CSOPE Classroom Curriculum System Dies Amid Criticism
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A classroom curriculum system used by hundreds of Texas school districts will stop offering lesson plans after some conservative groups claimed it was promoting anti-American values.
State Sen. Dan Patrick said Monday that officials who created the system known as CSOPE will vote to scrap thousands of lesson plans this week, effectively killing the entire system.
CSCOPE had helped teachers adhere to complicated state educational requirements with Web-based lesson plans and exams.
Some 877 school districts, many small and unable to create costly curriculums on their own, paid fees to use it.
But CSCOPE drew criticism from tea party groups, who claimed some lesson plans promoted pro-Islam ideals.
A bill making its way through the Legislature would have subjected CSCOPE to greater official oversight. But Patrick’s announcement makes that moot.
On Tuesday afternoon the Senate Education Committee heard testimony on a bill that would grant the State Board of Education oversight of CSCOPE, an online curriculum delivery system that has drawn the ire of conservative activists for its alleged “progressive, pro-Islam bias.”
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The CSCOPE system, which was developed by a consortium of state-funded education service centers, is used by some 875 school districts in Texas. Teachers can log on and download a variety of lesson plans—created by educators from around the state—on a full spectrum of subjects, including social studies and science, which incorporate the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). It first gained national attention last November when conservative talk show host (and recent Dallas transplant) Glenn Beck mentioned a lesson on his show that said that, from the British perspective, the Boston Tea Party could be considered an act of terrorism.
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Once again, what is most interesting to me is the dynamic that this sets in motion and or facilitates. From the first article, “Some 877 school districts, many small and unable to create costly curriculums on their own, paid fees to use it.” Then from the second article, The CSCOPE system, which was developed by a consortium of state-funded education service centers, is used by some 875 school districts in Texas. Teachers can log on and download a variety of lesson plans—created by educators from around the state—on a full spectrum of subjects, including social studies and science, which incorporate the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)”.
So, the smaller school systems, which are unable to afford to develop their own curriculum to support the teaching of their children to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills testing level will now loose the use of CSCOPE because of the influence of intellectual giants like Glenn Beck.
And I will guarantee that the enlightened Texas State Legislators who effectively killed CSCOPE will promise to replace it with something using state money. And they will ultimately fail to do so. It will follow the same pattern when they also effectively killed Planeed Parenthood.
So here is the pattern, opposing and then killing essential programs for the poorer less educated more rural portions of a population based on anti-intellectual / anti-scientific and often religious grounds. If that isn’t American Talibanism I don’t know what is.
PS - The poor and Hispanic populations tend to be disproportionately effected.