Texas, We have a Problem-

Liberal Democrats AND Conservative Republicans

Some of you may remember our battle against the digitized Common Core-aligned behavioral curriculum management system called C-SCOPE here in Texas. The state-funded regional Education Service Centers ESCs developed it. What was uncovered was not only disturbing; it was downright unethical. There were major fiscal issues behind CSCOPE. The Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC), Texas Education Service Centers held the power and the copyright to the TEKS Resource System, which is the name they used to rebrand C-SCOPE. Additionally, through our research, it became clear who was involved with the development of the learning theories and teaching strategies of the lessons and instructional materials. Have you heard of Linda Darling Hammond, Obama’s education advisor? You should. Not only was Linda Darling Hammond involved in the professional development of Texas’ C-Scope, she was a crucial player in the implementation and professional development of the UNESCO-aligned Common Core.

Legislators deceived Texans into thinking they had stopped the Common Core from coming into Texas. THAT WAS A LIE! Texas Did Not Need Common Core Standards- We Are Ahead of the Curve We were apart of the creation of the first College and Career Ready Standards and a part of the American Diploma Project. We have been implementing the template from the beginning.

It is important to understand what the purpose is/was behind the Common Core/Collage and Career Readiness STANDARDS that the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) is aligned to.

The Purposes Behind 21st Century Learning/College and Career Ready/Common Core/ ESSA

Shifts Education Philosophy- from an education of Opportunity (Equal Opportunity) based on academics; reading, writing, math and history to an education of equity (Equal Outcomes) based on attitudes, values,beliefs and behaviors
Broadened Impact – The College and Career Ready National Standards expand the target from PreK-12 to a P-20W (Pre-school through College, Trade or Graduate School) system.
Competency Based Outcomes- The Next Generation of Assessments and Accountability shifts from the “Mental” (Academics and Knowledge Based Assessments) to “Behaviors” (Performance Standards and Competency for the workforce).
Adjustments to Ideology– Change American’s worldview from nationalism into globalism and allows for a government controlled economy known as ”Dirigisme” or the more common use–a dirigiste economy. It means essentially a state directed economy.
Dismantle traditional public schools in favor of charter like structures (public/private partnerships) that will be forced to generate student data for corporate profit and state control.

Fast forward to today. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) led by Abbott appointed commissioner of Education Mike Morath is taking the next steps to fully implement the plan. We have been warning about Morath since he was first appointed in 2016. We have been ignored by both Republicans and Democrats.

In the past, the battle was against the liberal “WOKE” indoctrination and ineptness that we found in C-Scope. You had Conservative/Republicans joining forces to expose and stop it. Laws were passed by Republicans who touted how they would stop C-Scope and stop the Common Core. It got in anyway.

In the last legislative session HB 1605 passed into law. It was championed by Abbott appointed TEA Commissioner Morath, and legislators on both sides of the aisle. HB 1605 funds and sets up the latest and supposed greatest online digital curriculum management product and it is owned by the TEA. Much like the failed and corrupt C-SCOPE, the pilot for the current system was call Amplify, it also proved to be full of inept and harmful instructional materials, as well as a huge financial note to the state. As you can see in the linked article and in the graphic below, there is a network of profiteers surrounding Amplify. Education Profiteering Accelerates in Texas Some of whom fund Conservative non-profits and think tanks.

At Amplify they want to wire students brains. Here are insightful thoughts from a substitute teacher after watching the Amplify video below.

“Kids are wired the same way on how God created them. It is a society that has “guided “ the next generations into the digital age. The mind works as it always has. It learns based on what it sees, and how information comes to them. but, we cannot forget the different learning techniques to absorb such information.

It is the Digital industry that has changed this direction. Unfortunately, because of the different learning skills, not all kids catch on because the digital industry doesn’t take into account the different learning techniques. This is why we see low scores, frustrated kids, and have lack of knowledge in many of our students today.

When teaching techniques that worked in the past… which was interaction during lessons, White board examples and student participation, these techniques built knowledge, student relationships and an expectation to learn. Now the main learning platform has become reliant on digital teaching, videos showing kids how to do math, English, science, etc. I believe this is when the learning trend started to decline. I saw the difference in how my older grand-kid learned versus the digital learning of the younger and there is a huge difference. Many of our students are falling through the cracks. You can go up to some students that just graduated and ask basic questions and they won’t know it. You can sit them down to try to read and there will be evidence of struggle. Many can’t even stay focused long enough because they have been trained from the digital industry that everything is a quick swipe.

As a school district, we have the authority to change this as it should for the sake of the students and the future of our community. Technology has its place, but it should not be the main educator. Just my observing thoughts being a substitute teacher.

HB 1605 nor it’s companion bill SB2565 mentioned Amplify. However, during the senate education committee public comments period on SB 2565 it was revealed that TEA had already given Amplify a $50,000,000 pandemic contract and it is an online dynamic curriculum management system that can be changed and modified. Meaning it is NOT and piloted and proven successful program that the TEA has, students currently using it are basically being used as guinea pigs.

“When witnesses referenced Amplify as the purported contractor, senators did not push back and the only company the Senators spoke about themselves was Amplify. So it is clear that it will be Amplify and some people in the know believe Commissioner Morath has already made a deal with the company.”

Marketed as a online digital learning program to help teachers teach using High Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM). HB 1605 essentially takes away the local ISD’s autonomy to write curriculum and replaces it with state approved and owned HQIM’s by use of incentives. All a teacher has to know is how to facilitate the TEA owned program. We know that learning loss increased significantly during COVID and was directly the result of digital instruction and instructional materials. Many Texas parents who understand what this is have been pushing back and exposing the HQIM materials and the Open Education Resources (OER) used in this new online digital learning program. OER is mentioned 55 times in the bill is a term coined by the United Nations education division, UNESCO, in 2002. Here is Mike Morath explaining his plan for Development of OER.

