By Janice VanCleave & Jeanine McGregor
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN, Texas – CSCOPE is not gone, it has just changed names. The 20 Texas Education Service Centers (ESC’s) are a true example of morphism. What was set up as 20 regional agencies to provide “affordable” and free quality educational services to school districts has morphed into a 20 headed monster. Sound melodramatic? Sadly, it is true.
An Introduction: by Jeanine McGregor:
Texans by nature, design and heritage, are God-fearing, independent-minded, hard-working, individuals who stand for truth and justice. When Texas turned down the highly-suspect federal program, Common Core, yielding to its 
own educational goals, parents and community leaders heralded our independent choice, little did we know that traitors amongst us, a.k.a. some liberal-minded Texas school administrators and superintendents, had joined forces to implement behind our backs a similar program, CSCOPE.
That, at the very least, was raw, untested, and poorly designed, and at the most was a highly-restrictive management framework, dipped in radical ideology, meant to control our children’s academic futures using fear and intimidation.
True Texans from across the state are waking up and speaking out. The following is the first in a series of articles from individuals across Texas, meant to reveal the truth and empower the individual so that together we can stand up and say, “We’re from Texas. We don’t like being lied to and we don’t ‘cotton to you messin’ with our children.”
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Is This Happening At Your School?
By Janice VanCleave
CSCOPE is not gone, it has just changed names. The 20 Texas Education Service Centers are a true example of morphism.
What was set up as 20 regional agencies to provide “affordable” and free quality educational services to school districts has morphed into a 20 headed monster with appendages it can shed, much like a lizard can lose its tail and keep on going.
Severing the limb containing the CSCOPE Lessons was a minor setback. The lessons were not lost. Instead they are now snugly set in place in school districts with administrators dedicated to continuing this covert cause to remove parents from being a part of their children’s education; dedicated to continuing to set the educational bar so low that every student learns at an equally low level; dedicated to continue bullying teachers making them so fearful of losing their jobs that they must teach in secret–when the administrators, the CSCOPE Management CZARS, leave the school building.
Sounds very melodramatic doesn’t it? Sadly, it is true.
1. Are CSCOPE Lessons, as well as assessments, a one-size-fits all?
The CSCOPE assessments are being given in some schools about every 3 weeks. This is in every subject, every grade, and at every ability-level. Some Advanced Placement students are required to take these tests!
You might ask how this could be, since the AP classes do not have to follow the same schedule as the “regular” classes. It doesn’t seem to matter. It’s the data that is being collected:
- How many failed this?
- Which race failed that?
- Do white kids do better than black, Hispanic, or the “other” races?
If you have ever filled out a questionnaire for a political poll, you know that the results are (on average) going to be the way the politician wants them to be. Your kids are little more than political guinea pigs.
There is a point to what seems to be madness, and it has little to nothing to do with academics. It isn’t just that kids are being “brainwashed” into thinking that there has to be a big change in teaching methods, because after all we are in the 21st Century. They need to learn how to Twitter and develop Facebook pages so they can get better jobs. Kids don’t 
need textbooks; they need ipads. Learn to read? Learn to write? No, they need to learn to TEXT (sic!) – Thus they will be able to get better jobs – to become brain surgeons – those who know little about the brain, but are great with social media!
What about teachers? No problem here. The new CSCOPE teaching philosophy will in time displace certified teachers with “Guides on the SIDE.” Actually, certified teachers and school administrators are slowly being phased out.
At one time school board members represented the community. They hired certified personnel. Now, the 20 ESCs train and certify teachers, principals, supervisors, and superintendents. But, having the right certification is not required by all school districts. Some superintendents hold the job position, but are not certified. The same is true with principals and other administrators.
Are your administrators certified for their jobs? You can find out at this State Websitehttps://secure.sbec.state.tx.us/SBECONLINE/virtcert.asp
2. How many days of the school year are spent taking and preparing for tests?
The more tests students take, the fewer days teachers have to present information being assessed.
The more tests students take, the fewer days students have to prepare for the tests.
CSCOPE Tests are filled with errors. Teachers know this, but this year teachers do not have access to the CSCOPE tests 
until they are given to the students.
