CSCOPE, the controversial online curriculum that taught “Allah is God” and currently is used in 80 percent of Texas school districts, has caught the attention of the Obama administration’s Department of Education.
A source in the Texas education system has told WND that Common Core operatives in the U.S. Department of Education are actively pursuing CSCOPE as a way around the Texas legislative process.
Texas is one of the few states still resisting implementation of Common Core, Obama’s national standards initiative, which many feel is a transparent attempt to nationalize education and progressively control classroom content with minimal parental oversight.
Implementation of Common Core is known to have been made a condition of school systems’ receipt of federal dollars under Obama’s “Race to the Top” program.
CSCOPE recently has come under fire for evidence of what sources claim to be radical content and secrecy. Now new information of such a radical agenda has surfaced showing CSCOPE connections to Obama mentor and self-acknowledged terror group member Bill Ayers.
WND has documented a strong link between Ayers and CSCOPE heavyweight and Common Core advocate Linda Darling-Hammond. An unrepentant terror group member (and known Obama supporter, financier, and ghost-writer), William “Bill” Ayers was part of the notorious Weather Underground which attempted to bomb the Pentagon in the seventies. After 9/11, Ayers was interviewed by the New York Times, and was quoted as saying he had “no regrets.”
Ayers gave Darling-Hammond an enthusiastic endorsement for education secretary when Obama was first elected. Ayers has worked extensively with Darling-Hammond on many of the same projects, even editing her work. Both are part of what some education experts have termed the “small schools movement,” which allegedly emphasizes “emotional” responses and output over factual mastery.
Darling-Hammond is mentioned throughout CSCOPE literature, has given innumerable lectures on behalf of CSCOPE, and was part of Obama’s educational transition team. She is a primary advocate and proponent of Common Core in Texas, and observers see the acquisition of CSCOPE by the U.S. Department of Education as a logical next step.
This scenario has alarmed those concerned about classroom content accountability. Previously, WND reported how CSCOPE lessons promote Islam, teaching conversion methods and presenting verses from the Quran that denigrate other faiths. In CSCOPE curriculum, the Boston Tea Party is likened to an act of terrorism on par with 9/11. In the wake of the Newtown massacre, the Second Amendment is portrayed as a “collective,” not an individual right, despite the Supreme Court’s recent rulings to the contrary.
The CSCOPE website has posted a response to concerns about certain lesson plans, including an extensive discussion of the Boston Tea Party. But critics say that such lessons should never have appeared in the first place.
Sources within the Texas education system recently informed WND that Wicca, thought by many to be akin to witchcraft, was being taught in CSCOPE curriculum alongside Christianity, but was removed before the news media could access it, a fact which represents one of the biggest concerns for followers of CSCOPE.
CSCOPE apparently immediately deletes controversial content once leaked, making it impossible at any one time to know exactly what students are learning and in what order. Defenders of this process say that this responsiveness to public scrutiny is a form of self-auditing. Others have said that it simply leaves parents, teachers and those in charge of curriculum oversight powerless to stop agenda-driven lesson plans and the damage the ideas therein might do to students.
WND has documented numerous instances of lessons being deleted after their use in classrooms.
When it was discovered that Islam was being given preferential status as a part of a study on the world’s major religions, CSCOPE administrators deleted the lesson plan and associated PowerPoint in the presence of two sources, leaving no trace online.
However, through available technology, documentation of this lesson plan and other such controversial content has been retained and reviewed by Texas educators and WND.
In CSCOPE World History/Social Studies, Lesson 2, Unit 3 under the heading, “Classical Rome,” students are told that Christianity is a “cult,” and given a link to a BBC article saying the early Christians were “cannibals,” i.e. the Eucharist, which students are then led to conclude is the reason for Roman persecution.
Read more at WND