TOP

LET’S TALK CSCOPE… TX MARXIST CURRICULUM

Share Button

CSCOPE WRECK

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)

Share Button
Read More
TOP

CSCOPE TEACHES KIDS TO LIE TO PARENTS

Share Button

4-4-2013 11-45-40 PM

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.CSCOPE-Instructions-for-Manipulating-Parents

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.

us-government-propaganda

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

Share Button
Read More
TOP

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

Share Button

[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:

cscope flowchart

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  curriculumlesson 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.

Roy Morales Phonoscope 1 Roy Morales Phonoscope 2

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.

cscope flowchart

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

 

Share Button
Read More
TOP

WHAT are CSCOPE REPS HIDING?

Share Button

 

 


mask

 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.

4-1-2013 12-39-51 PM

 


4-1-2013 12-48-49 PM

 

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.

 

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. 

 

 

money

Our children deserve better than this. 

Share Button
Read More
TOP

Texas Students being Data Mined

Share Button

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:

Share Button
Read More
TOP

Cscope Students Tested On Sharia Law

Share Button

sharia

 

State Cscope Director Wade Laby and Texas Education Service Center Directors will continue to LIE and tell legislators, parents and communities that Cscope is not Pro Islamic but the mounting evidence proves otherwise. Below is a History  Cscope Assessment question  testing students on Sharia Law. SERIOUSLY!! THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!

Cscope aligns with the TEKS? Where in the Texas Teks is Sharia Law listed? It isn’t! If you have questions as to why Cscope is testing your child or grandchildren on Islamic Sharia Law email the State Cscope Director Wade Labay at Wade.Labay@esc13.txed.net and ask him why?

 

SHARIA

 

I have research Cscope for over a year. My first findings was this Islamic Powerpoint. Notice on the  Power point is dated 2008 on the bottom left of the front page. The  powerpoint accompanies this lesson titled The Islamic World which calls for the teacher to hand out verses of the Quran to the students.

 

Please get involved and contact your superintendents and those in your communities and inform them about Cscope. Hold town hall meetings to inform your community. Our children deserve better.

 

Those behind this Marxist, Pro Communist and Pro Islamic Curriculum, Cscope. 

 

SHARIA IN AFRICA: WOMAN BEING STONED TO DEATH

*GRAPHIC*

 by PAMELA GELLAR

There has been a concerted attempt lately to try to downplay the negative aspects of sharia law in order to mainstream its acceptance into Western legal systems. I think it’s important to show the reality of what sharia law entails in order for a wider audience to fully grasp its ramifications. Reading words on paper about how incompatible it is with Western law is wholly different from seeing innocent women being murdered for the slightest triviality. Video link here. (hat tip Golem)

 

PROGRESS

Afghan - Found-it-on-Facebook

Share Button
Read More
TOP

Cscope & Common Core

Share Button

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/

Share Button
Read More
TOP

CSCOPE: Exposing The New Marxist Public School Curriculum

Share Button

 

 

mARXIST

CURRENTLY BROWSING AUTHOR
Conservative Mom

 

 

 

 

View on YouTube

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 -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:

View on YouTube

Cross posted at ThoughtsFromAConservativeMom.com

Share Button
Read More
TOP

Cscope, Pro Islam?

Share Button

communist cscope

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. 
pork

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“. 

IFD

 

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. Islam

 

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.

 

communist cscope

 

 

Share Button
Read More
TOP

How Parents and Teachers can Stop Cscope

Share Button

‘LET GO OF THE SYSTEM’: HOW CAN PARENTS &

TEACHERS STOP CSCOPE?

 

By Tiffany Gabbay

The Blaze

On Thursday TheBlaze along with The Glenn Beck Program delved deeply into the controversial curriculum system sweeping Texas schools known as CSCOPE. From issuing gag orders on teachers to bar them from talking about lesson plans, to preventing parents from obtaining information about what their children are being taught, the way CSCOPE operates almost seems like a work of fiction. Disturbingly, it is not.

Following up on issues covered by his panel the night before, Beck on Friday discussed what teachers and parents can actually do to stop the effects of what’s being called an “oppressive” curriculum management system.

“The best thing is to educate yourself as a teacher on what it [CSCOPE] is,” Beck said. “As a parent, get your kids out of the public school system… Do not let another day go by with kids being indoctrinated.”

Historian and Texas native David Barton said parents should broach the subject with the curriculum directors of their children’s schools and engage the school superintendent.

“Teach kids what is right,” Barton said.

Barton and Pat Gray both said it’s important for parents and teachers to focus on their school boards and, more pointedly, the local election process, because citizens are most effective at the local level.

Barton explained that CSCOPE is operating outside of Texas, typically under the generic Common Core standards name and that there are variations of CSCOPE in other states.

The public education and traditional university system is “killing our ingenuity,” Beck said.

He noted that there have been many successful people, including famed CEOs and entrepreneurs, who did not go the route of traditional education. Beck qualified that wasn’t saying education is not important, but that the system by which it’s sometimes delivered can be inherently flawed.

“Don’t let go of education, but let go of the system,” Beck said. “You can think out of the box.”

Share Button
Read More
TOP

Cscope…Bloom’s Taxonomy..

