CSCOPE: Senators Donna Campbell Dan Patrick Fight Back

Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas No educational curriculum should ever leave parents in the dark said Senator Donna Campbell as she was joined by Senate Education Committee Chair Dan Patrick as author of SB 1406 to enact significant reforms of CSCOPE. My recommendation is that CSCOPE remove itself from supplying lesson plans to school districts and go back to the original mission of the supplying a management tool for teachers to keep them on pace to teach the TEKS as required said Patrick.  

If they continue to supply lesson plans that are flawed incorrect or raise concerns about content they risk closure of the entire program Patrick said.

CSCOPE must go through the same rigorous review process as our textbooks Campbell said. This bill ensures parents have access to the material and that its correct credible and consistent with what Texans want taught in our schools.

CSCOPE is a teaching management tool with lesson plans that have come under scrutiny from parents teachers and legislators over the past year. In February Senator Patrick conducted a  Senate Education Committee hearing with CSCOPE representatives that exposed problems including a lack of management oversight a lack of transparency questionable lesson plans and troubling legal documents. Since the hearing Senator Patrick was able to get CSCOPE to agree to the following:

1. Begin the process of closing down the non-profit corporation controlling CSCOPE.
2. Immediately open up all meetings to the public.
3. Begin the process of turning over lessons for review by the SBOE. The first set of lesson plans will be social study lesson plans
4. Begin to put lesson plans on the CSCOPE website and make them easy to locate and read.
5. Establish an oversight board comprised in part by both parents and non-parents.

Senators Patrick and Campbell said they filed SB 1406 in order to ensure these reforms are placed in statute. The agreed-to reforms were a step in the right direction but they still have much to do and need to do it sooner than later said Senator Patrick. If they dont get their act together soon they run the risk of having the entire program shut down said Senator Campbell. There are some who want us to close down CSCOPE immediately but at present the votes are not there to do so said Senator Campbell. SB 1406 is just the beginning. We have the opportunity to amend this bill if needed throughout the session to address any new issues that may arise. Senator Patrick and I along with other legislators are not going to insist that CSCOPE clean up their act behave as the public entity they are or we will call for more action.