I want to give context so that you can fully appreciate the letter’s significance.
Darling-Hammond, of Stanford University, is on the list of “Top Ten Scariest People in Education Reform” for good reasons. She works for private organizations that crush Constitutional control of education; she promotes and writes books about socialist redistribution of wealth, and she plays key roles in the Obama administration’s fed ed goals. She’s been an advisor and/or board member for:
Dr. Thompson pointed out to his Facebook friends that Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond has been very busily publishing this month.
Her sudden articles in the Huffington Post, The Hill, Stanford University, NEA, ECE and elsewhere show that now, while Congress heatedly debates the ESEA/No Child Left Behind disaster, she’s desperate to persuade Congress to use Common Core and its tests as “an engine to drive better educational practice.”
Darling-Hammond paints a pretty, distracting frame around her ugly baby, the Common Core. She pretends that the whole reason parents are pushing back is only high stakes testing and she mentions nothing else that parents are screeching about. Apparently to her, the Constitution has nothing to do with it; experimentation on children has nothing to do with it; data mining has nothing to do with it; unpiloted and shaky standards have nothing to do with it; validity-report-lacking tests have nothing to do with it. She keeps the “conversation” on the clearly obvious: that basing teachers’ entire value on a test students take is stupid; that stressing those test results rather than a child’s whole education is even more stupid. (Yes, the sky is blue and the grass is green.)
But what she’s really pushing for is NOT what parents want. In “The Hill” blog post, she pressed for federal enforcement of Common Core tests: “urge the federal government to make sure districts provide annual assessments of student progress, while allowing states to develop systems of assessment”. She added, “The Feds should continue to require states to flag districts that require improvement” and “the Feds need to treat accountability as an ongoing process…”
Her article in HuffPo praises California for allocating $1.25 BILLION for Common Core and for eliminating “all the old tests while bringing in new and better Common Core assessments” and concludes: “the Common Core standards in California are an engine to drive better educational practice“.
Her strategy seems to be to get readers to start nodding with her about the high stakes tests, and then forget to stop nodding when she crosses the line and promotes a unicorn: a gentler, kinder version of the same darn Common Core tests. She uses the term “we agreed” seven times to make her point in one article, as she claims that reformers from a wide spectrum of political camps agree with her. Dr. Darling-Hammond, please know the wide spectrum of political camps is loaded with those who disagree with you. Case in point: Dr. Thompson (an Obama voter in the last election) and me (long ago lovingly and correctly labeled a “right wing nut case” –by Dr. Thompson.)
Dr. Thompson put it this way to his Facebook friends tonight:
“Advocacy should never be used as a means to effect change in ethics,” –but because Darling-Hammond is doing so– “it makes it real easy for small-town Utah doctors like myself who do not hold positions of import at Stanford University to effectively ‘slam’ the Dr. Hammonds of the world… Not once did she mention the words ‘valid testing‘. Parents are, and always must be, the resident experts of their own children. I will always challenge those in positions of power who use pseudo science to back their claims. It is an affront to my profession.”
Then he posted his pointed letter to Dr. Darling-Hammond.
May his letter go far and wide. May Darling-Hammond enjoy the mountains of money she’s made $erving the institution$ that aim to $tandardize education and data so that they can control citizens more effectively. –And may Congress see right through her words.
Congress just might.
This month we saw Senator Vitter’s Local Control of Education Act pass the U.S. Senate. (Read it here.) It doesn’t end Common Core, but it spanks the Department of Education for ramming it down our throats, and prevents conditional-on-common-standards-grants.
We also saw key members of the Senate and the House sign powerful letters (here’s the other) that demand an end to the funding and pushing of Common Core.
Try this on for an explanation: it’s a speech she gave last summer at a UNESCO conference in Paris.
In the speech, Darling-Hammond says that “we allow this extraordinary inequality” in America which may cause us to “innovate our way to failure.” She shows a chart entitled “The Anatomy of Inequality” (see minutes 15:06- 16:00) that explains that taking away money from the areas of richer kids’ schools is a good idea (she mentions rich schools having too many swimming pools).
In her book, “A Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity will Determine our Future,” she further explains why pushing for equity (communism) will solve the problems of education. The book illustrates poverty’s effect on education (tell us something we didn’t know) and she comes to the false conclusion that a governmentally forced attempt at financial equity (redistribution) can create better education. She doesn’t mention how this is to happen without harming individual liberty and without punishing the kids in financially stable schools.