Share Button


Bloom’s Taxonomy, Lower Order of Thinking in Texas Schools 

 

By Cathy Wells

Statue of The Thinker

Social constructivist philosophy tries quite hard to produce what is deemed “higher order
thinking skills.” Another semantical game is being played here because, honestly, what parent
is going to say, “I don’t want my child to have thinking skills!” Indeed, I can also say that I
certainly want my children to graduate from high school with some critical thinking skills (we
used to call that common sense). But how are these thinking skills to be achieved? What
makes them “higher?” What is meant by “higher order thinking skills?” Again, let us begin by
defining terms.
Parents might say that “thinking skills” would be something akin to common sense, scrutiny,
discernment, or ability to think under pressure. What does this term mean to the social
constructivist? This will take awhile. Higher order thinking skills theory is based on Bloom’s
Taxonomy. Who is Bloom? Benjamin Bloom was a behavioral psychologist (I hope you are
noticing how much behavioral psychology is popping up in education) who developed a
taxonomy or “breaking down into small units and naming” of what he considered to be typical
and necessary thinking skills or educational objectives. So, when we ask what is the point of
education, to social constructivists, the point is to achieve all of Bloom’s taxonomilogical goals.
Just so you know, just about all modern educational theory is based on this taxonomy and every
teacher is familiar with it. (Consequently, it is very difficult to get teachers to think outside this
paradigm thought we did very well without it for most of educational history and it seems to
have led us down a very rocky path.)
Bloom listed six separate levels of thinking skills: knowledge, comprehension, application,
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The last three of these are the “higher order” thinking skills.
Now let me pause a moment to say that, if you study this list, it seems rather logical. In any
area, we must first acquire knowledge, then understanding, learn how to apply those, analyze
any mistakes we make, fuse all of that knowledge together, and ultimately become expert at it
and be able to teach it to someone else. The problem comes in with this: In 1987, the National
Research Council announced that these skills don’t need to be acquired IN ORDER and should,
in fact, be acquired out of order. They suggested that we begin implementing higher order
thinking skills in elementary school.
As a classical educator, I immediately see the folly of this approach. We used to have what
were called “grammar” schools because those were the buildings in which we loaded basic facts
into children: their “knowledge.” As they moved into middle schools, they began to acquire
comprehension and application. In high school, we moved them toward “higher thinking
skills.” This is, coincidentally, how the brain is hard-wired. The concrete stage of development
comes first during those first six years of school. Then the abstract stage begins where students
start synthesizing the facts they’ve learned and applying them to life. Finally, they move on to a
stage in which they can discuss, argue, or teach a point as needed. That is a traditional/classical
approach to education.
What CSCOPE and other curricula have managed to do is completely confuse students by
trying to jumble all of the different levels of skills as per the recommendations of the NRC and
other research. The end result is akin to tasking someone with making a croissant dough by first
evaluating the end product, the process, and the dough itself without giving you a recipe or
ingredients list.
I very much doubt that any parents of Texas students would approve of this methodology if they
knew about it. And as those of us left here in Texas who still have a modicum of common
sense know, “That dog won’t hunt.”

 

 

After reading the above article I googled Cscope and Blooms Taxonomy and found the Cscope power point below created by Paula-Pemberton-Kelm  from Texas Education Service Center VI.

 

CSCOPE POWERPOINT ON BLOOMS TAXONOMY

Blooms

 

 

 

Share Button
Read More
TOP

Cscope & State Employees try to Intimidate Private Citizens

Share Button

INTIMIDATE

 

One would never believe an attempt at doing a good deed of tutoring children would lead you to discover a Marxist/Communist takeover of Texas Schools (public, charter and private).  Well that is what happened to retired Science Author Janice VanCleave.   VanCleave who began to question what was going on when refused by her local school district of Marlin, Texas and the Texas Education Service Center XII in Waco access to lessons to help tutor the children who had no textbooks. The lessons were locked behind a password protected online curriculum called Cscope and lessons were barred from being released or viewed.

After further research it was discovered the Marxist philosophy behind Cscope and numerous lessons with a bias toward Communism pro Islam content. The takeover I would say has become one of the biggest education scandals in Texas History due to the number of school districts involved. Is your local school district using Cscope? Check HERE.

VanCleave (mom) and I have been working overtime this past year exposing the Cscope Corruption in our Texas Schools. I guess you can say we have received our gold crown in this fight. Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC) who owns Cscope has made a powerpoint now listing three of their critics, two being mom and I, Janice VanCleave and Ginger Russell along with Ann Kunkel.  I may be wrong but do Govt Agencies  usually come out calling out their critics (private citizens) by name. VanCleave and I both testified before the State Board of Education and the Texas Senate Education Committee in regard to our concerns with Cscope.  Are the owners of Cscope (TESCCC) they now intimidating government witnesses?

Following is their power-point presentation for this upcoming Summer Cscope Conference. Cscope Powerpoint Intimidating Citizens? 

This is slide 8 in the power-point.

Intimidate Cscope

 

 

 

Why would they list their critics in their Summer Conference promotion? Are they having trouble getting speakers due to the fact the Cscope is now exposed for what it is, Control the Teacher, Eliminate the Parent and Indoctrinate the Children. 

Unfortunately this isn’t the first time Cscope Reps have tried intimidation to shut their opposition down. I spoke at Willis ISD board meeting about Cscope not knowing the Cscope Representative from ESC VI, Linday McCulloch was in the room. She spoke after me but does not reveal her true identity or where she works.

You can read more about that night HERE. 

 

In another attempt to alert community leaders, teachers and superintendents to my concerns with Cscope.  I emailed superintendent Dan Powell with Crowley ISD and received the following response….Dan.

