Texas curriculum dropped after complaints from lawmakers

The state's regional Education Service Centers will no 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.

"Since we are a small district, we don't have the resources to hire specialized people in that area," said Somerset Independent School District Superintendent Saul Hinojosa, who credits CSCOPE with helping the district raise its test scores.

Somerset, located in Bexar County, spent roughly $27,000 for CSCOPE lessons last year and had received no complaints about them, Hinojosa said, questioning how the state could prohibit its use.

"We actually purchased the curriculum, so does the curriculum belong to the school district or does it belong to the state?" he asked.

The Houston Independent School District does not use the curriculum, but several smaller Houston-area districts do. They include the Cleveland, Crosby, Friendswood, Galveston, Goose Creek, North Forest and Stafford districts.

On Friday, the CSCOPE governing board is expected to unanimously vote to end the lesson plan component of the program under an agreement that was brokered in 72 hours, said Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

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.

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.

At least five Bexar County school districts rely on CSCOPE to some degree, including Lackland ISD, which serves the children of U.S. military personnel. Its superintendent, Burnie Roper, called the claims of anti-Americanism "ridiculous."

"I hate the way that it came about because I think, in the end, it makes it difficult for the small districts that don't have the resources such as curriculum writers and all that," he said.