Her ideas are being absolutely shoved down the throats of state school boards and legislators nationally.
And she is dead set on Common Core being the means to these ends. Always has been. She knew that others on the Common Core validation committee refused to sign off that the standards were legitimate; she was aware that common core would be an experiment on millions, implemented without any empirical data supporting its superiority claims. She not only supported this baseless decision making and the copyrighting and implementation of the common standards –but she’s now helping to write the common tests!
Darling-Hammond and her ideas are mentioned 52 times in the EEC report For Each and Every Child, a “strategy for equity report” that she co-wrote. In the words of Congressman Honda, another EEC member, it’s a “bold new vision on the federal role in education” that wants to see “transformations in school funding.”
Take a look at the EEC’s Opportunity to Learn Campaign. Included in the “opportunity” is also the cessation of any semblance of liberty. Dropping out is not an option; you can’t get suspended or expelled from school no matter how hard you try. The EEC calls this “positive discipline.” Also included in the “Opportunity to Learn Campaign” are “wraparound supports” such as extended learning time which might sound good until you realize that we’re moving away from a family-centered to a school-centered way of life that pushes parents to the periphery of children’s lives.
To translate: Linda Darling-Hammond pushes for communism in the name of social justice, for a prison-like view of schooling in the name of extended opportunity, and for an increased federal role in education in the name of fairness. She gets away with it because she comes across as sweetly compassionate.
But she scares me. And people who listen to her scare me too.
The Blaze published a new article that explains the connection between CSCOPE, the non-transparent curriculum that’s raising controversy in Texas, and the Common Core, the D.C.-written national standards that our state has unfortunately adopted. The article reports that Common Core attempted to purchase CSCOPE as a national curriculum. I would like to see evidence of that fact; if true, then all the claims of the Common Core, that these were “just standards, not national curriculum” were lies. I am reposting the entire BLAZE article below. Thank you, Glenn Beck.
— — — — —
The Blaze article:CSCOPE: Exposing the Nation’s Most Controversial Public School Curriculum System
In February, Texas announced that the state, along with the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum (TESCCC,) would enact major changes to the controversial curriculum management system dubbed CSCOPE. The system received a litany of complaints from faculty members and parents alike concerning its lack of transparency (parents were allegedly not permitted to review lesson-plans), lack of oversight from the State Board of Education, and for allegedly imposing oppressive working conditions for faculty members.
CSCOPE was created so that teachers could frame their year around teaching points required by the state. Lessons, which are written by CSCOPE staff and current and former teachers, can be updated and delivered online, making it more cost-effective than standard textbooks.
To note just how off-color some of the CSCOPE curriculum is, consider that the Texas CSCOPE Review, an independent watchdog group, uncovered an out-of-date, optional CSCOPE lesson-plan on terrorism — “World History Unit 12 Lesson 07″ — which allegedly likens the Boston Tea Party to “an act of terrorism.”
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.”
The controversial program’s website states that CSCOPE is a comprehensive online curriculum management system developed and owned by the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC), a consortium composed of the 20 ESCs in the state.” It goes on to explain that the CSCOPE system provides curriculum framework for grades kindergarten through 12 across a broad range of subject areas.
The online description might raise red flags for some when it states that the CSCOPE content is regularly updated based on, among other criteria, “feedback collected through various stakeholder groups in the collaborative, including individual teacher submissions through the CSCOPE website and the School District Advisory Committee, comprised of district representatives from all participating regions of the state.”
What, or rather who, comprises CSCOPE’s collaborative and stakeholder groups? That question and a myriad others are what critics hope to get to the bottom of.
But while the groups to which CSCOPE appears relatively beholden may sound alarms for critics, the actual researchers CSCOPE credits with providing the basis for its curriculum seem to be formidable industry veterans by and large. Those educators include Robert Marzano, Fenwick English, John Crain, Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe, H. Lynn Erickson, and James Barufaldi.
CSCOPE has been adopted by some 75 percent of Texas schools and the aim was to implement a national adoption of the management system. However, CSCOPE reportedly refused when Common Core Standards sought to purchase the system as the national curriculum standard. It is by far and away, one of the more hotly contested topics in the current education debate and much mystery still remains as to CSCOPE’s core tenets.
