Why is CSCOPE being given the time and room to plot it’s next move? CSCOPE has broken trust with Texas parents and taxpayers in every possible way.
Intrepid parents and taxpayers like Donna Garner, Janice Van Cleave, Women on the Wall, and Americans for Prosperity-Texas are finding out just how bad the picture really is. Let us review.
CSCOPE got massive amounts of tax money to develop “time management” tools for teachers, even though a calendar and a pen still cost about $15 at Wal-Mart.
They were also tasked with creating a “professional development” tool to help teachers teach the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). This is the basic knowledge tested in the STAAR test.
What on Earth this “professional development tool” was ever supposed to be is anyone’s guess. The TEKS are the nuggets of knowledge kids need to know for the STAAR test, and they are on the Texas Education Agency (TEA) website.
As it turns out, CSCOPE pretty much just cut-and-pasted the TEKS off of the TEA website and called this their “professional development tool”.
At some point they also began developing curriculum – embarrassingly sub-standard curriculum that was also peppered with anti-Americanism and anti-Christianism. This aspect of CSCOPE has gotten most of the headlines, and rightly so, but it is just one part of what is wrong with both CSCOPE and the regional Education Service Centers (ESCs) that have perpetrated CSCOPE on Texans.
This curriculum is what CSOPE is no longer allowed to use, curriculum that included burka-wearing day for young Texas girls, communist flag-making day for school kids, and other such activities.
It is inconceivable that a group that would do such things would be allowed continued access to Texas classrooms by our elected officials, but that is what is happening right now.
CSCOPE tried to keep anyone from finding any of this out by making school districts sign non-disclosure agreements, binding them to not showing anyone the “tool”. This is very weird, and it turns out to be illegal. Parents have the legal right to see what their kids are being taught.
Since these “tools” were bought and paid for by the Texas taxpayer, we expected to be done paying for them.
Not so. CSCOPE is now renting their glorified calendar and cut-and-pasted TEKS to school districts. They also hold seminars to teach people how to use these masterpieces of learning technology.
If you think this sounds like a scam, it’s because it does.
Best of all, the TEA has these time management tools downloadable on its website. The TEKS are there too, which is what the “professional development” tool is.
This all means that CSCOPE is 100% obsolete.
What about it’s origins?
“CSCOPE” is actually a product of a 501c3 non-profit corporation called TESCCC. The Board of TESCCC are the directors of these regional Education Service Centers (ESCs). The ESCs were given around $180 million in education grants to create these “tools”, and they contracted the work to TESCCC, who produced CSCOPE.
School districts are still paying rent for CSCOPE, and for absolutely no functional reason.
Some districts are pulling this continuing CSCOPE funding. Many are not.
Are parents and taxpayers powerless? No.
Parents and taxpayers can check to see if their ISD has pulled CSCOPE funding and use. If the Superintendant is protecting it, parents can organize to elect school board members who promise to hire a new Superintendant who will cut CSCOPE off.
When the CSCOPE controversy first hit, Sen. Patrick quickly emerged, saying he was pushing for more regulation of this obsolete, wasteful, anti-American, anti-Christian, and incompetent taxpayer leach.
“Regulate CSCOPE!” was not then a rallying cry that satisfied Texans. It still isn’t, despite Sen. Patrick’s recent press conference that failed to generate any sense of finality for the many Texas parents and taxpayers following this drama.
Instead of getting rid of this taxpayer parasite, the now-taskless-but-well-funded CSCOPE has been put under the State Board of Education’s purview.
The Attorney General is an elected official who has actually borne his teeth to CSCOPE, saying he will investigate them and kick them out of Texas if he finds illegality.
These days the executive branch is, hands-down, a better bet than the land-of-comically-low-expectations that is our legislative branch.
–AFP article “CSCOPE or C-SCAM?” (AFP has done excellent work on CSCOPE all session)