CSCOPE LESSONS

Barbara Cargill came prepared with a large packet made up of copies of CSCOPE lessons that contained factual errors, grammar/spelling mistakes, and questionably left-leaning examples from CSCOPE lessons. These included such examples as:

· Readability problems with Grades 1 – 5 lessons written above grade level and Grades 6 – 12 written below grade level

· Many sentences with no periods, improper punctuation, incorrect usage such as “affects” instead of “effects”

· Two diagrams (triangles) in an Algebra I lesson that math teachers say is an impossible problem to solve

· A Grade 5 science unit on forces that contains incorrect examples of a hypothesis vs. observations

· A diagram of a circuit without the wires being wrapped around the ends of the bulb

· A lesson on law and motion using a hammer but pictured with an incorrect angle

· A lesson using a spinner to graft the data of a student’s blood sugar level but that indicates incorrect medical information that could put a person’s life in danger

· Incorrect medical information about running a fever or vomiting

· A lesson which puts the U. S. under a questionable label that should say “free enterprise and capitalism”

· A lesson with a very tiny picture of the U. S. Capitol under a label that could lead children to disrespect America

· A derogatory term used to describe a family member

· A deliberately prejudicial reference to the SBOE and its authority over instructional materials (i.e., textbooks)

· A diagram of a man climbing a staircase that shows Communism as superior

Throughout the five-hour hearing on SB 1406, it did not seem to matter how many mistakes, flaws, misspellings, grammatical errors, factual errors, inappropriate, and biased statements were documented. The school administrators sang CSCOPE’s praises as if they had not even heard any of the negatives that were presented. Hardly any of the administrators seemed bothered about CSCOPE’s secrecy, lack of transparency, the teacher “gag” order, and the highly unethical (or illegal) incorporation of TESCCC operating as a shell company after using taxpayers’ dollars to create its product — all done without permission from the Texas Legislature.

Under questioning by the Senators, an ESC/TESCCC director indicated that a list of about 200 CSCOPE writers had been provided to the Senators and that some of these wrote entire lessons and some wrote only parts of lessons. He also admitted that insufficient oversight and review of the CSCOPE lessons had occurred.

Sen. Patrick asked one of the ESC directors to provide the Senators with a breakdown of how the $15 to $16 Million paid to CSCOPE last year was utilized (e.g., how much was paid to the writers, etc.) The director stated that the people at the ESC’s who work on CSCOPE draw their salaries from the ESC’s and that their jobs are dependent upon CSCOPE’s success.

Since the Jan. 2013 public hearing, TESCCC has agreed to dissolve itself; but Sen. Patrick said that if CSCOPE continues to stay in the lesson plan business, it may be necessary to create a statute that will make sure no backtracking occurs.

TESTIMONY OF VARIOUS CSCOPE CRITICS

Witness Colleen Vera presented documents she was finally able to get from TESCCC’s released board minutes that showed the directors had talked about selling CSCOPE to other states. She also found a statement from a 2011 meeting in which the directors were discussing whether CSCOPE’s primary goal should be just making money or serving the children of Texas.

John Griffing provided testimony that proved that CSCOPE schools did worse than non-CSCOPE schools on the STAAR/End-of-Course tests (2011-12 School Year). He stated, “CSCOPE does not work on STAAR/EOC. Why remake the wheel? Why not emulate the schools that are succeeding? Why trust something that has shown us only failure?”

Testifier Peggy Venable who travels widely around the state of Texas said she has heard CSCOPE complaints everywhere she has gone. She said she has yet to meet any citizens and/or parents who like CSCOPE.

Jeanine MacGregor presented the Senators with actual examples of CSCOPE lessons that have been plagiarized. She also showed the Senators a slide (Slide #8) from a CSCOPE/TESCCC power point that vilified by name some of the people who had come to the Jan. 31, 2013 Senate Education Committee hearing and had testified against CSCOPE.

Sen. Patrick was visibly upset that such a list had been circulated and said the Texas Attorney General would be notified so that he could track down who (ESC, TESCCC, local school district, individual) had initiated Slide #8.

Neal Fry offered a replacement bill for SB 1406 that would take care of the glaring double standard that exists in SB 6 regarding textbooks vs. online curriculum.

Deborah Parrish presented her concerns about the lack of phonics instruction in CSCOPE. She said that research from Johns Hopkins shows phonics is a major tool especially with low-income students. She stated that the 60% of Texas children who come from low-economic homes are the ones who are being hurt by CSCOPE the most because of the lack of phonics instruction.

FURTHER COMMENTS FROM SENATORS

Senator Campbell voiced her concern about the questionable CSCOPE lessons that have been removed by TESCCC once located but that have misinformed students for many years.

Sen. Patrick indicated his concern with the large number of curriculum standards that are found in the TEKS and wants the next legislative session to consider reducing the number of TEKS elements.

A number of people chose to register their positions rather than to testify, and the total number of people for and against SB 1406 appeared to be about equal.

Donna Garner

Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

Tags: Control, Cscope, DONNA GARNER, HEARING, PATRICK, POWER, SENATE, Texas

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PARENTS OPEN UP ABOUT CSCOPE and COMMON CORE

Apr 02

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

WANT TO SEE WHAT CSCOPE AND COMMON CORE (EVEN HOMESCHOOLING)

LESSONS LOOK LIKE? THESE PARENTS OPENED UP TO THEBLAZE

Apr. 2, 2013 10:10am Tiffany Gabbay

As a greater level of scrutiny is being placed on the controversial curriculum systems CSCOPE (in Texas) and Common Core Standards (nationwide), concerned parents spoke to TheBlaze about their troubling experiences, revealing that not even home-schooling is beyond the reach of these encroaching systems.

Home-schooling not beyond the reach of Common Core?

Keven Card, a former Marine from Houston who has home-schooled his children for the last six years, thought his family was safe from the reach of Common Core, but soon learned otherwise. As noted on his blog, two years ago Pearson Education, which is linked to Common Core, acquired Texas Connections Academy, the online charter school Card uses to homeschool his ninth-grader.

One lesson plan featured a video dubbed, ”China Rises,” that appears to tout the virtues of Communism over capitalism.

“It blew my mind,” Card told TheBlaze in an interview.

“They make kids watch a video that makes capitalism look bad and Communist China look good. It’s absolutely unbelievable.”

Below are several screenshots of the program, “China Rises,” along with a video that Card was able to record and save for his own records.

The captions below read:

The next time you go shopping for clothes, electronics, shoes, toys, or even food, check the label. There’s a good chance it says “Made in China.”

As you might guess, China has one of the most productive economies in the world, and it has been growing at a rapid pace in recent decades. This growth has brought great wealth to Chinese entrepreneurs and businesses and improved standards of living for millions of people.

The China Rises website provides preview clips and information on the content featured in the program. Notably, the “Party Games” and “Getting Rich” sections, Card explained, are of particular interest as they “address the changing politics and economy of China.”

It is also worth pointing out that the documentary was produced in partnership with The New York Times and Discovery Times.

Card notes that the video preview made available under the “Getting Rich” sub-section of the site talks about capitalism’s “cruelties” as it shows a man whose lost his hand in a machine. The section appears at the 1.12 mark.

When asked how long questionable lessons like China Rises have been on his son’s roster of studies, Card said he first noticed curriculum changing roughly a year or two ago when a religious studies lesson favored the Muslim faith over Christianity.

“I wrote a letter to the principal of the Texas Connections Academy, but never received a reply,” the concerned father said. Pearson acquired our school in 2011.

What is StudentGPS and what does it track, exactly?

A Texas mother whose child is enrolled in the fifth grade at a Texas public school told TheBlaze that while some of the lesson plans at her child’s school are worrisome, she is most concerned about data mining, especially in light of the fact that, come next year, her school will implement something called “StudentGPS dashboards.”

“I’m not sure if it will be just at our school or all of them,” the Blaze reader, who asked to remain nameless out of concern for her child and school faculty explained. “I have a feeling our school will be one the earlier ones to implement the StudentGPS.”

According to the StudentGPS website, the program is part of a partnership with the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF), are particularly beneficial in identifying “at-risk students” by providing educators a “collection of reports and metrics that provide educators with access to historical, timely, and predictive information on all students to help improve education outcomes for all Texas students.”

The dashboards are said to “flag emerging issues such as problems in attendance, class work, and test performance as early as possible” as well as “provide instant access to analyzed data, instead of requiring requests to a data analyst for ad hoc reports.”

While the site states that “loading dashboard data to TSDS is strictly optional,” schools are encouraged to do so as they provide a “rich, sophisticated, empirical approach to teaching that help schools, classes, and individual students get more from their educational opportunities.”

The Blaze reader said she found out about the GPS “dashboards” while on a call with the school principal about the district’s plan to allocate iPads to all students next year. She said that she was concerned about the kinds of data that would be tracked on the iPad, but that once she heard about StudentGPS, she was concerned “even more.”

Below are tutorial videos provided by the StudentGPS Dashboards official website, which is part of the “Texas Student Data System.”

Student GPS dashboard overview

“StudentGPS – Attendance”

“StudentGPS – Intervention”

Kids know about global warming and wars

Another item the concerned mother noted was that her 5th grader brought home a questionable homework assignment earlier this week. The parent told TheBlaze that the lesson (screenshots of which are featured below) is being used as practice for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exam, which is to be administered by schools next week.

The lesson in this case was not produced by CSCOPE, but rather a independent company. Nonetheless, some of the language and themes will still raise eyebrows.

“The content seems designed to undermine parental authority,” the Texas resident said. “Adults are just too stupid to get anything right. I assume the intent is to drive a wedge between parent and child.”