Beck noted that secular progressivism, further, the notion of communal life and collectivism, is at the system’s core. Other points of contention concerning CSCOPE curriculum include lesson-plans positing that Christopher Columbus was an “eco-warrior” and, when referring to the famed explorer’s journal, all references to God and Christendom were removed.
Students are also posed with hypothetical scenarios concerning historical figures and have allegedly been asked to take a position on population growth. Students were even subject to a lesson framed around the idea that “Christianity was a cult,” Beck noted.
CSCOPE’s director, Wade Labay has defended his curriculum and maintained that controversy has stemmed from misconceptions.” For instance, he said that framing the Boston Tea Party as an act of terrorism was merely one teacher’s way to engage students in the day’s lesson.
State Sen. Patrick, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, has led the CSCOPE hearings, bringing the controversial system to public light. He pushed CSCOPE to allow parents to view curriculum and to lift gag-orders on teachers. Patrick explained his experience bringing CSCOPE to task and revealed what he believes is in store for his state.
Hartzler, who taught math for nearly four decades, retired early because of CSCOPE. He said that he was written nearly a dozen times for not following the system’s lesson plan and maintains that CSCOPE is dumbing-down American students. He said he tried his best to follow the lesson plans, but simply could not.
Bowen, who is currently forced to use CSCOPE in her school district, feels that schools are now more like factories that send children out into the real world from an assembly-line that has not even given them the basics. She spoke to Beck despite the fact that CSCOPE had set up disciplinary consequences for doing so.
Bowen said that the lessons were mediocre at best, often “riddled with errors” and that “tests were invalid.”
“There’s tremendous coercion. It’s an incredibly oppressive environment.” She added that there have been teachers who were fired for speaking out to the school board.
Bowen also explained that teachers spend “one out of every five” days testing students, and that those tests provide data for the government’s use.
When asked what they tell parents who are inquisitive about their child’s lesson-plans, Hartzler said he violated his gag-order “right away.” He said he showed the parents why the students were struggling and where they should go from that point on.
Beck said that President Obama will look to move forward with implementing CSCOPE or such systems within a short time-frame. The panel said concerned Americans should send letters to the Attorney General and that emergency legislation should be enacted to help teachers push back.
Months ago, I said that I was wishing we could move to Texas or Virginia because they were the only two states that had wisely, and 100%, rejected the Common Core.
But I would not move to Texas now.
While Texas escaped the Common Core, it got something equally bad in its place: CSCOPE.
One Texas science teacher who blogs extensively about CSCOPE http://www.txcscopereview.com/ has written that “CSCOPE and Common Core Standards are the same, just in different wrapping.” She says if parents don’t stop district superintendents, they will give away Texas schools to the federal government in return for money.
I repost her article here with thanks for enlightening all Americans, not just Texans.
CSCOPE: Texas Renowned Science Author Banned
By Janice VanCleave
January 19, 2013
As a science writer, I work with many educators and online curriculum companies. I’ve written 50+ science activity books for kids and educators, thus I can say without being immodest that I understand the basics of science. Since the content of my books cover all the topic taught in taught in elementary science, I can with confidence claim to be an expert in elementary science.
Some of my books are translated into fifteen different languages. Google my name and you will find over one hundred thousand sources.
I am not much on tooting my own horn, but the CSCOPE directors are not taking me seriously. They have banned me from viewing the CSCOPE lessons. This has made me even more curious about what this group, called the TESCCC, is hiding. What are in the CSCOPE lessons that not even parents can view?
Teachers are anonymously supplying me with copies of the CSCOPE lessons and assessments because they are concerned about the education of their students. They have good reason to be concerned. The CSCOPE lessons are poorly written and many are incorrect or misleading.
Since CSCOPE lessons are not transparent, how do you know they align with the TEKS?
§ CSCOPE lessons do not align with the TEKS.
§ CSCOPE lessons do not have the rigor required by TEA.
Parents: Your school administrators are not telling you the truth about CSCOPE. This is an unapproved supplementary material. It has nothing to do with the state. It is all about the money. Textbook funds are being used to RENT CSCOPE each year. Listen up! CSCOPE is online and your superintendent is paying $7.00 to $10.00 per student each year just to view the material. NOTE: CSCOPE has never been evaluated independently.
I’ve reported errors in the CSCOPE lessons, such as how gravity affects the motion of objects.
