Senate leader tries to ban use of lesson plans in Texas schools
The chairman of the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday filed a bill that prohibits use of a controversial series of lesson plans in Texas schools – even though hundreds of districts and charter schools are prepared to use them in the coming school year. Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, filed the measure in the current special session in a last-ditch effort to bar use of the CSCOPE lesson plans, which have been under attack by social conservative and tea party groups for months. The bill is unlikely to advance since it must be added to the call of the session by Gov. Rick Perry – and the 30-day session must end by July 30.Patrick’s legislation was prompted by an announcement from Texas Education Agency officials last week that CSCOPE is now in the public domain and is available to any school district that wants to continue using it. That could be a large number of schools since 876 districts and charter schools have been using CSCOPE lesson plans for several years. That includes nine districts from the Dallas area, although one of those – Irving – recently decided to replace the CSCOPE models with locally developed plans. The reason the lessons are now available for free on the Internet is that the governing board for CSCOPE – responding to the criticism – decided to remove the nearly 1,600 lesson plans from its