The excerpts below ask why children are not permitted to vote, especially when (see section 3) they understand “global warming and war” and know that adults have only made the world’s problems worse.

The Texas mom said that while CSCOPE is implemented at her school, teachers are not forced to use its lesson plans. She added that while that may be a good thing, she has still “come to expect verbiage on global warming and fossil fuels” and believes CSCOPE’s influence will only increase. The Blaze reader also expressed concern over the fact that experienced teachers are growing tired of trying to overcome “the hurdles” and will likely leave the schools out of sheer frustration.

“We are part of a good, close community, which makes this [CSCOPE implementation] that much harder,” she explained.

Below is an excerpt of the homework assignment:

Those cases cited above are but a fraction of the questionable lesson plans that seem to be par for the course with Common Core and CSCOPE. As a result of TheBlaze’s coverage, other concerned parents may also come forward to express their concerns and experiences with these controversial curriculum systems.

Tags: Common Core, Cscope, Glenn Beck, parents, The Blaze

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Big Problems for Irving ISD

Apr 02

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

“Big Problems at Irving ISD”
by Donna Garner
4.2.13

The Irving ISD School Board voted 4 – 3 to censure board member Steven Jones on 4.1.13 (#1 Dallas Morning News posted below). Not only does Steven Jones want to replace bilingual education with English immersion (“works every time it’s been tried”), but he also has been outspoken about his opposition to CSCOPE which costs Irving ISD at least $260,000 per year and has not raised students’ STAAR/End-of-Course test scores.

According to the 3.10.13 article (#3 news article posted below), “…Irving’s students fell far behind the state average last year on STAAR [School Year 2011-12], the state’s new standardized test that CSCOPE was supposed to prepare them for…”

It sounds to me as if the Irving ISD administration does not like Steven Jones questioning its choice of poor curriculum such as CSCOPE (#4 Dallas Morning News article posted below). Irving ISD has been using CSCOPE at least since Sept. 2011. A 9.29.11 article from the Dallas Morning News describes CSCOPE’s use in the Irving ISD:http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20110919-standardized-teaching-system-spreads-to-hundreds-of-texas-districts.ece

Grassroots citizens through filing Public Information Requests found that over the last two school years, Irving ISD has paid TASA (Texas Association of School Administrators) and TASB (Texas Association of School Boards) $905,028 (2.13.13 —http://educationviews.org/irving-isd-wasteful-spending-by-texas-school-district/ ) These were taxpayers’ dollars. Just think how many classroom teachers’ jobs could have been financed by that $905,028. No wonder Steven Jones is questioning the Irving ISD expenditures!
Please read Lynn Woolley’s 4.1.13 column (#2 Dallas Morning News article posted below) in which he praises Steven Jones for his courageous efforts as a school board member to question the way the Irving ISD administration has spent taxpayers’ dollars. – Donna Garner

=============

#1 DALLAS MORNING NEWS ARTICLE:

Split vote by Irving school board publicly condemns trustee Steven Jones’ behavior

By AVI SELK
Staff Writer
aselk@dallasnews.com
Published: 01 April 2013 09:09 PM
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20130401-split-vote-by-irving-school-board-publicly-condemns-trustee-steven-jones-behavior.ece?action=reregister

Excerpts from this article:

In a rare public condemnation, the Irving ISD school board voted 4-3 Monday to censure trustee Steven Jones…

Steven Jones has denied any impropriety.

Trustees Jerry Christian and Gwen Craig also voted in favor of censure.

…In the meantime, Valerie Jones acknowledged at the meeting, censure carries “no legal or practical consequences.”

…Steven Jones listened to the accusations with no visible emotion. He had acknowledged making the phone calls, but he said the emails distorted their innocent and legitimate intent.

When it was his turn to speak, Jones looked out at the packed audience and decried “these attempts to assassinate my character.”

He said the district had spent $23,000 in legal fees “trying to find ways to throw me off the board.”

Jones, who has been on the board since 2011, seemed no more concerned about the prospect of public condemnation than he had last week when the vote was called. He had correctly predicted the way the trustees would vote.

Monday’s vote may be one of the school board’s last major acts before its politics are transformed.

Two of the trustees who voted for censure Monday — Huffstetler and Christian — are stepping down after the May election. A third, Craig, is up for re-election.

Jones is backing candidates in all three races. One of them is running unopposed and is expected to give Jones’ allies a majority.

“We will have a conservative majority on this board beginning May 20,” Jones told the crowd before the vote. “The new board will focus like a laser beam on student achievement. Our focus will no longer be PR and spin…”

==============
#2 DALLAS MORNING NEWS ARTICLE:

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20130401-lynn-woolley-irving-trustee-steven-jones-right-to-challenge-schools-status-quo.ece

Lynn Woolley: Irving trustee Steven Jones right to challenge schools’ status quo

Published: 01 April 2013 09:25 PM
Excerpts from this article:
Steven Jones has done the unthinkable. As a member of the Irving school board, he has challenged the status quo, questioning wasteful spending and the district’s fixation with bilingual education.

…His first crime was his decision to run for the Irving board of trustees. School board members are not supposed to be conservative businesspeople who have designs on change. They are supposed to be former teachers or liberal activists who will bow to the whims of the school superintendent.

Jones’ second crime was that he won. And get a load of his platform. During the campaign, he said, “I am running for the Irving school board because I have watched the actions of the current board and question its judgment on three major items.”

…But Jones dared question the board when it voted to extend the superintendent an additional 36-month contract after just seven months on the job. The board said it wanted “stability.” Jones wanted “excellence.” He also noted that while no teachers were being hired, the board was openly searching for two more assistant superintendents. He thought the district needed fewer bureaucrats and more teachers.

His biggest crime of all, though, related to education’s biggest sacred cow: bilingual education.

Back in 2011, WFAA-TV’s Gary Reaves did a story about then-candidate Jones’ desire to add an English immersion program to the bilingual mandate required by the state.

…Jones’ additional crimes include “micromanaging” duties reserved by law for the superintendent; explaining to a new assistant superintendent that her job was “wasteful” and might be eliminated; and explaining to the district’s “director of world languages” that the board wanted to push for that English immersion plan.

…A board member who is a conservative, who questions stupid and costly decisions made by the board and actually attempts to represent the interests of children, parents and taxpayers instead of just the education establishment? …Jones’ real crime is his opposition to bilingual education.

In a district where 70 percent of the children are Spanish speakers, you simply do not speak of such things as English immersion — even if it does work every time it’s been tried…

Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based radio talk show host and may be contacted at lynn@BeLogical .com.

==========

#3 NEWS ARTICLE:

http://educationviews.org/cscope-irving-isd-staareocs-what-if-we-lost-measuring-stick/

“CSCOPE: Irving ISD Did Poorly on STAAR/EOC Tests – What If Lost Measuring Stick?”
by Donna Garner
3.11.13

Irving ISD paid $265,000 (per year) for CSCOPE. Did it raise their students’ STAAR/EOC’s? According to this article, “And for all those efforts, Irving’s students fell far behind the state average last year on STAAR, the state’s new standardized test that CSCOPE was supposed to prepare them for.”

Some Texas legislators are trying to do away with the STAAR/End-of-Course tests at each grade level (Grades 3 – 11). These tests serve as a measuring stick, a yardstick, a ruler. If we lose the “measuring stick,” how would parents and the public ever prove whether regular public schools, charter schools, CSCOPE, Turkish Gulen Harmony Charter Schools, dual-credit courses, Texas Virtual Academy, online learning, Advanced Placement courses, International Baccalaureate programs, Web 2.0 Tools, and Safari Montage are actually pulling up our children or dumbing them down?

School board elections are coming up on May 11, 2013, in many towns and cities throughout Texas. In Irving ISD, these elections will evidently settle whether or not CSCOPE will be removed from the District.

My hope is that numerous schools will take the money they have wasted on CSCOPE and use it to purchase the new English / Language Arts / Reading textbooks that are totally aligned with the new curriculum standards adopted in May 2008. These textbooks contain the systematic teaching of phonemic awareness/decoding skills (phonics), grammar, usage, spelling, composition – all of the back-to-the-basics skills that must be learned by students to help them to be successful in the rest of their school subjects, on the STAAR/End-of-Course tests, and in life.

Donna Garner
Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

============

#4 DALLAS MORNING NEWS ARTICLE:

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/irving/headlines/20130310-third-party-curriculum-could-soon-be-gone-from-irving-school-district.ece?action=reregister

CSCOPE MAY SOON BE GONE FROM IRVING ISD

By AVI SELK
Staff Writer
aselk@dallasnews.com
Published: 10 March 2013 11:07 PM
Excerpts from this article:

Irving ISD administrators say the [CSCOPE] package — which costs roughly $260,000 a year…

Norma Gonzales, who is running unopposed for an open seat on the board, says she wants to phase out the program when she takes her seat. By then, CSCOPE’s detractors on the board should have a majority to do exactly that.

Trustee Steven Jones said at least 40 teachers in the district have made similar complaints to him.

And for all those efforts, Irving’s students fell far behind the state average last year on STAAR, the state’s new standardized test that CSCOPE was supposed to prepare them for…

“A lot of the complaints we heard about had to do with the assessments.”

…The teacher, who asked for anonymity to protect his job, said educators were promised CSCOPE would prepare students for STAAR.

“It simply didn’t happen,” he said.

Instead, the teacher said, he wasted hours photocopying CSCOPE handouts no better than the material in the textbook — some of it worse. He said if his principal walked by the classroom and saw him using the book, or deviating at all from CSCOPE material, he would be “redirected” back to the new program.