When it comes to the effects of gravity, I have more experience than most educators. Few have had the opportunity to investigate changes in gravity due to the flight path of NASA’s “Vomit Comit,” a plane that had been used to train astronauts and later was used for zero gravity investigations.
Prior to and after this flight, I spent time researching the effects of gravity and have a very good understanding of its effects.
CSCOPE has mystery authors as well as mystery science experts who are never identified. The CSCOPE science experts make the decisions about the science being taught to Texas children in CSCOPE schools. They use no science books, so kids are at the mercy of CSCOPE mystery science experts.
The CSCOPE assessment are the worst example of testing I’ve ever viewed. Not only do the questions often not relate to the lessons, but the answers are incorrect or there are no answers.
For example, the fifth grade lesson on forces has no investigation related to gravity. But one of the assessments is all about the effects of gravity of an object on a ramp. As is too often done, the assessment question is not grade appropriate. See for yourself the errors in a CSCOPE 5th grade force assessment for two consecutive years. This will give you proof that CSCOPE directors do not improve the CSCOPE instruction material — not even when errors are pointed out to them. While I am not wasting time sending in errors, I will do what I can to publish the errors and corrections.
If CSCOPE directors were interested in education, they would be encouraging veteran teachers and experts in education to identify errors in the CSCOPE instruction materials. Instead, veteran teachers as well as experts in specific subjects are vilified by the administrators and CSCOPE directors.
Actually I am being nice. I was courted so to speak by CSCOPE directors and encouraged to work with them. I could have been a CSCOPE consultant, maybe even have my name listed along with atheist Linda Darling-Hammond and Marxist Lev Vygotsky —YIKES! For this degradation of my name, I had to sign a gag-order promising never to reveal the content of CSCOPE. After viewing some of the CSCOPE lessons, I can understand why authors of CSCOPE material do not want their names published. I decided to “pass” on this offer. Instead, I asked and received from teachers CSCOPE lessons. They are much worse than I ever thought possible. It is understandable that the CSCOPE directors do not want the public to view this material. It does not align with the TEKS and was never designed to do so.
As to rigor, not even TEA knows what this means, but CSCOPE claims to have it.
I originally requested copies of the CSCOPE lessons to help tutor elementary kids in Marlin ISD. This was about 14 months ago and these elementary kids still have no science or math textbooks. Nothing has changed. The school still uses CSCOPE, which provides no instructions for students. Technology–HA!!! CSCOPE has nothing for students except a list of websites, many sites that parents would not allow their children to access at home.
How could I tutor kids when I had no clue what they were studying? Note that the Marlin elementary school has failed the state tests six consecutive years. One would think help would be appreciated. Not so. In fact, Marsha Ridlehuber the interim superintendent at the time, was most unpleasant when I met with her. This woman looked me in the eyes and said that CSCOPE is copyrighted; thus, CSCOPE lessons cannot be viewed by the public–not even parents.
Copyrighted? Was this woman crazy? No! She actually was getting away with this stupid answer. Of course she added what has been coined as CSCOPE Educaneze, which are terms that have been made up by the CSCOPE directors. Basically, the CSCOPE Educaneze is used in an effort to intimidate some parents and make the news media think CSCOPE really has substance. But it doesn’t.
All the Educaneze floating out of Ridlehuber’s mouth brought to mind Shana Twain’s song, “That Don’t Impress Me Much.”
At this point I was not sure what was going on. Had the superintendent really said textbooks were not used because they don’t provide the rigor required by the state standards?
Instead, the online program called CSCOPE was being used. and it had secret lessons because they were copyrighted. Thankfully the program director of Faith, Hope and Charity, an after school program, accompanied me to this meeting. Someone else heard this absurd conversation.
I asked Rhidlehuber how parents could find out what was being taught to their children. Ridlehuber said parents could visit their children’s classes if they wanted to know what was going on. What a pompous, rude response.
Having parents visit classrooms in order to know what was being taught was a stupid suggestion, but one that I was happy to make happen. Thus, I asked what procedure parents needed to follow to schedule their visits. Obviously, Ridlehuber had made a tongue-in-cheek comment and now was forced to resend it. The answer was that parents have to have an FBI clearance to visit their children’s classrooms.