The Council for Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), who owns the copyright to the Common Core National Standards, and The New America (whose Board is chaired by Google’s Eric Schmidt), detail their work to control districts’ curriculum choices. How? Using Open Educational Resources (OER). Tech giants like Google and Amazon play a key roll in OER. The CCSSO and New America are ecstatic at how quickly schools and states are adopting OER.

Former Secretary of State and funder of the school choice movement, Betsy DeVos was doing UNESCO’s OER-bidding through the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the G20. (see the footnotes in the CCSSO/New America paper to understand how the Obama administration used Race to the Top and ESSA to persuade districts that they were regaining control of curriculum from states when, in actuality, they were/are ceding control of curriculum AND assessments to the tech giant cartel by using OER). According to the US Department of Education website, “OER” promotes “equity” and shifting resources from textbooks to technology devices

“The materials will also allow our students to better understand the connection of history, art, community, literature, and religion on pivotal events like the signing of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Movement, and the American Revolution,” Abbott wrote in a press release.

Today, what is even more concerning is the fact that

TEA Commissioner Morath tickled the ears of Christian Conservative Republicans with Bible stories and voila! They are sold on UNESCO’s Open Education Resources (OER) under HB 1605 “Amplify Bill.

For example Donna Garner celebrates the STATE implementing Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) character building , if it is coming from the Christian perspective. – Texas Leading the Way Towards Character-Building Textbooks –As a Christian myself this is NOT what I want the STATE teaching and assessing. As Christians we are called to propose our faith NOT impose our faith.

A view from the classroom of today would astound onlookers that mental health and social, emotional, and behavioral interventions have replaced academics. With these wrap-around mental health services and interventions into personalities, values, beliefs, and dispositions at school, teachers are expected and forced to monitor and collect personal behavioral data on our children that has nothing to do with education. Data is collected, logged into state longitudinal data systems, shared, and ultimately, exposes our children to ‘surveillance capitalism.’ This personal data is freely given and used by outside contractors, foundations, and businesses to create software, curricula, activities, and programs that delve into changing the personal qualities of children and their families according to a government set of objectives. This is is UNESCO’s OER plan!!

Grassroots America We the People leader JoAnn Fleming along with Cindi Castilla with Eagle Forum sent out an alert: New TEA Instructional Materials While acknowledging the dangers of school choice and the flaws in HB 1605, they condone the use of OER because it includes Christian literature and bible references for character training. WHAT? Again this is NOT the role of the STATE. Additionally, OER is an online digital learning platform that is dynamic, it can be changed and manipulated by whoever is writing the algorithm. And the professional development of the teacher in how she or he teaches the lesson will provide the lens the student is to see through. Christians do not even agree. When they teach the Bible is it just a story or being taught as THE WORD OF GOD!! Is Jesus a good man, a prophet or is he GOD!?! HB 1605 opens the door for anyone with an agenda to access our children. Whether it comes from the left or the right, it is NOT the role of the public education system to assess and modify students values, beliefs and behavior and collect data from them.

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) released their new set of curricula as a way to create a set of state-owned instructional materials. Examples of the instructional materials that cover K-5 reading and language arts, and K-8 algebra. An example of concern is

In Grade 2, there are lessons that focus on “fight for a cause,” where students will learn about “change through non-violence” with examples like the Book of Esther, William Penn and the Quakers, and William Wilberforce and the “peaceful abolition” of slavery. This all sounds so nice on the surface.

This “fighting for a cause” lesson is reincorporated into the future grade level lessons and continually referenced as a point of establishing foundation knowledge for students. In the lesson on “Juneteenth and Beyond,” students will read Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and learn about the Emancipation Proclamation. The teacher guide says to remind students about the civil rights issues that were previously taught in the “fighting for a cause” lesson.

Teaching students to be activists, “Fight for a cause” is not the role of the government. Is anyone concerned about the causes the government is going to teach the next generation to FIGHT for? Will it be Juneteenth? Reparations? Transgender rights?

From UNESCO MGIEP summit on building socio-emotional skills in students.
Education today still focuses on building our cognitive strengths rather than socio-emotional skills. UNESCO MGIEP aims to change that with its third edition of Transforming Education Conference for Humanity (TECH) 2019. The conference held in Vishakhapatnam brought people together people from various countries to discuss groundbreaking ideas on “how to build the socio-emotional skills of children in education, especially by using technology. The annual event delves into the role of games and digital learning technologies to create more peaceful and sustainable societies.

DATA is the Trillion Dollar Global Commodity for the Public-Private Partnerships (P3)s also known as “Blended Funding”.

It is true, the Texas Republican lead legislature along with the Democrats passed SB 123 mandating the teaching of character traits. It states in the bill that the lessons “build on one another” and are taught in EVERY CLASS. aka cross curricular. Just like the MAP test (we have been warning about) a parent thinks their child is being taught history but really is an SEL lesson on inclusion and the governments version of “justice”. Commissioner Morath explained to The Texan this embedded learning approach and how references back to previous knowledge aids in students learning. EMBEDDED!!! Just like he told us they’d do when he said “soft skills will be embedded in the academic subjects” This is the Common Core philosophy of learning. “References back to previous knowledge” AKA this is how a person is indoctrinated. Adaptive learning and repetition of lies. I encourage you to watch the two videos below. And you decide whether you are okay with opening the UNESCO door wide open to access Texas children.