…Trustees’ complaints about CSCOPE go beyond classroom flexibility. Jones said the program had Marxist origins and appeared designed to “do an end run” around the Texas Board of Education and adopt federal curriculum the state has rejected.

At board meetings, he and trustees Larry Stipes and Gail Conder Wells have claimed that CSCOPE lessons indoctrinate students into Islam and socialism. A state Senate hearing in January heard similar complaints from other districts.

“Nobody knows what’s in CSCOPE,” Jones said. “It’s very secretive.”

In an effort to settle the matter, the district is preparing a teacher survey on CSCOPE. But even that has turned political, with Jones, Stipes and Wells complaining staff won’t include their questions…

Donna Garner
Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

Tags: CORRUPTION, Cscope, DALLAS MORNING NEWS, DONNA GARNER, Irving ISD, SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER, SCHOOLS, STEVEN JONES, TASA, TASB, Texas

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CSCOPE: WHAT’S BEHIND THE CURTAIN? PART 1& 2

Apr 02

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

[CSCOPEcurtain%2520%25281%2529%255B5%255D.png]

Colleen Vera
colleen@TexasTrashTalk.com
http://www.texastrashtalk.com/

(Updated: 3/29/13 Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott has now promised a full investigation of TESCCC and CSCOPE.)

As a retired Texas pubic school teacher, the recent concerns being raised over CSCOPE curriculum sparked my interest.

I wanted to know more about the business side of CSCOPE, so I filed a Public Information Request for the meeting minutes of their governing board. Instead of finding answers, all I found were more questions.

#1 – If a State agency used tax dollars to develop a product, doesn’t the product belong to the People of Texas?

Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC)’s own attorney gives this CSCOPE background:

TESCCC was originally established as a collaborative of several of the Education Service Centers (ESC) in Texas with the stated purpose to provide high quality curriculum and instruction materials, resources, and professional development for Texas public school districts. Subsequently, TESCCC developed CSCOPE which is a comprehensive, user friendly, curriculum support system. As CSCOPE became widely used among Texas school districts, it was necessary for TESCCC to formally organize itself to better protect its intellectual property and serve its customers. Now, TESCCC is a non-profit corporation organized under the Texas Business Organization Code. TESCCC was incorporated in 2009 and was granted non-profit status under 501©(3) of the Internal Revenue Code …Today 816 of the approximately 1230 Texas public school Districts and charter school systems use the CSCOPE product. Although the Attorney General’s office determined in OR2012-04869 dated April 4, 2012 that TESCCC was subject to the Public Information Act, TESCCC operates in every other way as a private corporation.
Public funds paid for the development of CSCOPE. TESCCC is a committee of paid State employees. How can paid employees of a state agency simply transfer ownership of CSCOPE from the People of Texas to a private corporation? Were The People compensated at fair market value for CSCOPE or did TESCCC simply claim eminent domain?

Did the 19 ESC Executive Directors who make up the TESCCC have votes of approval from the 19 elected ESC boards that oversee them? Did TESCCC get written approval from the Commissioner of Education before transferring State property to a private corporation?

#2 – What is TESCC trying to hide?

In April of 2012, the Texas Attorney General ruled that CSCOPE’s governing board, TESCCC, is a “governmental body.” A quote from the ruling:

… upon, review we conclude that the collaborative is funded through public funds, and the collaborative is governed by governmental bodies, namely the member ESCs through its governing board…Accordingly, we conclude that the collaborative falls within the definition of a “governmental body” under section 552.003(1)(A)(xii) of the Government Code.

But TESCCC refused to release all their meeting minutes. Instead, they went back to the Attorney General for another ruling claiming :

…when read as a whole, the minutes TESCCC seeks to withhold offer insight into how the board operates …access into the inner-workings of the organization and how it makes decisions…

REALLY??? They paid a lawyer to write this???
Isn’t that the true purpose behind open meetings and open records? Giving the public insight into how governmental boards operate and how decisions are made?

In fact, Texas law specifically states:
§ 551.022. The minutes and tape recordings of an open meeting are public records and shall be available for
public inspection and copying on request to the governmental body’s chief administrative officer
or the officer’s designee.
I didn’t ask for anything from closed sessions, simply the minutes from meetings I could legally have taped myself. What is in those minutes that State employees are afraid the people who pay their salaries will find out? What are they going to so much trouble to hide?

#3. Have TESCCC meetings been legally posted?

Texas laws are very specific about the posting of public meetings.

Two that appear to apply to TESCCC are:
§ 551.041. A governmental body shall give written notice of the date, hour, place, and subject of each meeting held by the governmental body
§ 551.044. Governmental Body With Statewide Jurisdiction (a) The secretary of state must post notice on the Internet of a meeting of a state board,
commission, department, or officer having statewide jurisdiction for at least seven days before the day of the meeting. ..
Yet, a search of the Open Meeting Archive on the Texas SOS website shows no record of TESCCC meetings ever being posted.

The law goes on to read:
§ 551.141. An action taken by a governmental body in violation of this chapter is voidable.

§ 551.142. (a) An interested person, including a member of the news media, may bring an action by mandamus or injunction to stop, prevent, or reverse a violation or threatened violation of this chapter by
members of a governmental body.
If the TESCCC board meetings have not been legally posted with the SOS, who is responsible for voiding TESCCC’s actions and stepping in to oversee the millions of dollars in public funds they control? The Commissioner of Education? The State Comptroller? The SOS? The AG? The Legislature? Who is watching out for the People?

(After the Texas State Senate Education Committee held a public hearing on CSCOPE 1/31/13, TESCCC held its first publicly posted meeting on 2/18/13.)
(Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, has promised a full investigation into TESCCC and CSCOPE.)
#4. Should employees of the State of Texas be doing work for a private corporation while being paid by the taxpayers to work for the State?

In the letter TESCCC’s attorney sent to the AG to block release of their meeting minutes he states:
Although the Attorney General’s office determined…that TESCCC was subject to the Public Information Act, TESCCC operates in every other way as a private corporation…
Really? A private corporation and not an extension of Texas Educational Service Centers? Then…

why do job postings at ESC13 read,”Serve as representative of the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC) and ESC Region XIII”?
why is the State Director of CSCOPE, who works for TESCCC, listed as “staff” at ESC 13?
why does his job description read: “Serve as a representative of the Center and TESCCC.” ?
why is his email address on a tax supported website and not a corporate site? wade.labay@esc13.txed.net
why does he have the same email and phone number as he did when he was presenting a Block Scheduling seminar for ESC13 in 2007?
why did the link to register for the TESCCC sponsored state conference in 2012 go the tax supported ESC13 website instead of a corporate site? http://ecampus.esc13.net
why does a reply for a request for public information sent to TESCCC get returned from:
Mason Moses Public Information Officer
Texas System of Education Service Centers
Office: 512-919-5349
Fax: 512-919-5232 ???

But more importantly, who is keeping track of the hours State ESC employees are spending developing a product owned by a private corporation?

Some excerpts from TESCCC minutes show that State ESC employees are doing TESCCC work on taxpayer time.

10-11-10 TESCCC Governing Board Meeting @ ESC 13
J. Vasquez (Ex Dir ESC19)commented that 2/3 of his staff have been tied down with CSCOPE work at this point in time…C.Bayuk commented that it is better for ESC staff to be part of the development process and not just have contracted personnel…she encouraged a model where each member ESC devotes staff to some degree throughout the development process
8/6/12 TESCCC Governing Board Meeting @ ESC 13
A. Poplin (Ex Dir ESC9) added that her own secretary has taken on a lot of CSCOPE work since there is no administrative support for W. Labay or the State Office in general.
Meeting minutes also show that the TESCCC board meetings coincide with the State CCRS meetings. It appears that ESC directors travel to Austin for the TESCCC meetings using travel allowed for CCRS. Does that mean pubic funds are paying salaries and travel to benefit a private corporation? The two meetings are so intertwined that…

on 2/14/2012 the TESCCC minutes read: “J. Bass stated that the date of the next CCRS meeting will dictate the date of the next Governing Board meeting.”
on 8/8/11 the TRSCCC minutes read: “Adjourned at 11:37am and reconvened at 3:58pm after CCRS meeting.”
on 5/7/12 the TESCCC minutes read: “Approval of the ESC Public Information Specialist position – postpone that for CCRS”

What private corporation has the approval of a State Agency Public Information Officer position on its agenda???

Minutes also show that ESC13 is listed as the “fiscal agent” for TESCCC and the TESCCC State Staff is housed at ESC13. Does that mean employees of a private corporation are able to earn state employee benefits like state sick leave credits and/or state retirement credits because they are paid via ESC13?

Does TESCCC provide an extra stipend to its board members or do the taxpayers pick up the entire tab for their extra work on the TESCCC Board, its committees and CSCOPE?

(Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, has promised a full investigation into TESCCC and CSCOPE.)

#5 – Should State agencies use tax dollars to operate businesses to compete with private enterprise?

Should 19 State employees be allowed to operate a private corporation inside a Texas State agency and block the taxpayers from information on what they are doing? Is it really saving taxpayers money when the taxpayers are the investors, the debt holders and the clients?

TESCCC meeting minutes state:

…approximately $4.1 million to develop CSCOPE from the beginning…based from the work done for the FAST Report of 2010. However, the costs would have increased since new components have been added and that original estimate was completed in 2010.