 

This is absolute non-sense! You are either crazy or ridiculously mistaken. As a Christian and patriotic American, I am most offended by your lies!  Take me off your mailing list immediately, and find a shrink. 

                                                                                  Dan Powell

 

I have also made attempts to speak before the board of directors of Texas Education Service Center VI. Assistant Director Brett Hawkins told me “You are not going to tear apart something they have implemented”.

bhawkins

 

 

I

 

 

For more information on Cscope go to WWW.TXCSCOPEREVIEW.COM

 

 

I have been using twitter for months in an attempt to alert parents across the state about Cscope. State workers are finding it a way to slander my mother Janice VanCleave and myself. Debbie Smith from Texas Education Service Center VI has left me the following tweets.

Debbie Smith

Debbie Smith

Debbie Smith

 

 

I sent the following email to teachers, community members etc.. Below this email are responses I received from school employees. The reactions I get have bring me to wonder why is there such a “LOVE” for Cscope?

 

Attention Teachers, Parents, Taxpayers

We have a curriculum in over 70% of Texas Schools called Cscope that is based on a Marxist/Communist Philosophy of Collectivism. Has your local school district purchased it? Check HERE.

 

Senator Dan Patrick held an Senate Education Committee Hearing on Cscope January 31st. Here is his statement. 

 

Teachers, if school administration is holding your feet to the fire and demanding that you teach Cscope please contact Senator Patrick @dan.patrick@senate.state.tx.us. or you can contact us HERE anonymously. 

 

Cscope has come under heavy scrutiny after finding out that teachers were required to sign a DULA where they would not release the contents or say anything negative about it. It was also discovered that pro Islamic content and pro communistic lessons are being taught. 

 

For information on Cscope you can go to www.txcscopereview.com or www.redhotconservative.com

 

CSCOPE =CONROL the TEACHERS, ELIMINATING the PARENTS & INDOCTRINATE CHILDREN. 

Responses.  

 

Sara Martinez Superintendent Secretary at Valley Mills ISD sent me the following response in my attempt to alert the community about Cscope.

 

 

 

You have your own personal agenda to make money selling your product therefore you want everyone to do away with C-Scope to buy your Science Curriculum. I was taught about communism, socialism and Islam etc. when I was in High School in my World History Class. THIS IS OK BECAUSE IT IS A PART OF OUR WORLD HISTORY therefore it is not a surprise that they included lessons about these in the C-SCOPE curriculum. I do not have any interest in reading the way you twist things to benefit your cause please remove me from your mailing list. 

Thanks,

Sara Martinez

Valley Mills ISD

 

 

Valley Mills ISD Business Manager Brenda Byrom sent me the following emails.

 

 

I don’t know where you get your information or how you can so distort an issue as much as you are doing.

I suppose when I was a student in public schools and our textbooks taught us about Hitler and Stalin that they were teaching us about communism and we should have burned the textbooks.

Your email is ridiculous and I want to be removed from your email list.

Brenda Byrom

Before you send out emails regarding education, you might want to check your grammar.  The school that I attended and the one that taught my kids, made sure that we could type a coherent sentence.  Obviously the one you attended did not, two sentences and neither one of them is correct.  Lady you are a JOKE!!!!!!  You do not have any idea how stupid you sound and how much of an idiot that your emails make you appear to be.

 

idiot

 Dr. Cathy Moak is the Component Director for School Transformation and Digital Learning at ESC 6

 

Share Button
Read More
TOP

Cscope Directors “GO TO JAIL”

Share Button

Go to JailThose Responsible for Cscope, “Go To Jail”

The men and women on the Board of Directors of Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC), who own Cscope, the progressive/Marxist curriculum in Texas Schools  in my opinion need to be in jail. What a nefarious act to implement a Marxist philosophy of education in our Texas schools for the last 6–7 years where parents could not see the lessons and teachers had to sign a non-disclosure statement that they would not release the contents or say anything negative about it. Then we have the question of where is all this money. Is this another ENRON situation a ponzi scheme. For our Texas Education Service Center Directors to form a non-profit using tax payers money to create their “Cscope” product and sell it out of our of our State Agencies using State employees? There are many questions that have not been answered. This is ESC Director XIII Terry Smith’s response  being questioned as the money trail.

Communist Vladimir Lenin once quoted Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted”. Unfortunately for millions of Texas school children and unbeknownest to their parents Texas students have sat under the Marxist philosophy of the Cscope Curriculum.

I have spent the last year trying to notify community leaders, parents through every social media sight I could find. I have met with Cscope reps and spoke at Willis ISD school Board Meeting only to be lambasted by a Cscope Coordinator from ESC Region VI.  You can read the whole story HERE. 

I emailed teachers and school staff about my concerns and Superintendent Dan Powell from Crowley ISD in his most professional manner sent me the following response.

This is absolute non-sense! You are either crazy or ridiculously mistaken. As a Christian and patriotic American, I am most offended by your lies!  Take me off your mailing list immediately, and find a shrink.  Dan Powell

Dan.

 If you feel like contacting Mr. Powell about your concerns in regard to Cscope his email is dan.powell@crowley.k12.tx.us

 

 

 

 

Action Item….Texans we have to contact our State Reps and have them sign onto Steve Toth’s HB 760 or this will happen again.

