You’ve Got (Stupid) Mail!: Texas School District Debunks Religious Right Curriculum Claims [View all]

[Adsos Letter]

Source:
Wall of Separation
Dec 13, 2012
by Rob Boston
https://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/you-ve-got-stupid-mail-texas-school-district-debunks-religious-right

Tea Party cranks have been circulating an email all over the state accusing Texas public schools of using a curriculum called CSCOPE that is supposedly anti-Islam and biased toward Islam. Allegedly, the curriculum states that the Boston Tea Party was a terrorist act.

CSCOPE does exist. It’s a comprehensive curriculum focusing on four core content areas that align with Texas education standards. Many schools in Texas use it.

The Irving Independent School District is one of them. Officials at the Irving schools received a copy of the email and got in touch with Region 10 Education Service Center, the firm that administers CSCOPE. Region 10 assured the officials at Irving ISD that there was nothing to the charges.

That wasn’t good enough for some members of the Irving School Board. One trustee, Steven Jones, insisted that someone from Region 10 appear before the board and address the issue in person.

The Dallas Morning News report has a different take on who actually called for the presentation; not sure where AU got their info, or if they misread it (or if Jones memory is failing him):

Superintendent Dana Bedden passed those reassurances along to the school board. But he said trustee Steven Jones “didn’t think the response was good enough **” — so Bedden asked the CSCOPE folks to talk to the board directly.

**Jones told me he never requested the presentation, although he dislikes CSCOPE in general and thinks its treatment of Islam is “very politically correct.”
http://irvingblog.dallasnews.com/2012/12/chain-email-prompts-35-minute-report-to-school-board-on-islam-in-irving-isd-curriculum.html/

And then there is this:

And that claim about the Boston Tea Party? It’s nowhere in the current version of the curriculum. An old lesson did contain this reference, but there’s more to the story. The idea was to help students understand how the British might have viewed the event, the point being that two factions can looks at the same occurrence and interpret it in radically different ways. (emphasis added)

I think it's too bad they removed that last element regarding the Boston Tea Party, as perspective plays an important role in understanding the historical record.