Plus it appears that each participating ESC pays TESCCC:

“one flat rate amount” to join TESCCC and earn the right to sell CSCOPE,
another annual “flat rate amount”,
12-14% of their CSCOPE revenue each year based on $7.oo per ADA
plus 12% recapture amount from NER back to TESCCC based on invoiced costs (minutes 3/31/11 +5/9/11)

Does this mean that:

A State agency used State funds to develop CSCOPE…
State employees gave CSCOPE to a private corporation….
State taxpayers pay the salaries of the board who runs it and the directors who oversee it….
State taxpayers pay yearly fees for the right to sell it to local taxpayers…
Local taxpayers pay for their school districts to use it…
And a private corporation gets the “profits”…????

What a racket…and just think of all the State employee expenses and benefits the taxpayers are covering along the way.

(Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, has promised a full investigation into TESCCC and CSCOPE.)

Why does it have to be so complicated? Why can’t the school districts just buy CSCOPE from an ESC like other products?

Could the answer be in the spirit of Texas Education Code Sec 8.056 which places limits on the ESCs charging school districts more than their administrative costs as well as restrictions on ESCs retaining profits in certain situations?

It appears from the TESCCC minutes that in 2011,
the school districts paid their local ESC for CSCOPE
the ESC paid NER (National Education Resources, Inc)
NER sent TESCCC back 12%

With monies moving around this way, the ESCs don’t technically charge above their administrative costs and don’t technically keep any “profits.” It is technically a “private corporation” that keeps the “profits.”

Just how much “profit” are we talking about?

TESCCC incorporated in 2009 and claims their fund balance on 8/8/11 was $1.8 million. That means TESCCC nets an average of $900,000 per year. Not a bad “profit” for a “non-profit.”

But, beyond the money aspect is the question of “competitive advantage.”

TESCCC argues that they should not have to release meeting minutes to the taxpayers for a number of reasons, two being…
TECSSS could lose its competitive advantage over its for-profit competitors and
TESCCC will suffer specific harm if its RFP process, how it maintains its vendor relationships, and how strategic decisions are made for the development of CSCOPE are known

Just what do the TESCCC meeting minutes tell us about their management?……

PART II

Part I raised numerous questions about the business side of CSCOPE but now it is time to dive deeper.

Let’s start with the question: WHO OWNS CSCOPE?

To help find the answer, you need to know a little about the education system in Texas. So the teacher in me is going to give a quick review with the help of the flowchart I made below:

In Texas, we elect the Legislature that makes the laws governing public education, as well as collects and distributes the public funds (our money) needed to run it.

The people elect the State Board of Education (SBOE) and the Governor. Two duties of the SBOE are setting Texascurriculum standards and the review of educationalmaterials purchased with State funds for Texas public schools.

The Governor appoints the Commissioner of Education who oversees the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and 20Educational Service Centers (ESC) throughout the State. He sets the process for each ESC to elect a Board of Directors, controls the distribution of State funds to each ESC, and is responsible for their yearly evaluation.

The Board of Directors of each ESC hires an Executive Director who serves as the CEO and may employ other personnel as needed.

In 2006, CSCOPE was a new curriculum productdeveloped by the ESCs to sell to school districts.

But in 2009, 19 ESC Executive Directors transferred CSCOPE to a private non-profit corporationcontrolled by them called the Texas Education Service Centers Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC.) TESCCC charges each ESC a membership fee ($200,000 – $300,000)which gives ESCs the right to sell CSCOPE to their local school districts. ESC 4 chose not to participate originally, but Pam Wells, Executive Director of ESC 4 in Houston, has now joined.

When the TESCCC sells CSCOPE to a school district, they require that all school personnel sign non-disclosure agreements to make sure no one else, including parents, is able to view CSCOPE materials. (TESCCC is now promising the public will be able to view CSCOPE by April 2013.)

The CSCOPE product is designed to REPLACE textbooks in the classroom even though the CSCOPE curriculum has never been reviewed by the SBOE. Instead, TESCCC bypasses the SBOE process and sells CSCOPE directly to school districts. This is possible because in the last session, the Texas Legislature changed the law and now allows school districts to use State funds to purchase educational materials that have NOT been reviewed and approved via the SBOE process.

Even though TESCCC’s Governing Board is made up of State employees who meet on State property while beingpaid with State funds, the TESCCC refuses to allow the public to attend its Board meetings, refuses to release all the minutes of its Board meetings and the Texas Attorney General ruled that CSCOPE materials are exempt from disclosure because release could harm CSCOPE’s “ competitiveness in the marketplace.”

(After the Texas Senate Education Committee held a public hearing on CSCOPE 1/31/13, TESCCC held its first publicly posted meeting on Feb. 18, 2013.)

So that means public money produced CSCOPE, public money is used to pay a fee for the right to sell it, and public money is used to buy it. But, the public has NO right toknow what is in it.

Is there a name for a scheme like that? Is it considered self-dealing? Where else in Texas are the taxpayers being scammed????

(Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, has now promised a full investigation into TESCCC and CSCOPE.)

All this raises many questions about CSCOPE. Questions like:

Who owns CSCOPE?
Why the need for secrecy?
Why bypass the elected SBOE?
Who allowed a public product to be transferred to a private corporation?
Should the government use public funds to operate private corporations that restrict public disclosure?
Should state employees have control over millions of dollars of public funds without any oversight from elected officials?….and so on…..

While I wait for the Texas Attorney General to rule if TESCCC must release all the minutes from its Governing Board Meetings, more questions arise from the minutes I was able to obtain:

What is the true mission of TESCCC and CSCOPE?
How did CSCOPE sell so fast?
How dysfunctional is the TRSCCC management process?

What is the true mission of TESCCC and CSCOPE?

TEC Sec 8.002 says the purpose of ESC’s is to assist school districts in improving student performance and operating more efficiently. Sec. 8.053 allows ESCs to offer any service requested and purchased by a school district.

So, if the ESCs have a product, and school districts request it, the ESC can sell it. There is no need to set up private, secretive corporations, unless…..

You read TEC Sec. 8.010: Sunset Provision

Regional education service centers are subject to Chapter 325, Government Code (Texas Sunset Act). Unless continued in existence as provided by that chapter, the centers are abolished and this chapter expires September 1,2015. Added by Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., Ch. 1232, Sec. 2.01, eff. June 17, 2011.

You see, in the “old days”, before DVDs and the internet, ESCs played a role in many classrooms. For example, because it was too expensive for every school to purchase 8mm films, ESCs offered educational films teachers could simply check out. In the days before Xerox when teachers still used mimeograph machines (the copies with purple ink), ESCs offered workrooms for teachers to make professional looking posters, lettering, and other supplies for their classrooms. They also had educational reference libraries and offered a variety of teacher training workshops. There were 20 ESCs spread across the State to make it easier for all schools to have access to their services.

But the world has changed. Most of the services provided by ESCs in the “old days” aren’t needed anymore. Private Educational Service and Consulting companies have sprung up everywhere and are now competing with the ESCs for school district business. Technology changes daily and the ESCs battle against private companies to stay relevant.

The ESC Executive Directors know they have a very short window of opportunity to come up with something they can use to claim they are still relevant, or they all have to look for new jobs on 9/1/15. (The date the Sunset Provision could shut down all ESCs.)

What better way to claim they are not only relevant, but NECESSARY, if the majority of school districts in Texas rely on their product for curriculum, lesson plans, tests, and all teaching materials? ESCs could claim that if they closed, there would be chaos in schools across Texas!!! Of course, that is NOT TRUE, but if they scream it loud enough, some people might believe them.

They also know that the citizens of Texas are now awake, politically active, and sick and tired of their hard earned money going to unnecessary government agencies. So, there is an excellent chance that 20 ESCs will no longer be open all around the state come 2016.

So the TESCCC Board members could simply make money off of CSCOPE via TESCCC instead of being employed by an ESC. They could follow in the footsteps of past Board members from the Harris County Department of Education (HCDE) who have found clever ways of making money from service on their Board.

Take for example the Mayor of Katy, Don Elder. When he left the HCDE Board, he was hired as a “consultant” for one of the non-profit corporations set up by HCDE and has been paid around $100,000 every year.

Another HCDE board member, Roy Morales, uses a different technique. He is a “Business Development Consultant – commissionable /independent contactor “ for a company that has multiple contracts with HCDE and HCDE’s non-profit corporations. So after he leaves the Board in January, he can still earn income from the work he did to expand the company’s business with HCDE and its non-profit corporations.

So, what is the true mission of TESCCC and CSCOPE? To assist school districts or the Board members? To ensure the quality of education for Texas students or the quality of life of Board members?

All I know for sure is that HCDE uses the same tacticsTESCCC is using to attempt to block the release of public records – arguing release would harm their business interests. But, without release of business records, taxpayers would have never known that an HCDE Board member could earn commissions from district contracts.

Could this answer the question: Why the need for secrecy at TESCCC?

How did CSCOPE sell so fast?

It took Smart Phones 2.5 years to capture 50% of the cell phone market and people don’t need school board approval to buy one.

In sales, the average Conversion Rates is about 29%. That means 1 actual closed sale for every 3 product inquires.

To establish “monopoly power” the US Court of Appeals requires a minimum market share of 70-80%…… and…… Sec. 26 the Bill Of Rights in the Texas Constitution states that monopolies “shall never be allowed” in Texas.

Yet, in only 2.5 years, TESCCC has captured 70% of the Texas School District curriculum market – the cusp of “monopoly” status – with CSCOPE – a product that was still in thedevelopmental stage and had never been reviewed or tested…… and……TESCCC only marketed their product at two conferences – TASA/TASB and TASA Midwinter.

That is either a sales record that belongs in the Guinness Book or something fishy is going on with CSCOPE.