Additional Information on Cscope can be found @ TXCSCOPEREVIEW

Share Button
Read More
TOP

Open Records Request for Cscope Financials

Share Button

bag_of_money

    Freshman Texas House Representative Steve Toth has released the following press release stating that his office as filed an open records request for the financials and meeting minutes of the  Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC) who owns the controversial Texas Curriculum, Cscope. Cscope has come under fire lately from the Texas Senate Education Committee due to the grassroots effort of exposing the progressive/Marxist curriculum. Cscope has been in the Texas school system for the last 6-7 years without parent or community knowledge due to the stealth tactics taken by the board of directors of TESCCC of not releasing lesson content to parents and having teachers sign a non-disclosure statement that they would not release material or say anything negative about it. For information on Cscope check out TXCSCOPEREVIEW.COM

Steve Toth Press Release

Share Button
Read More
TOP

Christopher Columbus Goes Green?

Share Button

The Green Christopher Columbus

 

Revisionist History has become the norm in Texas schools with the use of a curriculum called Cscope. Does your school district use it? Check HERE.

One of the Cscope lessons takes the liberty of removing excerpts from Christopher Columbus’s journal entries where he admires God’s creation and beauty to use them in support of the environmentalist goals of the United Nations Agenda 21.

Below is the exact title to Christopher Columbus’ journal entries and one of the entries that Cscope reps have cherry picked words out of to support their environmental agenda for the purpose of  indoctrinating Texas students. The highlighted areas are the cherry picked words removed as you will see below.

IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST

Cscope revisionist History of Christopher Columbus

 

lesson with attachments.

CSCOPE’S REVISION

CSCOPE'S REVISIONIST

 

Cscope has found it acceptable to track Islamic Scholar Ibn Battuata pilgrimage to Mecca.  Learn more about that lesson HERE.

 

You can learn more about Cscope @ www.txcscopereview.com

redhotconservative.com

 

More on the United Nations Agenda 21 @ FreedomAdvocates.org

Glenn Beck on Agenda 21

 

GLENN BECK’S BOOK ON AGENDA 21, though fictional it is thought provoking and makes wonder what our world will one day become if we don’t change course.

Glenn' Beck's Agenda 21

Agenda 21

Share Button
Read More
TOP

TX Cscope students chart “PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA”

Share Button

Ibn Battuta

 

American Exceptionalism will no longer exist in the minds of our children.  Texas has  joined     ranks with the leftist agenda in indoctrinating our children with a progressive ideology. Over 70% of Texas public schools, some private and charter have purchased and implemented the progressive curriculum,  Cscope. Cscope is based on Obama’s Common Core.  Common Core advocate Linda Darling Hammond is a top education adviser to Obama and is also associated with communist revolutionary Bill Ayers.  Linda Darling Hammond has been a guest speaker at Cscope Conferences and is the quest speaker this February in California for the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) National Conference. Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) is gearing up to attend the National Conference and hear Linda Darling Hammond speak and promote Common Core which, Texas rejected. There fees and travel plans will be paid for with your tax dollars.

Cscope is owned by Texas Education Service Center’s Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC).  The men and women behind Cscope are the Board of Directors of TESCCC which are the directors of the Texas Education Service Centers excluding ESC 4.

Our children are not being taught about the great men and women who sacrificed their lives for this country nor or they taught that these sacrifices attribute to the FREEDOM we have been so fortunate to enjoy.Instead our children are being indoctrinated  with a pro Islamic, anti christian view. Texas students could benefit greatly from studying the lives of great men such as  Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abe Lincoln or better yet the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul. Unfortunately for our children Cscope writers felt it more important that 6 grade students chronicle Islamic Scholar Ibn Battuta’s pilgrimage to Mecca and  Mohammad’s tomb in Medina. The fact that Cscope is pushing a pro Islamic view is indisputable.  Time after time their agenda is exposed, and as soon as it is, the Cscope Reps run to pull the exposed material with a flip of a switch (due to it being an online curriculum). Fortunately there are many concerned about this indoctrination of our children that have already captured the original Cscope documents in order to verify Cscope’s intentions. Here is another captured portion of a 6 grade lesson indicating Cscope reps true intentions to indoctrinate your children with a pro Islamic view.

Cscope Pro Islam View

Cscope Pro Islam View

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For additional information on Cscope and it’s indoctrination go to WWW.TXCSCOPEREVIEW.COM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Share Button
Read More
TOP

CSCOPE GAG ORDER

Share Button

TEXAS  CSCOPE TEACHERS ARE GAGGED AND CHAINED INTO NOT DISCLOSING THEIR CSCOPE

CURRICULUM OR SAYING ANYTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT IT. 

CSCOPE IS AN ONLINE CURRICULUM. PARENTS HAVE NOT BEEN ALLOWED TO SEE IT. BELOW IS A

COPY OF THE NONDISCLOSURE STATEMENT THAT HAS TO SIGNED ELECTRONICALLY ONLINE

WITH OUT LEGAL COUNSEL.

 

YOU CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT CSCOPE AT WWW.TXCSCOPEREVIEW.COM

 

Welcome to our CSCOPE website. Please review the following terms of use carefully. These terms of use are a legally binding contract between you, as the user of this website, and the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative, a Texas nonprofit corporation (“TESCCC” or “our” or “we” or “us”). It applies to your use of the Site and all information, media, content, printed materials and electronic documentation accessible from www.mycscope.us or any of its sub-domains (collectively, the “Site”). The Site may only be accessed by specific individuals (“Authorized Users”).

