Posted on 02/10/2013 7:43:33 PM PST by BobL
Stan Hartzler has been a math teacher for a long time. The 40-year teacher has written textbooks, taught college math, and given hundreds of presentations on how to teach his subject.
So when he was hired in August 2012 to launch a robust attack on Luling Independent School District's failing math scores, he brought a solid understanding of what his students needed.
But Hartzler would soon become a casualty in a growing state controversy when, shortly after his hire, his superintendent adopted a new teaching system called CSCOPE. It organized each day's classroom topics — minute to minute — and provided scripted talking points and lessons.
He required Hartzler to use it exclusively, despite Hartzler's protests.
Hartzler tried.
He used every quadratic equation, every calculator exercise, and all the algebra tile work.
But it felt like a concoction of leftovers that would seriously harm students — particularly the disadvantaged ones — because it left out so much.
"The course in algebra is not there," he said. "I regard this as being fraudulent."
(Excerpt) Read more at timesrecordnews.com ...
This is one of the FREAKIEST things I've ever seen, as you're about to see...
What happened was that the people running our schools, yes, even in Texas, did not like being subjected to the ELECTED SBOE when it came to textbooks, and they didn't have the money to pay for "more progressive" materials, so they were stuck in a bind
So, now, comes CSCOPE, put together by an organization paid for by the schools (collectively). They come out with SECRET materials that only teachers are permitted to see, and guess what - 80% of the Texas schools adopt CSCOPE over the course of about 4 years, right under the nose of everyone.
They basically neutered the entire textbook selection process and all accountable state-level control, because CSCOPE is paid for by the schools (yes, the wonderful schools that many of you send little Johnny to), and thus never reviewed by the SBOE. They charge the schools $7 per student, which is something they can afford (as compared to buying "progressive" textbooks, for more like $100 per student).
As the article mentions, parents must sign a non-disclosure agreement, risking CRIMINAL PENALTIES if they permit CSCOPE materials to leave their reach. It is all done via Internet (now you can understand why there was such a rush to wire-up the schools). Kids have NO TEXTBOOKS, parents have NO MATERIALS to help their kids learn, and being virtual, the curriculum can (and does) change at a moment's notice, especially when bad things about the content manage to get disclosed.
This is the best article that I've found on it, so far. Considering that 80% of the districts have adopted it, it makes it VERY DIFFICULT to not believe in conspiracies...but I'll keep trying, because the alternative is worse.
BUMP
This is all sustainable development...UN crap. You can thank GW Bush for a lot of this. He perpetuated it with “No child left behind.”
Homeschool your kids people...at all cost.
“This is all sustainable development...UN crap. You can thank GW Bush for a lot of this. He perpetuated it with “No child left behind.””
I won’t argue that. He practically OWNED DC his first term, and wound up doubling the “education” budget.
Pshaw. whatever.
If they knew what to do in the ‘50s to educate our kids enough to know how to figure out how to get to the Moon - oh, and back - how to figure out pcs, computers, tv, special effects, commercial air travel, architecture and construction, household convenience devices, cures, diagnoses and treatments of every kind of disease and malady known, military aresenals unbeatable, then what ever the F they’re doing in education now which appears to be determined to confuse IS, in fact devised to do just that. Just get out of it. Stay home and educate your own kids. what is it going to take to figure that out?
Another reason for the separation of School and State BEEP.
One for the history books (or should I say website), how the schools in Texas did a near-complete END-AROUND of the State Board of Education.
We’re just now uncovering it...unreal.
(I know, I know, MY public schools is better than that. I know the teachers of the school that MY KID goes to. We go to church together, they would never support anything like that....well, it’s almost a clean sweep here, just 20% of the schools are holding out against this [likely] Federally run takeover)
I tell you what we for darn sure have textbooks and books are by far superior to the plasticity of online content.
“It organized each day’s classroom topics — minute to minute — and provided scripted talking points and lessons.”
Before everyone gets too bent out of shape, the answer is in the sentence above.
Even here in Texas, we have jackasses that end up in front of a classroom full of kids. They have liberal ideas, or militant feminist ideas, or some other kind of wacko secular humanist BS they want to push. And that’s what they doing during their class. They send everyone away with a B and sleep confident that they are “making a difference.”
All of the testing schemes are attempts to make these idiots stick to a program and teach what they are actually supposed to be teaching. Firing them and running them out of the teaching profession would be the best solution. But thanks to teacher’s unions, that is all but impossible.
Oh and another thing, the courts are going all electronic, but the real lawyers are for darn sure hanging on to a hard copy of everything in case the “cloud” disappears.
“even in Texas. . .” is the phrase of the day.
Under attack from all sides.
Incoming.
Be prepared.
Taught english. used a textbook from the ‘70s - literature.
What’s changed since Mark Twain wrote Tom Sawyer? Compared it to the new edition text. A confused mess. Cartoons,snseless memorization questions on things that had nothing to do with what Twain was doing, even if he was’nt aware of all he was doing as most great writers aren’t.
I’d be on drugs if I were a high schooler needing to wade through this filth and boredom.
Kept a hard copy of ever thing I ever did. Made up my own curriculum, too. I used a pencil and a Mead planner. Loved the computer. It’s a tool not a permanent record. Huff.
Oh please. The overpriced, overweight textbook system is a dinosaur that needs to die.
Why?
Oh. you’re one of those people who think that electronic text is cheaper.
No. It is not.
Totally agree with you
“Oh please. The overpriced, overweight textbook system is a dinosaur that needs to die.”
So you’re DEFENDING their end-around, their threat of criminal prosecution for disclosing their materials (i.e., the last time I checked, no one had a sign a non-disclosure contract to use a textbook in a classroom), and the rest of what they’re doing.
Why are you even on this site?
“I tell you what we for darn sure have textbooks and books are by far superior to the plasticity of online content.”
And they can’t change content overnight, when people are looking at what’s in them.
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