Texas CSCOPE Review Parents Said to Be Ignorant Comment from Someone Who Supports CSCOPE The following comment attacks parents as well as me. I’ll list the two attacks separately. Attack on Parent The problem with Texas schools is the involvement of uneducated, ignorant parents – not any curriculum guide. Response from Janice VanCleave The curriculum guide in the previous comment is CSCOPE. I totally disagree and the scores on the state tests, STAAR/EOCs confirms that something is wrong with the curriculum being used by Texas schools. Teachers have had to give the CSCOPE assessments again and again and again so that students finally have all the correct answers memorized. The problem is that not all of the CSCOPE assessments have the correct answers. As to parents being uneducated and ignorant!!! Only someone who supports the CSCOPE ideology of parents not being involved in their children’s education would say this. The problem with our education system is that parents have allowed pompous educators to bully them into thinking that parents don’t understand the 21st century education method. Nothing could be farther from the truth. What is needed is a real Texas Parent Organization that encourages every parent to be involved in the education of their children. Texas has many children who do not speak English. English speaking parents, especially those who are bilingual could help children learn to read in English. I’ve thought about volunteering so that I could learn Spanish. A kinder child whose English is lacking could learn to identify the English names of animals. It would be fun for the parent helper to hear the Spanish names. The child could feel important by teaching the parent the Spanish names. There is no way that a teacher can give individual attention to every child. With parent volunteers, the school functions better. More parents are needed as volunteer helpers. Fewer educators are needed who consider any parent, no matter their education, ignorant. Lacking an education does not make parents ignorant of what is best for their children. But, lacking concern for children makes educated people ignorant of what is needed to educate children. This is why CSCOPE is being defended by school administrators. Attack on Janice VanCleave Janice, would you be the same woman who seeks to sell a competing product to the schools of Texas? If so, you should identify yourself as such. This comment is straight from the mouths of CSCOPE directors. Becca Bell at ESC Region 12 was the first CSCOPE director to indicate that I wanted to view the CSCOPE lessons so that I could copy the writing style and create a competitive product. This was her defense for not showing me the content of the CSCOPE science lessons that I had requested. I was trying to tutor elementary kids in science in Marlin ISD. Kids didn’t have science books–and the CSCOPE lessons were not to be viewed by anyone who had not signed a gag-order. When the content of lessons being taught in public schools are not available for public viewing, including parents, something is wrong. Senator Patrick’s original content about CSCOPE was that it was a mess. The senator later in a public hearing revealed that the group working at the Texas Education Service Centers had illegally created what was called “a shell” company called TESCCC. Now public school administrators are placing their educational careers on the line to back CSCOPE. I think these administrators are examples of educated people who are not smart enough to be involved in the education of our children. They have motives other than education driving them. The answer to your question is that I do not have a k-12 education curriculum in every subject. Yes, I have science trade books that have been on the market since 1989–years before the ESCs banned together to produce CSCOPE. Yes, Texas educators gave purchased my books for science investigation idea and for information to add enrichment to their lessons. What do I know about writing curriculum? During my 27 years of teaching science I developed the curriculum for every class that I taught. I determine the timeline for every class. This was done by using a textbook as my guide. When I retired from teaching and started my professional writing career, I volunteered to assist science educators around the world. This is still being done via my science website where kids, parents, educators or anyone can obtain free science materials. I have been very transparent. FYI: This comment is really getting old. Superintendents use it now trying to discredit the grassroots movement of removing CSCOPE and any other progressive education ideology from Texas schools. “Would you be the same woman who seeks to sell a competing product to the schools of Texas?” This sounds lame. I am surprised that the CSCOPE directors consider me to have such influence that they would personally attack me. Janice VanCleave Related posts: CSCOPE Teaches Kids To Lie To Parents Worst CSCOPE Lesson Following is a section of a CSCOPE lessons that teaches kids how to use propaganda. The content of the roll playing script for the teachers is puts the teacher on the students side. The bad guys are parents as well as the principal and even the state board of education. Students have [...]