1. Acceptance of Terms of Use. By accessing or using the Site, you are agreeing to comply with and be bound by the following terms of use (“Terms of Use” or “Agreement”). If you do not agree to these terms, do not use this Site. We reserve the right to change the Terms of Use any time by reasonable notice, including without limitation by posting revised Terms of Use on the Site (which shall constitute reasonable notice). All amended Terms of Use shall be binding upon you immediately upon their posting on the Site. Thus, you should consult the most recent version of these Terms of Use each time you view the Site. Failure to abide by these Terms of Use will give TESCCC the right to immediately and automatically terminate this Agreement, may result in the infringement of the copyrights and trademarks owned by TESCCC or its licensors, and may result in civil liabilities and criminal penalties. We reserve the right to investigate complaints or reported violations of this Agreement and to take any action that we deem appropriate, in our sole discretion.

2. Copyright and Trademark Rights. The content, curriculum, organization, graphics, design, photographs, images, text, audio/visual clips, tutorials, sound records, compilations, magnetic translations, digital conversion and other materials located on the Site (the “Content”) are protected under applicable copyright, trademark and other proprietary and intellectual property rights. In addition, “CSCOPE” is our common law and registered service mark and trademark. We own this mark and any other trademarks, service marks, slogans and logos (the “Marks”) used and displayed on the Site. Please note:

You are prohibited from copying, saving to a disk or hard drive, redistributing, using or publishing any portion of the Site, except as allowed by Section 3.

You do not have any ownership rights to any Content or other materials viewed on or generated by the use of the Site. Your posting of information or materials on the Site does not constitute a waiver by TESCCC of any right in such information and materials.

Posting the Content on other websites is strictly prohibited.

If you create any materials based on any portion of the Content, you must give full attribution to TESCCC and you must include all copyright and other proprietary notices contained in this Agreement or in the Content.

3. Limited License; Permitted Uses. You are granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to:

access and use the Site strictly in accordance with this Agreement, as well as the terms and conditions contained in any other agreement entered into between you, TESCCC and/or any entity by which you are employed or with which you contract;

use the Site solely for purposes of furthering the educational goals of the public schools that are licensees, either in their own right or through their independent school district (“ISD”) or TESCCC;

print out and modify Content solely for these purposes in accordance with this Agreement;

modify the Content and create derivative works from the Content as long as you comply with Section 2. All modifications and derivative works belong to TESCCC; and

share the Content you have modified with others only if they are Authorized Users.

No other use of the Site or Content is authorized. Other than this license, you do not have, whether by implication, estoppel or otherwise, any license, title, or ownership of or to any intellectual property rights of TESCCC or any third party.

4. Restrictions and Prohibitions on Use. Your license for access and use of the Site and Content is subject to the following restrictions and prohibitions on use:

Except as permitted by Section 3, you shall not copy, save to disk or hard drive, print, republish, display, distribute, transmit, sell, loan or otherwise make the Content or any portion of the Content available in any form or by any means.

You shall not use any Content in any manner that may violate or infringe any copyright, intellectual property right, proprietary right, privacy right, personal right or property right of TESCCC or any third party.

You shall not remove, change or obscure any copyright notice or other proprietary notices contained in any portion of the Site.

You shall not make any portion of the Site available through any timesharing system, service bureau, the Internet or any other technology now existing or developed in the future.

You shall not remove, decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer any Site software or use any network monitoring or discovery software to determine the Site architecture.

You shall not use any automatic or manual process to harvest information from the Site.

You must comply with all applicable local, domestic and international laws, statutes, rules, policies, procedures ordinances and regulations imposed by any government entity, school district or other public agency regarding your use of the Site and the Content provided on the Site.

Your right to use the Site and the Content is not transferable or assignable. Any password or right given to you to obtain Content is not transferable or assignable.

You shall not use the Site to create Content or make statements that are defamatory, libelous, threatening, harassing, invasive of privacy, stalking, harassment, abusive, tortuous conduct, hateful, discriminatory based on race, ethnicity, gender, sex or disability, pornographic or obscene.

You shall not use the Site to interfere with or disrupt any services or equipment with the intent of causing an excessive or disproportionate load on the Site or its licensors or suppliers’ infrastructure.

You shall not knowingly distribute viruses, Trojan horses, worms, or other similar harmful or programming routines.

You shall not take any action that would involve the unauthorized entry to any machine accessible via the Site or interference with the Site or any servers or networks connected to the Site or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to the Site, or attempt to breach the security of or disrupt Internet communications on the Site (including without limitation accessing data to which you are not the intended recipient or logging into a server or account for which you are not expressly authorized).

You shall not impersonate any person or entity, including, without limitation, one of TESCCC’s or other entities’ officers or employees, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity or commit any fraudulent act.

You shall not forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any information transmitted through the Site.

You shall not collect or store personal data about other account users or attempt to gain access to other account users’ accounts or otherwise mine information about other account users or about the Site.

You shall not execute any form of network monitoring or run a network analyzer or packet sniffer or other technology to intercept, decode, mine or display any packets used to communicate between the Site’s servers or any data not intended for you.

You shall not attempt to circumvent authentication or security of any Content, host, network or account (“cracking”) on or from the Site.

You shall not take any action contrary to TESCCC’s public image, goodwill, reputation or mission or otherwise not in furtherance of the intended uses of the Site.

5. Account Set Up and Requirements. In order to access the Site, you or the school district or other employer for whom you work must create an account. Establishing your account is subject to the following rules:

To register for an account, you must provide your first name, last name, and a valid school or organization email address. Account creation will be coordinated by your organization, your Educational Service Center (ESC), or 3rd Learning. Upon creation of your account, you will receive an email with the appropriate login credentials. You are responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your password and protecting against unauthorized use of your password.

