A much-maligned curriculum system designed to help teachers adhere to state educational requirements and used by hundreds of school districts across Texas will stop offering lesson plans amid mounting pressure from some conservatives who claimed it was promoting anti-American values.
State Sen. Dan Patrick said Monday that the 20-member board overseeing the CSCOPE system will vote to effectively gut it later this week. He displayed copies of a letter signed by all board members pledging to scrap lesson plans by Aug. 31.
The announcement comes as the Texas Legislature was poised to pass a $1.1 million plan to provide strict state oversight for CSCOPE, which has drawn sharp criticism from tea party lawmakers — even though much of the general public has never heard of the curriculum system. That bill is now largely moot.
“The era of CSCOPE lesson plans has come to an end,” Patrick, a Tea Party favorite who heads the Senate Education Committee, said at a news conference.