Does the C in CSCOPE Stand for Controversial?

I begin each work day clicking on a fabulous website:  www.TexasISD.com.  Joe Smith does an incredible job of scanning virtually every media source in the state every day for articles related to public schools and posts links on Texas ISD to those articles.  I can scroll through those headlines and get an immediate feel for the current issues and topics in public education in Texas.  See an article that captures your attention or tickles your fancy, click, and the full article appears.  So cool.  Sometimes so depressing.

CSCOPE has been a hot topic for a while.  Multiple media are covering this web-based software and almost every headline or opening sentence includes the phrase “controversial curriculum management system.”  Controversial?  Really?  If a controversial topic is one where there are two sides and the topic is debatable, arguable, divisive and contentious then does CSCOPE qualify as such a topic? 

Perhaps, if one accepts the notion that one side of the arguments around CSCOPE resides in the small minds of a scared group who would rather censor than teach, micro manage rather than promote professional autonomy, diminish the stature of teachers and grandstand rather than understand.  I would argue that given the McCarthy-like position of one side of this debate that by definition it is not debatable, therefore not controversial.  Sadly, I am speaking of the likes of the chair of the Senate Education Committee and the Lieutenant Governor of Texas.  These two men are seeking to out-conservative each other at the expense of instructional resources in Texas and teacher decision making.  I am appalled.  I am furious.  I cannot believe we as citizens are not rising up to demand that they shut up and drop it. 

Let us be rational for a moment.  If you are reading this blog post you have internet connectivity.  You have a browser and a search engine.  Could you find information about the Communist Manifesto if you wanted to?  How about Mein Kampf?  How about the Koran?  How about socialized medicine?  How about reproductive rights?  How about same sex marriage?  How about the Democratic Party Platform?  How about terrorism?  In fact, virtually any topic you are curious about can be Goggled and found.  This applies to every teacher in the state of Texas as well.  If you are connected, you can find positions on truly controversial topics.  CSCOPE hardly qualifies as such a topic. 

What Dan Patrick and David Dewhurst want is to remove sample lessons and now the scope and sequence of a curriculum tool used in 875 of 1000 school districts in Texas.  I have no idea how many teachers that represents, but it is a bunch.  They want CSCOPE to die because someone somewhere who views the world through a lens that only sees from the right objected to the notion that some of the lessons where students are asked to think through positions from more than one side were somehow promoting anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Democratic principles.  Poppycock and balderdash.  If a Texas teacher wanted to influence young minds to think as a liberal, a socialist, a communist, then the elimination of CSCOPE hardly reduces that possibility given all the other resources out there.  If you believe that Texas teachers are either so stupid as to not recognize political bias, or are so liberal that their secret mission in life is to “corrupt” the children of this state, then you are woefully out of touch with reality and have no real knowledge of Texas teachers. 

Next will we require as part of teacher certification a loyalty oath to the Patrick official Right Think positions?  Would Patrick and Dewhurst filter the internet for all Texas teachers and block any digital resource available that carries the hint or whiff of thinking different than their own?  If so, shall we call such men defenders of morality, decency and the American way, or shall we categorically group them with Joseph McCarthy where there is a “right think” and they get to define it and eliminate every resource that varies from their own narrow definition.  To do so in the field of education is absolutely un-American.  I find Patrick and Dewhurst a much larger threat to our notion of civil liberties, democracy and the American Way than anything in CSCOPE.  They are censors.  They are promoters of thinking just like theirs and persecutors of any thinking that is different.  They are controversial, not this curriculum management tool.

CSCOPE is not controversial.  Given the way it was implemented in some districts where the lessons were made mandatory, teachers, in my opinion, rightly chaffed at the requirement.  But that is a local management issue, not a huge threat to democracy.  CSCOPE is an instructional resource developed at the request of teachers who wanted to know how to plan, sequence and teach the state’s required curriculum in a way that most likely produced positive results for kids.  If the state did not mandate the curriculum, there would be no CSCOPE.  If the state did not mandate high stakes standardized testing there would be no CSCOPE.  If the state’s required curriculum did not include the notion that students need to learn how to think, there would be no “controversial” lessons.  CSCOPE is a product and a tool developed by teachers for teachers in response to state mandates.  Why then aren’t Patrick and Dewhurst arguing that we should abolish the state mandated curriculum and testing so that there is no need for CSCOPE?  Oxy morons, that is why.

If you are worried about the children of Texas being indoctrinated with wrong thinking instead of right thinking please relax.  Indoctrination implies the concept of only hearing and learning one side of some issue.  I would argue that Patrick and Dewhurst are promoting indoctrination rather than opposing it.  If we only teach one point of view are we promoting democratic values or the same kind of process implemented by Stalin, Hitler and the Taliban?  Further, no teacher could undo the values imparted to kids by their parents.  We are not that influential.  Hopefully we can promote creative thinking, problem solving, literate citizens capable of viewing issues and problems from more than one perspective.  Hopefully we develop future citizens who believe that every American has the right to believe what they want to believe, think the way they wish to think and know that the government will protect them from the possible persecution and tyranny of the majority.  That is the American way.  That is not the Patrick and Dewhurst way.  Do not be fearful of CSCOPE.  Be fearful of Patrick and Dewhurst.  I am.  Sadly, I was taught to think. 

Censorship is controversial, not CSCOPE.