At your initial login, you will be asked whether you have read this Agreement and whether you agree to abide by its terms. If you do not agree to abide by the terms, you will not be permitted to access the site.

You may be asked specific questions if you are seeking to use certain features of the Site, and your answers to those questions will determine whether or not you are eligible to register for those features. If you answer “I agree” and you answer all of the questions posed for each feature and otherwise are eligible, your account may be activated. If you answer “I Do Not Agree” or otherwise do not answer all of the questions or otherwise are not eligible, your account will not be activated and you will not be permitted to access the Site.

We reserve the right to decline to activate an account for any person for any reason.

If your account is activated, you will receive a notification email immediately after you register. You must confirm your email address by clicking on the confirmation link in the notification email. Once you have confirmed your email address, you will be permitted to log in, view, load, post and use the specific features of the Site for which you have been registered. By making such confirmation, you acknowledge that you have read, understand your rights and obligations under, and agree to be bound by this Agreement.

You acknowledge that certain features will be provided subject to additional terms of use (or a separate written agreement) and you agree to abide by such additional terms of use.

You are responsible for all activities by you or others that occur under your password and user name. You will immediately notify us if your password is lost, stolen, disclosed to an unauthorized third party or otherwise has been compromised or if there is any other breach of security.

You must ensure that you exit from your account at the end of each session. You will be permitted to access only those portions of the Site that you have been granted permission to use.

You must provide true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself as prompted by our account activation form and maintain and promptly update your account information to keep it accurate and complete. If you provide any information that is inaccurate or incomplete, or if we have reasonable grounds to suspect that such account information is inaccurate or incomplete, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account and refuse any and all current or future use of all or any portion of the Site.

6. Message Boards & Other Public Forums Message Boards & Other Public Forums TESCCC may offer certain functionality on the Site, including message boards, blogs, chat rooms, instant messaging and other public forums. Your participation in these items is voluntary. However, any information or content provided by you will not be treated as private or confidential and you authorize us and our affiliates and licensees to use the content you post, without compensation to you or others. TESCCC may copy, reproduce, incorporate, distribute, publicly display or otherwise use any information you post as we deem appropriate throughout the world in any format or media (whether now know or hereafter created). TESCCC reserves the right to edit, refuse to post or remove content you submit. To the extent permitted under applicable law, you waive and release and covenant not to assert any moral rights that you may have in any content posted by you. By posting content on the Site, you represent to TESCCC that you own or have the right to use and permit TESCCC to use the content as permitted by this Agreement. You agree not to post any content that belongs to any person other than yourself or that contains the name, voice or likeness of any person other than yourself unless you first obtain written permission to do so from that person. TESCCC has no obligation to delete content that you personally may find objectionable or offensive. We do not control the information posted and we do not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of such information. We do not endorse or make any warranties or representations with regard to the accuracy, completeness or timeliness of any content posted on any public forum on the Site.

7. Personal Page. While accessing or using the Site, you may be provided access to a personal web page that can be personalized with your own content (a “Personal Page”). Your Personal Page may have several features, such as a personal URL at a sub-domain or URL as may be designated by TESCCC, reports and email address book. Your use of the Personal Page may require your agreement and compliance with supplemental terms at the time that you register for a Personal Page.

8. Availability of Site. TESCCC reserves the right to establish general practices and limits concerning the Site and user accounts at any time and may modify such practices and limits at its sole discretion, including without limitation the maximum number of days that your or any third party’s information, pictures, content or email will be retained and the maximum amount of disk space that will be allotted on our or our vendors’ servers on your behalf. TESCCC has no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to deliver or store your Personal Page or any other public forum, or any information, pictures, content or email provided by or stored by you on your Personal Page or any other public forum, regardless of whether the deletion or failure was due to the established practices or as a result of our error, intentional misconduct, or negligence. TESCCC reserves the right to log off accounts that are inactive for a period of time designated by TESCCC and reserves the right at any time, and from time to time, to modify or discontinue, either temporarily or permanently, your access to the Site, or any part thereof, with or without notice. You agree that we shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any such modification, suspension or discontinuance of your access to the Site.

9. Errors, Corrections and Changes. TESCCC does not represent or warrant that the Site will be error free, free of viruses or other harmful components, or that defects will be corrected. We may make changes to the features, functionality or Content at any time. We reserve the right in our sole discretion to edit or delete any documents, information or other Content.

10. Use of Submissions. We reserve the right, and you authorize us, to use and assign all information regarding Site uses by you and all information provided by you in any manner consistent with our Privacy Policy. All remarks, suggestions, ideas, graphics, or other information about the Content or the Site (or any service, information, content or documentation therein) communicated by you to us (collectively, a “Submission”) and all intellectual property rights from the date of creation or inception will forever be our property. We will not be required to treat any Submission as confidential, and will not be liable to you or others for any ideas (including without limitation, Content or ideas) comprising Submissions, all of which may be freely used by us without compensation, accounting or restrictions, and we will not incur any liability as a result of any similarities that may appear in our future products, services or operations. Without limitation, we will have exclusive ownership of all present and future existing rights to each Submission of every kind and nature everywhere. We will be entitled to use the Submission for any commercial or other purpose whatsoever, without compensation or accounting to you or any other person. You acknowledge that you are responsible for whatever material you submit, and you have sole responsibility for the content thereof, including its legality, reliability, appropriateness, originality, accuracy, and copyright.