Why did 70% of Texas Superintendents convince their School Boards to approve funds for a curriculum product that had never even been tested or reviewed? Did they not know what they were buying? Did they assume that if it was sold by ESCs, it had the approval of the SBOE?

Or, was it sold as a product that could help to guarantee that ESCs in Texas would stay “relevant’ – and thus – stay funded?

Why would they care? Could it simply be the oldest reason in the book….$ MONEY $?

There is a very limited market for top tiered school administrators in Texas and they watch out for each other like a fraternity. There are limited places for them to earn big bucks after leaving ISDs. If ESCs close, a gravy train of State funds dries up for them.

As one State Legislator said to me, “Everyone knows ESCs are where old school administrators go to retire.”

How dysfunctional is the TESCCC management process?

The minutes of the TESCCC Board meetings I was able to obtain raise even more questions about what is going on inside TESCCC and who has oversight over the public funds they control?

One example of very questionable business practices is TESCCC’s dealings with a company called National Education Resources (NER.) This is what I can put together from the partial minutes released.

It appears that for the first two years, all funds from CSCOPE flowed through NER at some time. Districts paid ESCs, ESCs paid NER, then NER sent a percentage back to TESCCC.

Millions of dollars in public funds changing hands..

……. yet….

Months without a formal contract?

(8/10/10) …emphasis on need to have a formal contract with NER…(10/11/10)… The (NER) contract under construction now is to simply capture the current agreement between the TESCCC and NER…(11/8/10)…J. Bass mentioned that the draft NER contract was just finalized and reviewed by legal… (1/10/11)… G. Gibson updated the Board on the NER contract development process.

Contracts that “guess” performance?

(11/8/10) … Greg Gibson emphasized that this is an agreement to represent what is currently in place with NER and the TESCCC. It is an attempt , with some “guessing” to capture what is currently in place with NER in terms of performance, etc…

No check of the company’s financials?

(11/8/10) … D.Lovett asked if there were more specifics on the financial health and state of NER’s operation. G. Gibson said that no work was done on the financial state of NER outside of this agreement..

No required audit?

(1/10/11)… G. Gibson updated the Board on the NER contract development process. …the motion also included the elimination of the requirement to have a SAS 70 audit. Instead, TESCCC will retain the right to conduct a technology audit of NER facilities at any time. The Board unanimously approved.

Nothing in place to review billing?

(2/13/12)…A.Polin explained that some ESCs have noticed discrepancies in invoicing from NER. A Poplin asked that the Governing Board members review and confirm that they have been correctly invoiced.

No record of data collection?

(4/16/12)… A.Poplin explained that it is necessary tosurvey districts to find out what locally customized data is in the NER Developer. That knowledge is necessary to validate that NER has transferred all of the data to the State (CSCOPE) Office.

**Note: July 2012 appears to be the final month of services from NER.

Did no one at TESCCC – or the lawyers or consultants they hired – even do a simple Google search to find that NER’s address is a home in NY and notice that there is no company website ?

Concerns over the management practices at TESCCC don’t stop with NER.

TESCCC employees amended the budget and spent public funds without Board approval.

(9/13/10)… W. Labay discussed the 09-10 budget, providing summary and detailed documents. SOME MEMBERS QUESTIONED CERTAIN BUDGET AMENDMENTS AND EXPENDITURES THAT WERE MADE WITHOUT BOARD APPROVAL.When it was revealed that the funds in question needed to be expended during a month when there was no Board meeting, the members agreed that a procedure must be written that delineates the actions that need to be taken under such circumstances…

TESCCC appears more concerned with making money than providing school districts with services:

(2/14/11)… The science lessons will be ready on schedule. We are releasing only the first 12 weeks because there is concern that districts will download a year of lessons and then end or not renew their CSCOPE contracts…

(3/31/11)… W. Labay also included that many ESCs are hosting event/conferences in the summer … somewhatpose a competitive risk to the (State CSCOPE) conference

(8/8/11)… C. Bayuk – Expresses that Leadership Team is extremely concerned about these vendors … because many are in direct competition to CSCOPE.

(2/13/12)… R.Beard explained that his staff asked if CSCOPE could be sold differently from the central practice of district-wide adoption.The Governing Board discussed that this would depart from original, systemic intent; …that some districts might downsize given the option.

(9/13/10)… Gibson summarized the negotiations with the three textbook publishers for contracts to align with CSCOPE. …although we were hoping to get a guaranteed amount in advance from these companies, they are not interested in paying a significant amount for nonexclusive arrangements with us ($50,000)…some in attendance wanted to continue with the process since their districts had asked for the textbook alignments. Others were concerned about the amount of resources that would have to be invested to review and approve each company’s alignment; currently we don’t know exactly how much time, effort, and manpower the review would take…SEVERAL ATTENDEES EXPRESSED CONCERN ABOUT PROVIDING WHAT COULD BE SUPERFICIAL TEXTBOOK ALLIGNMENTS TO CSCOPE IF THE MISSION OF CSCOPE IS TO CHANGE INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM…Board unanimously approved to delay negotiations… and revisit the issue at the January meeting.

Lack of review of curriculum materials

(2/13/12)… T. Smith stated the issue of an external review of CSCOPE is becoming more prominent in information requests. The Governing Board may want to consider the option of hiring an outside group to review CSCOPE components…The question was asked if we had any idea who might perform the external review…W.Labay stated that we could use individuals and companies who perform textbook reviews as well as soliciting statewide input.

(3/5/12)…T.Smith explained that the recommendation for an external review …an estimated cost is $75,000 per content area….A.Poplin clarified that the total cost is not included in the budget W.Labay prepared for 212-13….The Governing Board discussed the option of only reviewing one content area or one component across all content areas to begin with.

(4/16/12)… T.Smith stated that the CSCOPE content review starts with Science only

So, who is ultimately responsible for this mess?

If you go back to the flowchart, I think you will find that we are.

We elected the Legislature who funds the ESCs and theGovernor who appointed the Commissioners of Education.

If we want it clean up, we need to let them know that we expectan immediate investigation of TESCCC and CSCOPE with all findings made public.

(Attorney General, Greg Abbott, has now promised a full investigation into TESCCC and CSCOPE.)

And, we all need to start attending our local ESC Board meetings to make sure our money is being handled properly. We can no longer assume someone else is keeping watch. We have to step up and do the job ourselves.

Your local ESC can be found @http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=2147503292.

Contact information for your Texas State Senator and Representative @ http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/

Contact information for Governor Rick Perry @http://governor.state.tx.us/contact/

Contact information for Michael Williams, Commissioner of Education @ commissioner@tea.state.tx.us
512-463-8985

Tags: Cscope, Education, ILLEGAL, NON PROFIT, STATE AGENCY, TESCCC, Texas, WADE Labay

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WHAT are CSCOPE REPS HIDING?

Apr 01

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

Upon originally finding out about CSCOPE and discovering their lack of transparency I filed a Public Information Request over a year ago on CSCOPE and the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborate (TESCCC) who owns Cscope asking for lesson content and financials. TESCCC asked for the Attorney General’s office to deem them a non Governmental entity and not subject to the Public Information Request under Texas Government Code 552.104 and 552.110.

Now get this. The group of men and women who make up the Board of Directors of TESCCC or actually the Directors of the Education Service Centers. They receive tax money and form a non profit called TESCCC which owns the product called CSCOPE. They use state employees to sell their product to a school district who survive off of tax money as well and they want to be deemed a NON GOVERNMENTAL ENTITY? Wow.. wouldn’t that just be nice? TESCCC has taken in millions leasing CSCOPE to Texas School districts on a yearly bases. They claim they have no check register as reported to the Attorney General’s office.

See the Attorney Generals Ruling April 4, 2012

Many citizens across the state have now got involved and are requesting information on TESCCC. In requesting their board minutes from the inception to the non profit organization TESCCC, those responsible can’t seem to locate them. The following are the minutes that they have located and the attorney general ordered them to be released. Though you will find the majority of them blacked out. Why,we don’t know yet. What do they have to hide?

TESCCC Board minutes released from the Attorney General’s Office.

In this excerpt from the minutes they were working on an Out of State Business Plan.

Notice in the following excerpt where they must have been discussing the modification of CSCOPE with Common Core and selling Cscope out of State.

I found Thomas Poe’s statement interesting of looking at the issue of making money verses serving students of Texas.

Our children deserve better than this.

Tags: Board minutes, Common Core, Cscope, Out of State Plan, TESCCC, Texas

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Texas Students being Data Mined

Mar 28

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

INDOCTRINATION AND DATA MINING IN COMMON CORE:

HERE’S WHY AMERICA’S SCHOOLS MAY BE IN MORE TROUBLE

THAN YOU THINK

by The Blaze/Tiffany Gabbay

TheBlaze has been at the forefront in uncovering the disturbing details of the nationalized curriculum standard known as Common Core. One of the most troubling aspects of this federal program is that government bureaucrats are currently mining sensitive and highly personal information on children through Common Core’s tracking system.

The data will then reportedly be sold by the government to outside sources for profit.

To discuss Common Core’s practice of data mining, Glenn Beck hosted an array of guests on TheBlaze TV Wednesday, including documentarian Andrew Marcus, columnist Kyle Olson; Kris Nielsen, author of “Children of the Core”; Jane Robbins of the American Principles Project; and lawmakers T.W. Shannon, Michael Caldwell and Clarence Mingo III.

Watch part of the segment via TheBlaze TV below:

According to the conservative think tank American Principles Project, Common Core’s technological project is “merely one part of a much broader plan by the federal government to track individuals from birth through their participation in the workforce.” As columnist and author Michelle Malkin has pointed out, the 2009 stimulus package included a “State Fiscal Stabilization Fund” to provide states incentives to construct “longitudinal data systems (LDS) to collect data on public-school students.”