I was no longer interested in volleying stupid ideas around but had every intention of viewing the CSCOPE lessons. I contacted the local Region Service Center, ESC-12 and spoke with Becca Bell, the CSCOPE director. Same response with a little extra added. As a published author, I am considered a vendor and can view the lessons if I sign a non-disclosure document stating I’ll not reveal what I see. Are these people crazy?
I felt like I’d stepped into the Twilight Zone. “Beam me up Scotty, there is no intelligent life down here.”
Had I actually discussed Texas education with President George Bush? Yep! I was not sold on his idea of “No Child Left Behind.” It is not realistic to think that teachers can provide individualized instruction for every student, especially now that children of all ability levels are mixed together in one class.
Obama’s catchy education phrase is “Race to the Top.” CSCOPE and Common Core Standards have embraced both slogans. With CSCOPE, a mandatory schedule is dreamed up by some unknown author. Teachers are forced to stick to this timeline. They are even rated low on performance if they don’t. CSCOPE directors have no clue if the schedule is doable. Education is not the objective. Instead, the objective is control. Control over the teachers so that they will do what they are told. Teach what they are told to teach, no questions asked. CSCOPE directors train administrators to view veteran teachers as being negative instead of listening to their constructive criticism of CSCOPE. Young teachers with no experience are easier to mould.
The CSCOPE schedule is much like a race and many students fall behind. But, there is no time in the schedule to reteach. Stragglers are not left behind, instead teachers just carry on with the next lesson. According to CSCOPE directors, kids that don’t understand will eventually figure it all out and all the kids will cross the finish line together. YEA! This is the CSCOPE and TASA [Texas Association of School Administrators] vision that all kids are equally educated.
Yep! The accelerated classes and basic skills classes will in time be one happy group, all functioning on the same level. Since CSCOPE promotes that education is more about experiences and how students feel about things than facts, this could happen. The US students would all be equally under-educated and easily controlled.
Are we there yet? Is this what you want for your children and grandchildren?
It didn’t make sense that public school lessons were not transparent to anyone. I contacted the Texas State Board of Education, Commissioner of Education Robert Scott. and about everyone I could think of including Rep. Rob Eissler, who was chair of the House Education Committee.
In late January, 2012, Wade Labay (State CSCOPE Director) and Ed Vera (State CSCOPE Instruction Director) at Region 13, drove from Austin to Marlin, Texas, to meet with me. Along with Becca Bell, Region 12 CSCOPE director, Rhidlehuber, and the Marlin curriculum director, the five of them had planned for me to come alone and they would convince me how wonderful CSCOPE is.
I arrived with Ginger Russell, my daughter, and Earl Johnson, both members of the Woodland’s Tea Party. The CSCOPE group was shocked that I was not alone. They repeated several times, “We thought you would be alone!”
The CSCOPE group refused to allow the meeting to be videotaped.
Ed Vera had brought a copy of one of my books and he asked me to sign it for a friend. Soon after this meeting, Ed sent a petition to the Texas Attorney General (TAG). In the petition Ed asked the TAG to protect CSCOPE from me and other vendors who might write a competitive product if allowed to view the content of the CSCOPE instruction materials.
WHAT! One day I am autographing a book for the State CSCOPE Instruction Director, and Wade Labay (State CSCOPE Director) is inviting me to join the CSCOPE team. Then they reported me to the TAG as not being trustworthy.
Speaking of being trustworthy—Teachers are still reporting that some CSCOPE lessons are plagiarized. I was sent a section of a first grade CSCOPE weather lesson that is either deliberately plagiarized or someone “forgot” to credit the website source because the information was directly copied word-for-word. The lesson was quickly taken off the CSCOPE website when it was reported. Must have been time to retire this lesson, like the following Islamic power point.
Neither Wade Labay, Ed Vera, nor Becca Bell from Region 12 had a clue what was in the CSCOPE lessons. Becca said other people read the lessons. Ginger pointed out the 25 colored power-point slides used to teach world history students about Allah and the Islamic religion. Labay seemed genuinely surprised and within weeks I was contacted by Labay that the slides were removed— Not because of the content of the slides, but as a general clearing out of older materials.
I assume this means that at any time comparable material may again be part of the CSCOPE lessons for our children.
