Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Texas: Pro-sharia, anti-American curriculum dropped after complaints from lawmakers

creeping
via Texas curriculum dropped after complaints from lawmakers – Houston Chronicle.
The state’s regional Education Service Centers no will longer issue lesson plans – and will forbid their use after Aug. 31 – for a popular online curriculum system that became a lightning rod for conservatives who criticized it as anti-American, legislators announced Monday.
The move is expected to leave school districts across the state, including some in the greater Houston area, scrambling to replace CSCOPE, as the program is called, before the start of next school year. Districts that lack the staff or budget to design their own curriculum tend to rely on it.
The CSCOPE plans are in use at 877 districts, or 78 percent of school districts in Texas, said Kyle Wargo, the executive director of Regional Service Center 17 in Lubbock.

All 20 board members signed a letter to Patrick and Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, outlining their intent and asking them to help pass House Bill 1675, which would keep the regional Educational Service Centers open until 2019.
Why not close them completely?
Patrick said he saw no reason to object to the request. In the future, he said he would like to see school districts partner on curriculum development. He and other lawmakers said they got complaints from parents about CSCOPE, including a lesson on the Boston Tea Party that invited students to include the perspective of Britons who might have considered it an “act of terrorism,” and other allegations that CSCOPE promotes Islam over Christianity.
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