... PARENTS HAVE RIGHTS EDUCATION CODE TITLE 2. PUBLIC EDUCATION SUBTITLE E. STUDENTS AND PARENTS CHAPTER 26. PARENTAL RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES Sec. 26.001. PURPOSE. (a) Parents are partners with educators, administrators, and school district boards of trustees in their children’s education. Parents shall be encouraged to actively participate in creating and implementing educational programs for their children. (b) The rights listed in [...]... A Teacher Would Not Say This Posted: 10 Jun 2013 04:26 PM PDT Attacking Comment The following comments were sent as if from a teacher, but I think it comes from a CSCOPE director or school administrator. I base my hypothesis on my trust that teachers are smarter than CSCOPE directors or school administrators who purchase CSCOPE. The comments are in response to an article I wrote about CSCOPE lessons dumbing down students and not preparing them for the STAAR. I’ve indented the comments and put them in italics. My comments are in plain type and are not indented. FYI: The photo is of me when I stood at the geographic South Pole. This was an honor. I’ve tweaked the photo by adding a badge of honor from the CSCOPE directors at ESC Region 8. As part of an ESC 8 administration workshop, a power-point contained a listing of CSCOPE critics placed me at the top of the list. Janice VanCleave ——— You are wrong!! I am an elementary school teacher. I am a science lab teacher and I teach 1st through 5th grade students. CSCOPE has been instrumental in our schools success!! You have no idea! You should really be questioning Pearson Publishing and the people who write the STAAR exams! They are affecting our student population by making them feel they are not worthy. They have no idea the kind of pressure teachers go through on a daily basis and they certainly do not know how much it affects our students. Dear Commenter, The STAAR test itself is not what is putting pressure on teachers and kids. This is coming from your superintendent and passed on by principals. As to the STAAR making kids feel unworthy, this is not due to the STAAR, but is due to students not being prepared to take this tests. You did not give any information about how long you have been teaching. Some new teachers view the scripted CSCOPE lessons as being helpful, but are not aware that the script has incorrect science facts. I have read every CSCOPE science lesson K-5, thus I am very familiar with the CSCOPE lessons that you are praising. Teacher CSCOPE has helped in interpreting our State’s TEKS. These TEKS are vague and can be interpreted in many ways. CSCOPE’s scope and sequence clarifies the student expectations and helps with the depth and complexity of these expectations! Dear Commenter, I agree that some of the TEKS are vague and could be interpreted in different ways. The 81st Texas Legislature provide the Rider 42 grant of more than $150 MILLION DOLLARS to take care of this problem and others. TEA paid the 20 Texas Education Service Centers (ESC) over $100 million dollars to provide to you FREE! Science TEKS Professional Development Programs during the summer of 2010 and every summer including 2013. Did your local ESC notify you of these FREE Science TEKS programs? These programs were also to be on the TEXAS Project Share website. Has your local ESC notified you about this? The $100 million dollars was to develop materials that compared the TAKS state science standards with the new TEKS science standards. Thus you ane all science teachers could continue to use the available textbooks aligned with the TAKS. The TEKS science programs were to point out the TAKS and TEKS that are alike, any TEKS that introduced new standards, as well as any TAKS that was no longer represented by the new TEKS. Your local ESC was paid millions of dollars to provide you and every Texas Science Teachers with information so the transition from TAKS standards to TEKS standards was no big deal. With a few tweeks in your TAKS lessons and TAKS timeline for the year, voila’ you were ready to start school in the fall of 2010. This is what should have happened. But the 20 ESCs took the $100 MILLION dollars and except for two programs, science K-4 and all of the social studies, the other science, and math TEKS programs did not meet the objectives clearly described in the Rider 42 grant. Instead, the ESCs were too busy transforming CSCOPE from TAKS to TEKS so that this product could be sold to your school. Plagarized lessons have been identifies. One was directly copied from a chemistry book, the same book that was stored because the CSCOPE directors promote the idea that using textbooks is not 21st century teaching methods. I will stand up for Master Teachers and say that they would not plagarize a lesson. In fact, because of my respect for teachers, I would never blame them for the CSCOPE lessons, especially the CSCOPE science lessons. Now about the CSCOPE Scope and Sequence—Following is an example of one TEKS from three grade levels. This is an one TEKS from the CSCOPE SCOPE, or vertical alignment document (VAD) that you tell me has made such a difference in the success of your students. According to CSCOPE directors, identifying the Action Verbs (Describe, Plan) and the objective of these verbs (type of experiment/investigation) clarifies the student expectations. I have confidence that teachers can figure this out for themselves. According to CSCOPE directors, the depth and complexity of student expectations is the list