TASA–The Culprit
One selling point for CSCOPE is that 80% of the Texas school districts have purchased it. The CSCOPE directors point this out and use it as proof that CSCOPE is wonderful. NOT SO! Our Texas superintendents know little-to-nothing about education, but they do understand perks if they follow the TASA leaders. TASA stands for Texas Association of School Administrators. With no shame or fear of consequences, in 2006, TASA published its education mission, which aligns with the federal government’s takeover plan for American schools.
CSCOPE, which has the same Socialist education philosophy being promoted by TASA, entered some Texas schools in 2006. At first, schools had to use local tax money to purchase CSCOPE. No problem, school board members are elected with the public thinking these members represent them. But, TASA took care of this problem. Via, TASB, Texas Association of School Boards, school board members have been trained? –coerced?– bribed? or made an offer they can’t refuse to allow the superintendent to make all the decisions.
Decisions, such as using local tax funds to pay for their TASA/TASB membership dues as well as finance TASA/TASB conferences, amount to tens of thousands of dollars for each school district.
Since TASA has robbed schools of their local school taxes, there is money to pay lobbyists to deceive legislators into proposing and passing legislation, such as Senate Bill 6. I am trying to understand how this happened. But hopefully giving superintendents the right to use student textbook money to purchase unapproved materials, such as CSCOPE, will be viewed as not being such a good idea.
Superintendents do have to sign a statement that what they purchase provides instruction for every element of the TEKS. BIG DEAL!! Who checks to see if this is true? NO ONE!
What happens if it can be proven that CSCOPE does not align with the TEKS? NOTHING! There is nothing on the record about punishment. The same is true with Thomas Ratliff who is a lobbyist and is serving on the Texas State Board of Education. The TAG says it is not legal. SO WHAT? Ratliff does what he pleases–why? Only law-abiding people obey the law. If it is illegal, they don’t do it or if they do they expect to be punished. Not Ratliff. No punishment is on the books. Now this makes a great Texas history lesson for our kids.
This must be Ratliff’s motto: “Do anything you want to as long as you can get away with it.”
I have gone to the Geographic South Pole, not because I like snow and ice. Instead, I was there doing an experiment designed by students. This was an enrichment activity that any child regardless of where they live, age, ability, etc.. could be involved in. Sadly, if the project were being done now, CSCOPE teachers would not be allowed to be involved. They are being trained to do nothing that is not on the CSCOPE schedule and it must be done within the time frame that is set in stone.
Prior to the hostile takeover of Texas Public Schools by CSCOPE, authors, such as me, presented special programs to students. Programs that included activities, such as measuring how far the Geographic South Pole moves toward the ocean each year. Note in the picture above, the poles in the distance. The first pole is marked with a green flag. This was the pole that marked where the south end of Earth’s axis exits Earth. The position of the axis doesn’t change, but the ice the pole is stuck in moves. A new pole is positioned each year.
The picture to the right shows me at the frozen edge of the Arctic Ocean on the coast of Barrow, Alaska.
I dislike what CSCOPE is doing to our schools. I plan to continue screaming about CSCOPE until someone listens. REALLY LISTENS!
I want children to do more than make posters and tri-folds that are considered science investigations. I want kids to have opportunities to really learn by discovery.
CSCOPE and Common Core Standards are the same, just in different wrapping. If you don’t stop your superintendents, they will give away our Texas schools to the federal government.
Someone! Please look Governor Perry in the eyes and tell him that TASA is making him look stupid.
The TASA president is in Washington learning how to implement the federal government’s Common Core standards in our Texas schools. Will someone in Austin get the attention of Governor Perry and let him know that TASA has no concern about his statement that Common Core will not be used in Texas Schools? If Governor Perry doesn’t take action, our disloyal school superintendents will have Common Core Standards filling the CSCOPE framework by fall of 2013. CSCOPE directors have already lined up the online textbook and resource materials to sell to schools to support the Common Core Standards.
( FYI, regionalism and “Regional Equality” are tenets of the United Nations’ Agenda 21. –Because people are easier to control en masse than in smaller localities.)
So, I asked the Region 9 Education Service Center Public Information Officer, Debbie Cummings, to explain things to me. (Does her title not sound so Orwellian?)
I asked her how the U.S. Constitution works with the notion of regions, of U.S. states’ boundaries being less relevant, with the federal departments working with regions instead.