11. Term & Termination. This Agreement is effective from the date you first access the Site, and continues in effect until terminated in accordance with this Agreement.

TESCCC may terminate your access to the Site without prior notice if: (i) you breach this Agreement; (ii) any government agency so directs; (iii) technical or security issues occur; or (iv) the District User License Agreement under which you are an Authorized User terminates.

On termination, TESCCC may immediately deactivate or delete your account and all related information, files or content in your account and bar any access to such information or content by you or others. TESCCC shall not be obligated to return or provide copies of any information, files or content in your account to you upon deactivation. TESCCC shall not be liable to any third party for any deactivation of your access to the Site.

Upon termination, neither you nor TESCCC will have any further obligation to the other under this Agreement except for liability arising prior to the effective date of termination. Your obligations under this Agreement, which by their nature are intended to survive termination (such as indemnification) shall survive the termination of your access to the Site.

12. Notice of Claims of Intellectual Property Violations. The Content may include pictures, information, testimonials, letters, marks, slogans and other content uploaded or provided by third parties or otherwise received from third parties. TESCCC does not permit the use of Content that infringes on the copyright or trademarks or rights of publicity of others, and will remove any such content that violates the copyright or trademarks or other rights of others if properly notified of such violation in accordance with the procedure set forth in this Agreement. If you believe that any of the Content infringes your copyright or trademark rights or your rights of publicity, please provide TESCCC (whose contact information provided below) with the following information:

1. a physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;

2. identification of the copyrighted work or mark or publicity right claimed to have been infringed, or, if you believe that multiple works, marks or publicity rights have been infringed, a representative list of such works, marks or publicity rights;

3. identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit TESCCC to locate the material;

4. information reasonably sufficient to permit TESCCC to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which you may be contacted;

5. a statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the owner, its agent, or the law; and

6. a statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of a right that is allegedly infringed.

TESCCC’s agent for the notice of any claim of infringement of any copyright or trademark or right of publicity is as follows:

By email: info@cscope.us,

By mail: Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative Attention: Wade Labay 5701 Springdale Road Austin, Texas 78723

Please provide all of the information requested above. No specific form is required to provide TESCCC with notifications of possible infringement. However, it will take TESCCC longer to process your notice if any of this information is not provided, and in some cases, we may not be able to process your notice. Also please note that, due to security concerns, attachments cannot be accepted. Accordingly, any notification of possible infringement submitted electronically with an attachment will not be received or processed.

13. Disclaimer. THE SERVICES, INFORMATION, CONTENT AND DOCUMENTS FROM OR THROUGH THE SITE ARE PROVIDED “AS IS,” “AS AVAILABLE,” WITH “ALL FAULTS,” AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE DISCLAIMED (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE DISCLAIMER OF ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE). THE INFORMATION, CONTENT AND DOCUMENTATION MAY CONTAIN BUGS, ERRORS, PROBLEMS OR OTHER LIMITATIONS. THERE IS NO WARRANTY, REPRESENTATION OR GUARANTEE THAT THE SITE WILL CONTINUOUSLY OPERATE OR BE ERROR FREE OR THAT ANY PROBLEMS WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT ANY INFORMATION, SOFTWARE OR OTHER MATERIAL ACCESSIBLE FROM THE SITE IS FREE OF VIRUSES, WORMS, TROJAN HORSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS. FURTHER, WE DO NOT WARRANT, GUARANTEE, OR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OF, OR THE RESULTS OF THE USE OF THE SITE EITHER IN TERMS OF ITS COMPATIBILITY WITH HARDWARE OR OTHER SOFTWARE, ITS RELIABILITY, CURRENTNESS, OR OTHERWISE; AND YOU RELY ON THE SITE SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. WE AND OUR AFFILIATED PARTIES HAVE NO LIABILITY WHATSOEVER FOR YOUR USE OF ANY SERVICE, INFORMATION, CONTENT OR DOCUMENTATION, EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN SECTION 14. IN PARTICULAR, BUT NOT AS A LIMITATION, WE AND OUR AFFILITATED PARTIES ARE NOT LIABILITY FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS, LOSS OF PROFITS, LITIGATION, OR THE LIKE), WHETHER BASED ON BREACH OF CONTRACT, BREACH OF WARRANTY, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), PRODUCT LIABILITY OR OTHERWISE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBLITY OF SUCH DAMAGES AND EVEN IF THE REMEDIES STATED IN THIS AGREEMENT FAIL OF THEIR ESSENTIAL PURPOSE. THE NEGATION AND LIMITATION OF DAMAGES SET FORTH IN THIS SECTION 13 ARE FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS OF THE BASIS OF THE BARGAIN BETWEEN YOU AND US. THIS SITE AND THE CONTENT, DOCUMENTS AND INFORMATION PRESENTED WOULD NOT BE PROVIDED WITHOUT SUCH LIMITATIONS. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM US THROUGH THE SITE OR OTHERWISE SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY, REPRESENTATION OR GUARANTEE NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THIS AGREEMENT. ALL RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY FOR ANY DAMAGES CAUSED BY VIRUSES CONTAINED WITHIN THE ELECTRONIC FILE CONTAINING A FORM OR DOCUMENT IS DISCLAIMED.

14. Limitation of Liability.

Neither TESCCC nor any Affiliated Party shall be liable for any loss, injury, claim, liability, or damage of any kind resulting in any way from: (i) any errors in or omissions on the Site or in the Content; (ii) the unavailability or interruption of the Site or any features thereof; (iii) your use of the Site; (iv) the Content; or (v) any delay or failure in performance beyond the control of TESCCC or any Affiliated Party.