ALL TEACHERS DO NOT have the freedom to teach. If their administrators are following the CSCOPE Managing System, which gives administrators more controlling power and some love it, then teachers are to “goosestep” to the tune scripted by the ESC/CSCOPE directors. Sadly, these administrators are marching in step to the same tune but seem not to recognize the irony.
Parents, Don’t let the enchanted “song of the CSCOPE Sirens” lure you into believing your child is receiving the best 21st Century technology education with rigor necessary for the STAAR. Find out for yourself what is happening in your child’s classroom.
3. Is the teacher forced to give frequent CSCOPE assessments?
If so, she/he may be struggling to rush through topics in an effort to prepare kids for the next assessment and then the next and so on. Find out what teachers do during what is now facetiously called the teacher planning period. The CSCOPE teachers I correspond with have no time to plan their lessons, they are filling out data reports.
Find out if teachers in your school have to give CSCOPE assessments over material that hasn’t been introduced to your child. It is happening in some schools. It seems that these CSCOPE assessments are being given so data can be collected. What kind of data?
Also, since the STAAR/EOC Tests are given during the 5th 6-weeks of the school year, teachers are expected to teach 36 weeks worth of instruction material in less than 30 weeks. Think of all the days of instruction lost because of the extra 
CSCOPE DATA-Collecting Assessments.
Now add to that the time scheduled before the STAAR/EOC TESTs for review of everything learned.
4. Are the grades on the CSCOPE Assessments being used to evaluate the progress of your child?
These assessments have so many errors. But if these grades are not used, teachers have to use another day to evaluate students. Another day of instruction lost.
Did you know that not all of the CSCOPE assessments are machine graded using the bubble in testing sheets. Some of the questions are subjective and teachers have to read these answers and determine if they are right or wrong. Then teachers have to bubble this information in on the data gathering forms.
5. How much time do the teachers in your school spend collecting data, giving tests, instead of providing instructions?
Teachers are not to be “Sages on the Stage” providing information. Instead, they are to be “Guides on the Side” watching students discover information for themselves.
Think About This!
A football coach demands and receives the attention of his players. Football coaches do not give the team an assignment and then have them form groups and discover on their own how to accomplish making touchdowns. Yet, parents are buying into the idea that in the classroom teachers need to present the class with a problem and then step back and let the kids share and research to discover the answers. WHY? Why would it work in the classroom and not on the football field?
I know that it doesn’t make sense that our entire country is embracing a progressive teaching philosophy that promotes “social learning,” which means students are expected to have experiences while sharing them with others. They are also expected to conduct research via the web. As a group, students will determine which information is relevant and important to them. This includes learning math processes necessary to solve problems.
I recommend that we all review the events that took place in Germany when Hitler took control. Are you aware that Hitler’s ideas about education very closely parallel with those of the current progressive teaching philosophy? Hitler was more interested in directing the social and moral standards of children than emphasizing academics.
Sound familiar?
CSCOPE promotes leveling the playing field for all students. This eliminates challenging students who are at different levels. The argument that every student must be on the same page at the same time so that kids can move 
from one location and not lose ground is a questionable motive.
Don’t be lured to the ‘rocks of destruction’ by the songs of the Social Education Progressive Sirens.
Parents, any school, using ESC/CSCOPE material, has administrators that are lying to you. I have read and evaluated every elementary CSCOPE lesson and assessment. This instruction material does not align with the state standards called TEKS because the content of the CSCOPE instruction material is not all correct.
There are many errors that are carried from one grade to the next. Last year teachers had to teach to the CSCOPE assessments, in doing this these teachers were teaching incorrect information.
Parents, the problems in Texas Education will be corrected when you demand it.
Janice VanCleave (right) is an internationally-known author, as well as a Science Teacher from Riesel, Texas, who blogs on the Texas CSCOPE Review.
SERIES EDITOR Jeanine McGregor, known to most in the Texas Education Debate as ”Ms. Mac”, is an Award-Winning Teacher, an educational researcher, and an author-publisher as CEO of Character of American Productions. She is also producer of Ms. Mac’s Schoolhouse, and the innovative “Ms. Mac TV” Program.