And Debbie Cummings dodged the actual question but answered a related issue that’s also important: “…in regard to your concern regarding “federal and state powers having checks and balances” It is through the Governor’s Office and the Texas Education Agency that the state’s rights are reviewed for compatibility with federal priorities prior to the state making application for any federal funds. It is then through the Texas Education Agency that the use of these funds are tracked to ensure adherence to both the federal and state priorities and requirements. However, if the priorities do not reflect a state’s priorities, then the State is not obligated to apply for the federal funds.
[So, states won’t be funded, even though they paid taxes federally.
They may not have access to their own tax money for their own schools,
if their priorities don’t match federal priorities?]
Cummings taught me something I didn’t know: “Many times they carry a different title from state to state, i.e., in New York they are called BOCES (Boards of Cooperative Educational Services); whereas in Texas, they have been named by the legislature as Regional Education Service Centers.” Ok. Harder to see the federal uniformity when states name their federal, regional education headquarters differently, I suppose.
So, I asked a Texas friend, Donna Garner, what she thought of all of this.
Donna Garner said, “The lawyers who set up the TESCCC (who own CSCOPE) knew full well what the laws are regarding the Education Service Centers (ESC), and they deliberately set up this corporation to get around the laws. They think they have figured out a way to make CSCOPE untouchable, but we are working with Texas Legislators to figure out some bills that will counteract the TESCCC. ”
“The ESC’s were not set up to become marketing mouthpieces for CSCOPE curriculum. It was never the intent of the Texas Legislature that set up the ESC’s to make them into money-making organizations that suck money from local taxpayers. We already pay school taxes to our local districts; we do not need to be paying extra dollars far-and-above those local taxes to help ESC’s make huge profits! Notice the ESC buildings around the state. The one locally has turned into a state-of-the-art, huge complex; and within those walls is where the CSCOPE marketing and training is being conducted locally. What a huge waste of our tax dollars!”
“Just yesterday on the Jason Moore talk show in Odessa, a current classroom teacher called in and said what a total waste of time the CSCOPE training is at the ESC. She said that the ESC staffers have little subject content knowledge and that the teachers who attend know so much more than the ESC staffers do.”
“Because the new TEKS curriculum standards (adopted since May 2008) are grade-level-specific for every grade level and for every core course (ELAR, Science, Social Studies, and Math), there is no need for the ESC’s to hire numerous staffers to train teachers. The teachers now know what is to be taught, and it is their purview to decide how to teach it. Even teachers in small school districts can get together with the teachers in the districts around them and share great teaching ideas of how to teach the TEKS. Why should those teachers go to the ESC’s when once they get there, they hardly ever come back with any practical ideas that can be used in their classrooms?”
“Next, the Race to the Top grants now coming from the USDOE go directly to the school districts and the ESC entities; those grants are not dispersed through the TEA. The funds go directly to the school districts/ESC’s if they are chosen in the final round of federal RTTT grants.”
How do I interpret these things? I think corporations and federal entitites should stay out of education, just the way the U.S. Constitution set it up.
U.S. Dept. of Education Arne Duncan
It looks to me like the corporations that make money from Common Core, and the federal Secretary who wants Common Core to be the national uniform, are chasing after Texas. It’s a control problem.
I remember seeing U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan speaking on a t.v. show way back when Texas rejected Common Core. He belittled the state’s education system and said that he felt so sorry for the children there, who would not be getting to learn the Common Core. Oh, yes he did.
The supposedly non-federal program, the supposedly state-led initiative of Common Core, when rejected by Texas, angered the U.S. Secretary of Education. Hmmm. So he decided that if the state (that is, Governor Rick Perry and Superintendent Robert Scott) were to reject Common Core, he would push it another way– he then started offering Race To The Top funds directly to school districts, bypassing the state completely. And of course, you can’t have Race to the Top funding unless you agree to Common Core. That’s how it works.
The elite D.C. educrats and corporations want their way, and they push and push and push. We must keep pushing back.
I was just reading the above-linked article about how CSCOPE is getting rich replacing Texas textbooks with an online system that parents cannot view and the board of education will not need to approve. Important article.
But my point here is something completely different:
A quote in the article was from Education Service Center Region 9 Executive Director Anne Poplin.
What?? Region 9?
Part of the U.N.’s Agenda 21 goal to overcome American exceptionalism and sovereignty is to have regions replace states. It’s a subtle and effective way to subvert the Constitution’s careful separation of states’ powers and federal powers.
COMMON CORE 