For months Tea partyers and other assorted activists on the right have attacked the developers of the CSCOPE curriculum management system for supposedly doing their work in secrecy. They’ve screamed that parents and taxpayers are kept in the dark while the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC) writes lessons that (allegedly) indoctrinate students into Marxism and Islam and undermine patriotism and Christianity. They’ve demanded that light be shined upon the evil TESCCC and its Marxist/Islamist/Jesus-hating Texas teachers.
So the TESCCC, which comprises the 20 Education Service Centers set up by the state in the 1960s, started holding public meetings. Today was the fourth. The collaborative has even posted meeting notices online, as Texas law requires of open meetings held by elected and other governmental bodies. Here’s what the meeting room looked like today:
There’s nobody behind the camera either. The only people in the meeting room were personnel from the Education Service Centers. In fact, the other three meetings have been almost as empty, with just four individuals — in total — showing up to offer any comments to the TESCCC staff.
The anti-CSCOPE witch hunt has largely been the project of a handful of vocal political activists. Right-wing media outlets like World Net Daily, pressure groups like Americans for Prosperity-Texas, entertainers like Glenn Beck and politicians like state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, have helped expand the reach of those activists.
Those activists are very good at distorting the materials in CSCOPE and getting people riled up. We hear that they’re taking their anti-CSCOPE road show to another Tea party meeting on Friday out in West Texas. But they can’t be bothered to show up at the public meetings they demanded that the TESCCC hold. Well, maybe they’re just too busy. After all, shamefully smearing the work and reputations of Texas teachers takes some effort.
The Texas Freedom Network will attend the meeting of the State Board of Education‘s special CSCOPE review committee on Thursday in Dallas. So rest assured — somebody is watching. Very closely.
That is ridiculous. We have politicians trying to scrap the whole thing based on rumors, but no one shows up to get the truth.
well of course
If you don’t keep hammering at the base of democracy, you can’t hope to replace it with right-wing terrorism. The attacks will go on until you surrender to the angry white men with guns. And of course their shadowy Masters.
all they know is hate and fear; what else do you expect????
Sad – But this is a true look at the state of real concern for our education system. It seems that a few money people bark and our legislators jump to attention. The reality is that so few of our legislators believe that public school teachers, administrators, and paraprofessional do not have our children best interest at hart and that we would acutely anti – American and anti – God. Anyone know how many of our state legislators went to public school? The next question is of those who went to public school, how many believe that the teachers they had in school did not have their best interest at hart. Apparently, quit a few.
All of this would have been avoided if you folks that are so in love with the material would have been transparent from the beginning. Anytime a parent is told that they cannot see the material creates mistrust… get a clue
@Ryan. I would like to see names of these parents that were denied access to the curriculum. I’m not about to concede that you are speaking the truth considering the amount of inaccuracies that these vendors and home school groups are spreading.
Not even Dan Patrick had even an unpaid intern at the meeting.
So much for the barking dogs who had promised to be watchdogs.