AUSTIN, Texas, May 21 (UPI) -- Texas education officials are doing away with a controversial curriculum plan conservatives criticize as anti-American.
The state's regional Education Service Centers will no longer use CSCOPE, a curriculum guideline provided to many small Texas school districts too small to employ curriculum development professionals of their own, the Houston Chronicle reported Tuesday.
The lesson plans proved popular among small district superintendents as a cost-saving measure that still provided students with the tools necessary to score well on state tests.
Conservative state lawmakers said they got complaints from some parents about the lesson plans. One lesson asks students to evaluate the pre-Revolutionary War Boston Tea Party from the British perspective -- and determine whether it was an "act of terrorism." Conservatives complained other sections promoted Islam over Christianity.
Several school superintendents questioned how a deal between CSCOPE and the state Senate Education Committee to cease selling the curriculum could prevent districts that have already purchased the material from continuing to use it.
"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 improve test scores. "We actually purchased the curriculum, so does the curriculum belong to the school district or does it belong to the state?"
Hinojosa said his district had not received any complaints from parents about the material.
CSCOPE plans are used in 877 districts, or 78 percent of school districts in Texas, Kyle Wargo, executive director of Regional Service Center 17 in Lubbock, said.