THE AGGREGATE LIABILITY OF TESCCC AND THE AFFILIATED PARTIES TO YOU AND OTHERS USING THE SITE UNDER THE SAME DISTRICT USER LICENSE AGREEMENT, IN THE AGGREGATE, IN CONNECTION WITH ANY CLAIM ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE CONTENT, THE SITE, THE CONTENT AND THE SERVICES PROVIDED UNDER THIS AGREEMENT SHALL NOT EXCEED AN AMOUNT EQUAL TO THE AMOUNT PAID UNDER YOUR DISTRICT USER LICENSE AGREEMENT IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING THE BREACH AND THAT AMOUNT SHALL BE IN LIEU OF ALL OTHER REMEDIES WHICH YOU MAY HAVE AGAINST US AND ANY AFFILIATED PARTY.

15. Governing Law. This Agreement, and all related matters, shall be governed by Texas law and United States law. Any action arising out of any dispute with respect to this Agreement shall only be brought in the state or federal courts located in Travis County, Texas. You agree that the statute of limitations for any claim against TESCCC shall be brought within one year from when the claim arose, and any claims not brought within such period of time shall be deemed waived.

17. Equitable Remedies You agree that, if the terms of this Agreement are not specifically enforced, we will be irreparably damaged, and therefore you agree that we shall be entitled, without bond, other security or proof of damages, to appropriate equitable remedies with respect any breaches, in addition to any other available remedies.

16. Miscellaneous. This Agreement shall be interpreted as to its fair meaning and not strictly for or against any party. Any rule of construction to the effect that ambiguities are to be resolved against the drafting party shall not apply in interpreting this Agreement. This Agreement and all incorporated agreements and your information may be automatically assigned by us in our sole discretion to a third party in the event of an acquisition, sale or merger. If any provision of this Agreement is held illegal, invalid or unenforceable, it shall be replaced, to the extent possible, with a legal, valid, and enforceable provision that is similar in tenor to the illegal, invalid, or unenforceable provision as is legally possible. To the extent that anything in or associated with the Site is in conflict or inconsistent with this Agreement, this Agreement shall take precedence. Our failure to enforce any provision of this Agreement shall not be deemed a waiver of such provision nor of the right to enforce such provision. Our rights under this Agreement shall survive any termination of this Agreement. The captions used in this Agreement are provided for convenience only and shall have no effect on the construction of the terms of this Agreement. This Agreement (and each supplemental agreement referenced in or referencing this Agreement found on the Site) constitutes the entire agreement between you and TESCCC with respect to the Site, the Content and any related matter.

Share Button
Read More
TOP

WHAT IS WORSE THAN A TEXAS RINO??

Share Button
You may be asking what could be worse than a TEXAS RINO? It is a TEXAS RINO that supports the INDOCTRINATION of  OUR CHILDREN with a progressive, socialist agenda within our school system. Such is the case with RINO’S Texas State Board of Education members THOMAS RATLIFF and PATRICIA HARDY.
Mr. RATLIFF and MS. HARDY ran on a republican ticket but support and encourage the use of a progressive, socialist curriculum called Cscope. What is Cscope? Cscope is an online curriculum that has been purchased and implemented in over 80% of Texas schools and few citizens, parents or taxpayers are even aware of it. Parents have not been allowed to view it and teachers have been gagged from speaking out due to the fact they had to sign a non disclosure statement (without legal council) that they would not release any of the contents of cscope or say anything negative about it. The curriculum is pro Islamic, anti Christian with a globalist agenda from K-12.
Cscope has a parent portal that is extremely vague as to the content of the material that is actually taught.

Mr Thomas Ratliff put out a press release in support of Cscope. His letter here,   CSCOPE, Thomas Ratliff

Mr. Ratliff starts out his letter addressing those of us that have major concerns about Cscope with the following statement.

 “The recent dust up about CSCOPE, like a lot of things in education today, is part conspiracy theory and part amnesia. To help get this artificial controversy behind us,…”

 AMNESIA?   SERIOUSLY?? He was voted into office??

 

Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) are tied into this as well (more later). You will find the following recording that Mr. Ratliff has made in support of Cscope on TASA’s website.
Mr Ratliff has also n response to a request by superintendents and educators across the state, SBOE member Thomas Ratliff recorded a message that covers the basics of CSCOPE and the recent controversies surrounding the product.  Listen to the audio recording (.zip file) 16 minutes.

***Why would a State board of education member go through such extremes to promote a product he as a SBOE member has not say or control over???

RINO RATLIFF supports Indoctrinating Tx School Children with socialist ideology.

On November 15th 2012, at the request of one its Board Members, the SBOE welcomed public comments in regard to the concerns centered around Cscope even though the SBOE and TEA have no oversight over Cscope. Those in attendance who spoke hoped to bring attention to something that has been implemented in over 80% of  Texas schools and needs to be stopped.  During testimony elected official Patricia Hardy went on a diatribe pointing out the supposed positive aspects of the curriculum! WHAT?? Why would an elected official spend time during public testimony supporting a private vendor?

Ms. Hardy’s testimony is HERE. (WILL BE DOWNLOADED ASAP)

 

Patricia Hardy promotes the indoctrination of a progressive, socialist curriculum called Cscope in Texas Schools.

 

For more information on Cscope please go to 

WWW. TXCSCOPEREVIEW.COM

 

Share Button
Read More