In other words, an aggregation system to mind personal data on children including information about their health, family income, religious affiliation and homework.

Even more off-putting is the revelation that a 44-page Department of Eduction Report released in February indicates that the Common Core data-mining system could one day implement monitoring techniques like “Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging” (scanning one’s brain function), as well as “using cameras to judge facial expressions, an electronic seat that judges [a child’s] posture, a pressure-sensitive computer mouse and a biometric wrap on kids’ wrists.”

“This is like some really spooky, sci-fi, Gattaca kind of thing,” Beck said.

Through the stimulus bill, Americans’ privacy has been increasingly compromised. Now, permission that once had to be granted by parents to Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to release students’ data has changed with a January 2012 regulation mandating that all information collected by schools since 2009 can be shared among federal agencies without consent.

In the following clip, Beck lays out a new theory on how business and government are colluding to accomplish mutual collective goals in a system very similar to state capitalism. He also theorizes how GE may be involved with Common Core.
Aside from President Obama, whose administration has been a steady supporter of Common Core standards, other leaders and advocates of the system include Bob Corcoran of General Electric (which donated over $33 million to Common Core in 2012), Bill and Melinda Gates, as well as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

How can you fight back against the data mining happening within Common Core and CSCOPE? Beck and his panel of experts explain:

Tags: Common Core, Cscope, Data Mined, Education, STUDENTS, TESCCC, Texas

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More Texas Students Adorn Islam Attire

Mar 25

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

Texas Cscope School Rockwall ISD has students adorn Hijabs in a High School Geography Class. The fact that women and girls are flogged, beaten and murdered in the name of Islam I am sure was not taught to this Geography Class.

The students below photographed themselves and posted the photos on the popular social media site, Istagram.

Presently in the Islamic tourist region of the Maldives a young 15 year old girl is sentenced to flogging of a 100 whippings. Her crime was ruled “SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE” due to the fact that her step dad raped her continually over a period of years and murdered her baby.

I find it disturbing that Texas ISD think nothing of having our students cover themselves with attire that represents such hideous atrocities all in the name of Islam.

Is hasn’t been quite a month when Cscope School Lumberton ISD recently has students in burqas and hijabs. Read about it here.

For additional info on the Pro Islamic Marxist Texas Curriculum Cscope go to www.txcscopereview.com

Does you school district use Cscope?

The days of thinking your local school administrators have your child’s best interest at heart if OVER! Get involved and find out where they are teaching you children and where they are spending your tax money.

Copy of image_1364134165251418

Tags: burqa, Cscope, Curriculum, edudcation, hijab, islam, Murder, Rape, rockwall, Texas

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CSCOPE: OBAMA A GOOD CITIZEN?

Mar 23

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

CSCOPE, Texas’ Progressive, Marxist, Pro Communist, and Pro Islamic Curriculum used in over 70% of Texas Schools never fails to disappoint in their intent to indoctrinate our children. Below you will find a question on a 2nd grade Assessment test on good citizenship with Obama being one of the choices. When did you job/position make you a good citizen?

My home schooled college graduate adult children could and did spot a liberal professor’s slant in course work and testing and would follow along for the sake of the grade. Can you expect a 2nd grader to have the same level of objective thinking, of course not. If I still had a 2nd grader at home they would know Obama is not a good citizen and would not have circled him……and would have gotten the question wrong?

What is it about Obama that makes him a good citizen in Cscope’s eyes?

Is it his?:

1)Taking an Oath to Protect and Defend our Constitution and continuing to assault it and see it as an obstacle to his ambitious agenda of “Transforming America” into a Socialist, Marxist Society.
2)The hypocritical way that he flaunts his extravagant lifestyle while he ask Americans to tighten their belt.
3)Promises Transparency and Honesty and delivers deception and lies
4)Promotes Class Warfare
5)Race baiting
6)Demonize’s political opposition by using the media
7)Rewards our Enemies with Fighter jets and money and snubs our allies and talks about them behind their back.
8)Refusing to allow the survivors of Benghazi to tell their story.
9) Continually blaming his predecessor for his inability to achieve success.
10)Continuing to appoint the most controversial figures to positions of power baiting the political opposition into a fight.

I could fill up the whole article with the failures and bad citizenship of this President…he should get an award!

I call this INDOCTRINATION!

Tags: ASSESSMENT, CITIZENSHIP, Cscope, INDOCTRINATION, Marxism, Obama, PRO ISLAMIC, Progressive, TEXAS SCHOOLS

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Vulgar Cscope Teacher in Lumberton ISD

Mar 22

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

Texas Teacher Wears “Vote Obama” Shirt at Lumberton ISD and Posts Vulgar, Anti-

Christian/GOP/Fox News Pics on Twitter – Uses CSCOPE

bY DAVID BELLOW

During the November 2012 election, several students claim that Lumberton High School teacher Michelle Champagne paraded around the high school wearing a shirt with a picture of Barack Obama and “Vote Obama” written above the picture. This Texas teacher also has vulgar, anti-Christian, anti-Republican, anti-Fox News, anti-Rick Perry messages and pictures posted openly on her Twitter page and says her fellow Lumberton residents “cling to guns and Bibles.” One tweet on her Twitter Page even refers to a Christian Cross as a Swastika! It is no surprise that this teacher also says she relies heavily on the flawed CSCOPE curriculum!

The recent Lumberton ISD Muslim Burqa Lesson and CSCOPE curriculum controversy has apparently encouraged other students and parents to speak out about things that have happened in Lumberton schools. Over the past month I have been contacted about all kinds of incidents, including this one. Parents in other cities are also standing up and speaking out. Just today I saw that a parent in Flour Bluff, TX exposed a CSCOPE approved supplement lesson that blamed the 9/11 terrorist attack on America.

I 100% believe that the Lumberton School Board and Lumberton Administration are NOT trying to push liberalism on any children. I also believe that most of the teachers in Lumberton are awesome! I do believe however that there ARE some liberal teachers who DO try to influence students with liberal ideas, even here in predominantly conservative East Texas. I also believe that, even if not intentional on the part of the school, the CSCOPE curriculum does try to negatively influence students. Thankfully, LISD has created a committee to look into replacing CSCOPE.

Lumberton Teacher Wears “Vote Obama” Shirt to School

Last week I got a call from a student who said that, during the November 2012 election, Lumberton High School teacher Michelle Champagne paraded around the high school wearing a shirt with a picture of Barack Obama and “Vote Obama” written above the picture. This allegation was backed up by other students who saw her wearing the shirt. Even after at least one student and the student’s parents complained to the school about this shirt, the teacher still wore the shirt to Lumberton High School, according to the complaining student and parent. It is not known what action, if any, was taken against the teacher for wearing the shirt.

The Burqa incident might have been as an honest mistake not meant to push anything onto the students, but there is nothing innocent about a teacher wearing a shirt to the high school that says “Vote Obama.” This shirt in my opinion, is clearly an attempt of an authority figure to push a liberal person and ideas onto impressionable students at Lumberton High School. A teacher with a shirt with “vote” written on it would be fine at a school to encourage students to get involved. I would even be fine with a shirt that just had a picture of Obama on it. But a teacher wearing a shirt that has the words “Vote Obama” is clearly crossing the line. Students wearing religious or political shirts are ok because it is student led. A teacher is in a position of authority over impressionable students who are there to learn from the teacher, so teachers are NOT allowed to wear these kinds of things.

It is interesting to note that on Michelle Champagne’s LISD Teacher Webpage,she says that the students in her class only do CSCOPE for the first 9 weeks!

This Lumberton Texas teacher labels herself as a LIBERAL TEACHER on TWITTER and has VULGAR anti-Republican pictures and messages on her Twitter

Just in case you want to try to argue that this teacher is not a liberal who, in my opinion, wants to push radical ideas onto the students in Lumberton, go check out this teacher’s past public twitter posts.

The following are some of the past tweets on Lumberton Teacher Michelle Champagne’s twitter account. These past tweets on her account have been archived at http://topsy.com/twitter/mbchampagne because she has now deleted her twitter page

Michelle Champagne’s Twitter Description:

@mbchampagne

twitter.com/mbchampagne

Lumberton, Texas – Liberal Texas school teacher surrounded by people who cling to their guns and Bibles…

Tags: Cscope, David Bellow, Education, Lumberton, Michelle Champagne, Obama, Teacher, Texas, vulgar

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Cscope & Common Core

Mar 21

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

CSCOPE Curriculum Designer Employed by CCSSO Partner to Aid in Implementing

Common Core

Grant Wiggins CSCOPE and Common Core Developer

Posted on March 19, 2013 By Danette Clark

Grant Wiggins, one of eight designers of curriculum, standards and instruction of the pro-communist Texas CSCOPE curriculum, also provides professional development to aid educators in implementing the national Common Core State Standards. Pearson, the education service company widely known for publishing textbooks, has partnered with the Council of Chief State School Officers in providing training and other resources to states implementing Common Core.

Pearson is the company who helps create, prints, and scores the Texas State STAAR tests. This company also publishes booklets to help students study for the STAAR tests. These should be good booklets since Pearson knows exactly what is on the STAAR tests. UUM! Do you think this might be a conflict of interest? No more than Pat Hardy, State Board of Education member who reviews the STAAR tests and promotes CSCOPE, stating that the CSCOPE assessments and STAAR tests are similar in type. Comment by Janice

Through the ‘Pearson Common Core Institute’, Wiggins provides instruction via several Pearson Common Core webinar videos. In one such webinar, Wiggins discusses “how issues of backward transfer relate to the Common Core”.

