CSCOPE: Solid curricumlum management or brainwashing our children?

If you read CSCOPE's website, you are told that it is a system of curriculum management that was developed starting in 2005.

CSCOPE

CSCOPE is a customizable, online curriculum management system aligned with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). CSCOPE's high quality curriculum, assessment, and instructional components assist schools in meeting the high standard of rigor and relevance required in the TEKS and STAAR assessments.

But even on their homepage, they are having to defend themselves from widespread criticism.

Certain articles have recently claimed that a picture of students wearing burqas was part of a CSCOPE lesson used in a teacher's classroom. This activity was not a part of any lesson in CSCOPE; rather, it was a locally developed lesson in a Texas school district. For more information from the school district

CSCOPE strongly believes in the greatness of the free enterprise system and how it has helped build our country into the envy of all other nations.

Several of the lessons sold by CSCOPE have been widely criticized lately. For example, one lesson designed to teach critical thinking calls upon student to look at the Boston Tea Party as an act of terrorism.

Daily Mail

Parents of students at a Texas high school are outraged after discovering their children have been encouraged to dress in Islamic clothing and taught to refer to the 9/11 hijackers not as terrorists but as ‘freedom fighters.’

Reporter News

Burns said. “I realize that a model CSCOPE lesson calls upon students to examine the Boston Tea Party through the lens of terrorism. Lessons such as this call upon debate, dialogue and higher order thinking skills.

Glen Beck has come out strongly against CSCOPE. See the videos here: acahnman.blogspot.com...

1. Since SBOE monitors curriculum, they call CSCOPE 'instructional material.'
   
2. Teaching globalism, not American Exceptionalism.
   
3. Taking out: Nathan Hale, Liberty Bell, Christopher Columbus' faith.
   
4. Replacing with: Respect and fairness, Dolores Huerta.
   
5. Replacing George Washington with Kay Bailey Hutchinson (yeah, wrap your mind around that one!)
   
6. Emphasis on Contemporary over History.
   
7. Refused to teach abundance alongside scarcity: "The other members considered all resources scarce."
   
8. CSCOPE sets up a system where educrats control everything.
   
9. Shocked by the mediocrity of the content.
   
10. Teachers are constantly monitored by educrats.
    
11. Teachers have been fired for speaking out to school boards.
    
12. "There's tremendous coercion."

Texas Senators Blast pro-socialist curriculum
Western Journalism

Some of the ideology promoted in the material, though, is wholly inappropriate and openly endorses anti-American sentiment.

According to reports, numerous witnesses spoke before the Senate committee to explain why Texas students must not be indoctrinated with the leftist lesson plans.

One witness described the program as “mind control” while a teacher emotionally testified he quit his job because using the system made him feel like he was “aiding and abetting a crime.”

One thing that really bothers me, is that as a parent, I cannot see the full curriculum that is being taught. According to this article, the lesson are copyright and cannot be shared with even the parents.

875 Texas Schools promoting Communism

On top of this, no one is allowed to view the CSCOPE lessons except teachers who had to sign a gag-order not to tell anyone about the content of the lessons.

Aside from the questionable ideologies being taught, there are also questions being raised about the quality of the content in math and science.

Conservative Teachers of America

One of the most poignant moments in the hearing occurred when a veteran Algebra teacher almost broke down in tears as he told of having to quit his teaching job recently because he was required to teach CSCOPE. He said he could not look his students in the eyes, knowing that he was “aiding and abetting ignorance…and giving them an allusion of an education.”

A current classroom teacher of 30 years’ experience told about being offended with the lesson in which students were required to make a Communist/Socialist flag. She said her father had proudly fought in World War II to keep our nation free and that our students should be taught American exceptionalism. She also said that CSCOPE content teaches none of the great novels and does not teach the young readers a systematic approach to reading using phonics. She complained that CSCOPE instead teaches whole language and that there is no formal instruction of grammar, usage, and correct writing.

When Labay was confronted with concerns over a lesson teaching the 5 Pillars of Islam, a lesson in which students role play a trek to Mecca, a lesson that teaches Allah is the same as Almighty God, a lesson on Christopher Columbus that cherry-picks his diary to take out any of his references to his belief in God, and a lesson in which students create a Communist/Socialist flag, he gave a lame excuse about those lessons having been a part of the “old” lessons, having been left in CSCOPE at the request of teachers.

And from DFW Catholic

In fact, Stanford University professor James Milgram, the only mathematician on the validation panel, concluded that the Common Core math scheme would place American students two years behind their peers in other high-achieving countries. In protest, Milgram refused to sign off on the standards. He’s not alone.

My biggest concern is the secrecy around the curriculum and the company selling it? Why not more transparency if there is nothing to hide?

Teachers have been fighting these battles for decades now. One is conquered and another takes its place. One battle after another over and over again

The other side is winning the war. As the teachers grow older and more tired, younger teachers come in to take their place, the younger teachers who went through the broken educational system that is trying to overtake true education. They've been conditioned over time while "reforms" were brought in for that purpose, they're easier to control, they're easier to manipulate, they haven't fought any battles yet.

The "teachers of old" are dwindling in numbers, reaching retirement age or passing away and with them, the chances for winning the war dwindles. It was discovered that it only takes time to overcome the teachers, just time to let them "die off" and replace them with younger ones who were conditioned through the reforms and the changed college curriculum to never question the authority of the administrators, to follow whatever rules are given to them.

The war is almost over and it may well be lost

The only way to prevent this is for teachers and parents to come together and come together NOW! Of course over time, that connection has been slowly broken. The parents have been "trained" to blame everything on the teachers, the teachers are the faces of the schools and when the parents become angry, "it's the teacher's fault" instead of putting the blame where it really lies.

I call on all parents, everywhere to stop being controlled, to stop blaming the teachers, to go in, sit down and actually TALK to the teachers and realize they are on the same side, the side of the children. The only way to win this war is for teachers and parents to come together and take the stand against the systems and the administrators who have slowly hacked away to get it to the point it is.

Back when education was successful, the teachers knew all the parents, the parents supported the teachers, they communicated on a daily basis and knew they had each others back. Not anymore, they are plotted against one another and played like a game of chess. Stop allowing it, stop letting it happen.

The teachers unions aren't what they once were either, at one time they protected the teachers and the parents and the students, now they're just another bureaucracy that has been taken over in this war.

It's coming to a close, will it be won or will it be lost? What part will you play in it?