following “Including, but not limited to..” I also have confidence that teachers can figure this out for themselves. Thus, the scope that some school administrators are paying $7/student/year and more is something teachers leaned when they attended middle school. It is an insult for administrators to say that teachers need the CSCOPE scope and sequence. About CSCOPE Sequencing, which is also called Year At a Glance (YAG). Following is an example. This is the yearly schedule that is what superintendents are claiming teachers absolutely must have. Notice that the person who organized the science TEKS for the 5th grade placed Experimental Design as the last lessons for the school year, when it should have been first. This alone disqualifies the author of this schedule as knowing anything about science. I respect teachers more than to blame them for this pitiful excuse for a schedule for science. CSCOPE Lessons No, you are barking at the wrong tree. The lessons they have provided offer rigor and relevance and can be flexible to meet our student’s needs. I do not know how teachers can bash this system. Shame on them! This lady is way off. You might want to check this ladies credentials! These lessons are written by teachers with masters degrees in the prescriptive contents. Who does she work for and why is she involved? What is her take? Very upsetting to me! I loved the lesson and as a professional, certified teacher, I make sure these lesson are relevant to our students. Shame on her!! Since I wrote the article that this comment addresses, I am the lady whose credentials are in question. Well, while science wisdom will not die with me, I do give myself credit for understanding more about the scientific process skills as well as the elementary science content than most educators. My science teaching experience of 27 years covered grades 6-high school sciences.—-My preferences were chemistry and physics. My science research experience in elementary, middle school as well as high school science is shown by the 50+ published science experiment books –John Wiley & Sons Publishing. My present science explorations are with color changing thermochromic dyes, photochromic dyes, and Liquid Crystals. I am working with Hallcrest/ThermoSmart, the company who designed Mood Rings. My objective is to develop science investigations as well as science/craft for the chromic products I design. The first product that is on the market contain a series of investigations that students K-12 could use to discover why fall leaves turn from green to yellow to red. I designed labels coated with different thermochromic dyes to model the color changes in fall leaves. Explanations are provided as well as additional experiments to extend the understanding of the science processes. Thus, the answer to whom I work for is—Myself. Why am I involved in seeing that the unapproved, never vetted, instruction material called CSCOPE is removed from Texas schools? Because is have a passion for education. Because I want Texas children to be provided the very best education Texas can offer. Because teachers were forced to sign a gag-order if they wanted to keep their jobs. Because the content of CSCOPE lessons was kept secret from the public until I started asking questions about the content of these lessons. The answers alarmed me of how dangerous the 20 Texas Education Service Centers are. Dangerous in that they with much stealth introduced biased political lessons into the Texas schools under their cloak of being part of the Texas Education Agency. What is my take? Not sure I understand this question. But if you are asking about the reason for my tenacity for removing CSCOPE, the answer is to stop its cancerous destruction of Texas Education. The comment ends with. “Shame on her!!” This last statement confirms that someone who is benefiting from the sale of CSCOPE wrote the comment. Would a teacher whose primary goal is to educate children defend CSCOPE? No. Why are CSCOPE directors trying to discredit me? Of all the people who have testified against CSCOPE this past year, I am listed as the #1 CSCOPE critic. I am wearing this as a badge of honor. Related posts: Teacher Speaks Against CSCOPE Lesson system garners critique Teacher speaks against CSCOPE study By Ann Work Sunday, March 3, 2013 One Texas teacher has thrown off her cloak of anonymity and is speaking openly about CSCOPE because she is afraid its curriculum will be whitewashed and recycled instead of kicked out of Texas schools. Mary Bowen, a 30-year master’s [...]... 1. Does CSCOPE Set Higher Standards? NO! NO. CSCOPE does not set higher standards. Instead, CSCOPE is a monitoring system that if followed does not allow teachers to veer from the scope and sequence set by CSCOPE. It is the main CSCOPE document because it identifies the TEKS they are to teach in each grading period. CSCOPE’s objective is COMMON LANGUAGE, which means that [...]... CSCOPE Curriculum:CSCAM? CSCOPE Curriculum is advertised to be aligned with the Texas State standards called TEKS, and to be a comprehensive material. In fact, the CSCOPE curriculum is said to be all teachers need to know what they are to teach and when. This is called CSCOPE SCOPE and Sequence. I’ve studied the CSCOPE 5th grade science [...]...
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:33:17 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015