Why does the Texas SBOE give Pearson contracts to print GED material, all the STAARs, and then Texas allowed Pearson to purchase Texas online virtual education?

Pearson also supports TASA (Texas Association of School Administrators) who are working to implement common core into Texas schools.

‘Backward transfer’ (also commonly referred to as ‘backward design’ or ‘planning backwards’) is part of the Understanding by Design® framework for curriculum, assessment, and learning created by Wiggins and co-author, Jay McTighe, also a designer of CSCOPE.

As explained here and here, the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) is the progressive education reform movement behind both CSCOPE and Common Core. Grant Wiggins has worked with the Coalition of Essential Schools for many years, studying CES method and pedagogy, and incorporating them into the creation of his own curriculum and instruction design for use in CES schools. A staple of the CES reform model has long been the use of ’essential questions’ in identifying desired results of teacher instruction.

Stage one of Wiggins and McTighe’s backward design process is identifying essential questions.

In 2011 and 2012, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) partnered with ASCD (the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) to hold statewide summits in several states on the implementation of Common Core. Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design® was originally published by ASCD. Read about Texas ASCD’s involvement with the Coalition of Essential Schools and CSCOPE here and here. Also, read more about Wiggins and others behind the Coalition of Essential Schools at Name Names — The People Behind the Largest Progressive Indoctrination Movement in the U.S.

Source: http://danetteclark.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/cscope-curriculum-designer-employed-by-ccsso-partner-to-aid-in-implemention-of-common-core/

Tags: Common Core, Cscope, Curriculum, Danette Clark, ESC, Grant Wiggins, SCHOOLS, TASA, TESCCC, Texas

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TEXAS SCHOOLS TRASHING CSCOPE

Mar 20

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

Thank the grassroots for their hard work and involvement across the state. News today is two school districts in Texas are trashing Cscope. These districts are Lumberton ISD and Prosper ISD. Read the article below from David Bellow in regard to Lumberton ISD which is the school that had the students dress in Burqas.

BY DAVID BELLOW

Lumberton ISD Looks to Replace Flawed CSCOPE Curriculum. Thanks LISD! Other

Schools Should Follow

From the moment I first brought up the flawed Texas CSCOPE curriculum to the Lumberton School Board over two months ago, and through the national controversy over the Lumberton Muslim Burqa School Lesson a month ago, I never once blamed the Lumberton ISD School Board. They, like most people, did not realize the massive problems with CSCOPE. I personally know some of the board members and I know they are Christian Conservatives who would have never allowed CSCOPE at LISD if they would have known the secret problems within CSCOPE (pro communist lessons, incorrect answers, lack of transparency, bias against Christianity, calling Boston Tea Party Patriots Terrorists like 9/11 Terrorists).

Sometimes though, change is hard to get unless you really stir things up and expose enough problems. Although I did not blame the board, what I did do (via writing articles and contacting the school board) is I helped show the board, and the Lumberton community, that CSCOPE is very bad, and then pleaded with the board to take action.

I am very excited to say that the Lumberton School Board has listened andthey have formed a committee to examine how CSCOPE can be replaced at Lumberton ISD.

The Lumberton curriculum committee is to be made up of district employees, parents and other community members, and it will present its findings to the administration and board by the June school board meeting.

I encourage other parents and taxpayers in other Texas communities to do the same thing. Go to your local school board meetings, speak to the board and plead with them to stop using CSCOPE because of all of the problems. Then take it further, get a group together and start speaking louder. They might not listen to one voter, but they will listen when a group of voters starts demanding they do away with CSCOPE.

Tags: Cscope, Curriculum, David Bellow, Lumberton ISD, Lumberton School board, Texas GOP, Texas Grassroots, trash

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Gov Perry, Dewhurst, Abbott where are you on Cscope?

Mar 19

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

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

~Vladimir Lenin

One would never imagine that for the last seven years students all across the state of Texas have been indoctrinated with a pro communist, pro Islamic curriculum called CSCOPE. Here is a list of Cscope School districts in Texas. Why are our representatives so quiet on the subject? Do our children matter? Does our Freedom matter? I personally met with LT Gov. Dewhurst and showed him some of the curriculum within Cscope. Thankfully he led the Senate Education Committee into holding a Hearing on Cscope.

At this time it doesn’t look like the legislative session will be able to shut Cscope down. Having the SBOE review lessons does not fix the fact that Cscope is based on a Marxist Ideology where absolute truth is not taught and everything is relative. The Csope Assessments have nothing to do with the lessons that are given and children are frustrated and not doing well. How sad for their self esteem. At this moment I am with Glenn Beck, take your kids our of the Public School system and home school them. Our Public School system has become nothing but one bureaucratic mess where administrators are concerned with their pocket books and indoctrinating our children.

Governor Perry, Lt Gov Dewhurst & Attorney General Greg Abbott where are you on

CSCOPE? We conservatives and the tea party want to know! We want to hear from

you!

Tags: Attorney General Greg Abott, Communist, Cscope, Freedom, Gov Perry, Home School, INDOCTRINATION, Lt. Gov David Dewhurst, public school

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CSCOPE: Exposing The New Marxist Public School Curriculum

Mar 18

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

CURRENTLY BROWSING AUTHOR
Conservative Mom

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The liberal strategy for indoctrinating children is rather simple: it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. They teach revisionist history and Marxist ideology, make up excuses and promise “we’ll look into it” when the initial outrage arises, and then move right along as the protests die down. Even if they’re stopped temporarily, they never give up.

Under the Obama administration’s “Common Core” education takeover, Marxist curriculums like CSCOPE are being implemented across the country. Here are some of the lessons being taught to your children:

1. Islam is awesome

In a unit of high school world history, the online material students are given is essentially a paean to the greatness of Islam and its founder, Mohammed.

One portion involves open-ended discussion of the merits of the hijab — the face and body covering worn by many Muslim women (and under threat of arrest in Saudi Arabia and Iran). Perhaps high school students think the hijab is “freeing because it prevents others from making them into sexual objects.” Or perhaps they think the hijab suggests that “women need to be obscured so as not to arouse male desire.” Either way, it’s fine.

The widespread and ordinary mistreatment of women in Islamic countries — particularly Arab ones — is ignored. Texas high schoolers don’t learn, for example, that Jordan and other Islamic kingdoms have laws that pardon rapists if an arrangement can be reached for rapists and their victims to get married.

2. Christianity is a cult

Another portion of the materials on Islam lists several specific lessons that Muslims take from the example of Islam’s founder, such as “Be respectful of other religions.” Strangely, there does not appear to be any such lesson focused on, say, Moses or Jesus Christ.

Instead, the materials in another world history lesson inform students that Christianity is a cult that parallels the death and resurrection in the story of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead. The same material takes pains to point out that early Christians were accused of incest, cannibalism and other atrocities.

3. Communism is awesome

An illustration in a CSCOPE high school world history handout shows a figure with a trekking pole climbing steps made out of money. A chart immediately to the right concerns “big ideas” in 18th- and 19th-century economic thinking. At the bottom of the chart is free-market capitalism, where “all people strive to fulfill their own needs and wants,” and where government control and planning are low.

In the middle is socialism, where “the big things” in society (e.g., “telephones, roads, airports”) are “owned by the people.” “Can you think of other big stuff that should be covered?” the chart asks. (Note the loaded verb, “should.”)

At the top of the chart is communism, which the CSCOPE creators innocuously describe as “the idea of living together in a ‘commune’ where all people work together for everyone.” The chart manages to insult the Marxist vision of communism as well, by suggesting that government control and planning is highest under the system.

There is no mention of the nearly 100 million people who died in the 20th century under various self-described communist regimes around the world.

4. Hey kids! Let’s make communist flags

“Imagine a new socialist nation is creating a flag and you have been put in charge of creating a flag,” read the instructions from an activity that directs sixth graders to design a socialist or communist flag. “Use symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism on your flag.”

In the same lesson, students are also instructed that socialist utopian Robert Owen wanted to “give every child born into the world an equal chance to live and grow and to lead a happy life.”

No mention is made of the two socialist utopias Owen attempted to create, or how they ended up disastrously failed and disease-ridden.

5. The Boston Tea Party was a terrorist attack

A CSCOPE high school world history lesson plan Texas-schools-teach-boston-tea-party-as-act-of-terrorism/”>depicts the Boston Tea Party, the famous protest against taxation without representation, as an act of terrorism.

“A local militia, believed to be a terrorist organization, attacked the property of private citizens today at our nation’s busiest port,” the part of the curriculum pertaining to the Boston Tea Party reads. “Although no one was injured in the attack, a large quantity of merchandise, considered to be valuable to its owners and loathsome to the perpetrators, was destroyed. The terrorists, dressed in disguise and apparently intoxicated, were able to escape into the night with the help of local citizens who harbor these fugitives and conceal their identities from the authorities.”

Read more at the Daily Caller

The seeds have already been in a child’s mind, whether or not a parent objects with the material and tries to explain the truth to their child later. The child cannot unsee or unhear what he has been taught. He’s now trying to decide who to believe: mom and dad, or the teacher. Unfortunately, most students eventually begin to agree with the material being taught. Why? Because they are told that the older, “unenlightened” generation (i.e., parent) is probably too “close-minded” or doesn’t have all the facts of “new discoveries,” but they’re the young ones who know better. Nothing like stroking an ignorant kid’s ego to get him to swallow the bait.

Historian David Barton Breaks Down CSCOPE on the Glenn Beck show:

View on YouTube

Tiffany Gabbay reports at The Blaze:

To glean greater insight, Glenn Beck invited special guests David Barton and Pat Gray, along with teachers Mary Bowen, Stan Hartzler and Texas State Sen. Dan Patrick to discuss what is truly going on within their state’s education system.

Barton explained that CSCOPE is referred to as “instructional material” and not “curriculum,” therefore is not subject to regulation by the State Board of Education. The historian also brought in artifacts of Texas public school curriculum to showcase just how different it is today and to mark, year-by-year, the increasing application of political correctness in lesson plans.

Using a chart, Barton documented and mapped out core CSCOPE material, which eliminates national values, Americanism or rather, American exceptionalism, the study of federalism and majority rule (the core of our constitution) along with patriotic symbols like the Liberty Bell. Christopher Columbus, Rosh Hashanah and Christmas are all relegated to the dustbin along with American military history. Equality and a belief in justice is replaced by “fairness” and instruction on American propaganda and imperialism.

Disturbingly, Beck and Barton noted that the worst is yet to come. Showcasing a lesson plan for grades 1-3, Barton revealed CSCOPE’s list of “heroes,” which comprises a dozen secular progressives and only three conservatives or political moderates.

According to a previous report from TheBlaze, teachers complained that they were expected to deliver the curriculum verbatim and only on days allotted by the CSCOPE lesson plan. Even if students were unable to absorb the lesson, teachers were allegedly directed to progress to the next lesson regardless. TheBlaze also reported that teachers were “asked to sign a contract that would prevent them from revealing what was in the CSCOPE lessons or face civil and criminal penalties.”

Read more at The Blaze

What Teachers and Parents Can Do To Fight CSCOPE:

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Cross posted at ThoughtsFromAConservativeMom.com

Tags: Communist, Cscope, Curriculum, DAVID BARTON, Education, Glen Beck, Progressive, TESCCC, Texas, texas teachers

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Cscope poses National Security Threat?

Mar 17

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

Alice Linahan with Women on the Wall poses a question to Robert Spencer of www.jihadwatch.com about the possible National Security Threat posed by Obama’s Common Core Education Standards and Texas’s Progressive Curriculum CSCOPE.

Tags: Alice Linahan, Common Core Standards, Cscope, National Security Threat, Obama, Robert Spencer, TEXAS EDUCATION, Women on the Wall, www.jihadwatch.com

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Cscope, Pro Islam?

Mar 16

Posted by Ginger in Featured Post

Those responsible for Cscope are the Directors of the 20 Texas Education Service Centers in Texas. They formed a non-profit within a state agency with taxpayers money but have failed to release lessons or financials to the public. That alone should be cause for alarm among Texas parents, pastors and taxpayers across the state.

After researching Cscope for over a year you can take my word for it. Cscope is pro Islamic despite State Csocpe Director, Wade Labay’s attempt to cover this up. I originally found this Islamic Powerpoint along with this corresponding lesson that instructs the teacher to hand out verses of the Quran to the students. I personally showed this to Cscope Director Wade Labay in January/2012 which you can hear him deny it’s existence within Cscope though he had the powerpoint removed 3 days later.

Texas State Cscope Director Wade Labay

Numerous Texas School districts that have purchased Cscope have posted the following Memo in defense of Cscope. One portion states the following….

Does CSCOPE Promote Islam?

Absolutely not. This misunderstanding is based on lesson content that has been taken completely out of context. CSCOPE teaches the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) which are adopted by the 15 members of the SBOE. A number of the TEKS call for students to learn about and compare the various world religions. One of the religions addressed is Islam, and there is a lesson on the founding principles and history of the religion; just as there are lessons for Christianity, Judaism, and other major world religions. One part of the lesson on the basic tenets of Islam has been presented as what students are to learn about all religions, when in fact it simply describes what Muslims believe and what Islam teaches. (The lesson mentioned here is above with the powerpoint. Reminder this is the lesson calling for the teacher to hand out verses of the Qu’ran.)

Following are more examples of Cscope’s Pro Islamic content!

1) The following is from a Kindergarten lesson working to have children sympathizing with Muslim/Islam from Kindergarten and it continues through out the upper grades.

2) Kindergarten– Suggested book to read aloud to class….Salaam: a Muslim American boy’s story by Tricia Brown

3) 1st Grade. Lesson on Clara Barton….

The Red Crescent
The Red Crescent emblem was first used by ICRC volunteers during the armed conflict between Russia and Turkey
(1877–1878). The symbol was officially adopted in 1929, and so far 25 Islamic states have recognized it.
Originally, only the Red Cross was to be used as an emblem of the Geneva Conventions, but because it reminded
Muslims of the Crusaders, most of the Muslim nations (primarily the Ottoman Empire, later Turkey) objected to this, and
as a result an additional emblem (the Red Crescent) was to be provided for.
Though the crescent is traditionally associated with Islam, the Red Crescent is a color reversal of the Ottoman flag, which
was later adapted into the modern flag of Turkey, except that the Red Crescent does not have a star and is usually
centered on its white ground.
Iran also adopted the Red Crescent in 1980 after abandoning the Red Lion and Sun.

4) In a Six Grade Cscope lesson it has the students chart Ibn Battuta’s pilgrimage to Mecca & Medina.

5) Within one of Cscope’s “Instructional Focus Documents” which gives direction to the Teacher on presenting the TEKS to students we find the following….. Notice the 2nd bulleted point 2 it states “Qu’ran forbade forced Conversions so Muslims also allowed conquered people to retain their own religions“.

Nowhere in Cscope does it point out the persecutions that have and are taking place across the Middle East in the name of Islam. The following verses of the Qu’ran are not given to Texas Students to interpret. Cscope portrays Islam as just another peaceful religion.

Qur’an 9:29-Fight against Christians and Jews ”until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.”

Qur’an 4:91- If the unbelievers do not offer you peace, kill them wherever you find them. Against such you are given clear warrant.

. Qur’an 9:7-9-Don’t make treaties with non-Muslims. They are all evildoers and should not be trusted.

Qur’an 9:12-14-Fight the disbelievers! Allah is on your side; he will give you victory.

. Qur’an 9:5 Kill the nonbelievers wherever you find them.

Qur’an 2:191-2-Kill disbelievers wherever you find them. If they attack you, then kill them. Such is the reward of disbelievers.

Qur’an (5:51) – ”O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.”

Qur’an (2:65-66) Christians and Jews must believe what Allah has revealed to Muhammad or Allah will disfigure their faces or turn them into apes, as he did the Sabbath-breakers.

Qur’an (4:48, 4:116)-Those who ascribe a partner to Allah (like Christians do with Jesus and the Holy Spirit) will not be forgiven. They have “invented a tremendous sin.”

Qur’an (4:51)-Jews and Christians believe in idols and false deities, yet they claim to be more rightly guided than Muslims.

Qur’an (5:51) Don’t take Jews or Christians for friends. If you do, then Allah will consider you to be one of them.

Qur’an (5:80) – “You will see many of them befriending those who disbelieve; certainly evil is that which their souls have sent before for them, that Allah became displeased with them and in chastisement shall they abide.” Those Muslims who befriend unbelievers will abide in hell.

Qur’an (3:85) – ”And whoever desires a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted from him, and in the hereafter he shall be one of the losers.”

. Qur’an 9:6-Those who submit and convert to Islam will be treated well. (Those who don’t submit will be killed. See previous verse.)

Qur’an 5:53 Jews and Christians are losers.

Qur’an 5:59 Jews and Christians are evil-livers.

Qur’an 5:63 Evil is the handiwork of the rabbis and priests.

Qur’an 5:72 Christians will be burned in the Fire.

6) Cscope, Islam, Women and Sex

7) Cscope World History Islamic Propaganda-1

8) 6th Grade Lesson…. Islam Misconception that needs clarifying… ????

“Christianity and Islam are so similar lets not be deceived. This is the idea that Cscope hopes to portray.

9) Cscope says “Allah is the Only God”

10) The Middle East Lesson the lesson states the following…”Also, the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism is having an enormous impact as it recruits terrorists to free all oppressed Islamic people to carry out the Jihad.“

Tags: Cscope, Education, INDOCTRINATION, islam, Jihad, Pro Islam, TESCCC, Texas, WADE Labay

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LET’S TALK CSCOPE

Worst CSCOPE Lesson

BOOTS ON THE GROUND ACTION STEP

“F” For CSCOPE

WANT TO SEE WHAT CSCOPE AND COMMON CORE (EVEN HOMESCHOOLING)

LESSONS LOOK LIKE? THESE PARENTS OPENED UP TO THEBLAZE

PART II

Our children deserve better than this.

INDOCTRINATION AND DATA MINING IN COMMON CORE:

HERE’S WHY AMERICA’S SCHOOLS MAY BE IN MORE TROUBLE

THAN YOU THINK

What is it about Obama that makes him a good citizen in Cscope’s eyes?

Is it his?:

I call this INDOCTRINATION!

Texas Teacher Wears “Vote Obama” Shirt at Lumberton ISD and Posts Vulgar, Anti-

Christian/GOP/Fox News Pics on Twitter – Uses CSCOPE

CSCOPE Curriculum Designer Employed by CCSSO Partner to Aid in Implementing

Common Core

Lumberton ISD Looks to Replace Flawed CSCOPE Curriculum. Thanks LISD! Other

Schools Should Follow

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

Governor Perry, Lt Gov Dewhurst & Attorney General Greg Abbott where are you on

CSCOPE? We conservatives and the tea party want to know! We want to hear from

you!

Following are more examples of Cscope’s Pro Islamic content!

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