Senator Campbell to blame for lack of curriculum in SCUC ISD

In “Change ideas dominate SCUCISD board meeting” from the November 28 issue writer John Heberling brought up the abandonment of CSCOPE as one cause of the current lack of curriculum in the district. What he didn’t mention is that the district didn’t drop usage of CSCOPE voluntarily; it was ripped out of the hands of small and medium sized districts like ours all over the state by a few legislators looking to earn their conservative credentials by vilifying it as anti-American.

The witch hunt over the CSCOPE curriculum was uncalled for as evidenced by its use in districts like Lackland ISD using it broadly. Dina Webb, Lackland's executive director for curriculum and instruction, was quoted in the Express-News in January saying “We don't mandate how teachers use it and certainly, as a military district, wouldn't teach anything anti-American. But we certainly don't have the money or staff to be able to write new curriculum every time the state standards change.”

State Senator Donna Campbell didn’t stand up for our district. In a year we have a chance to replace her with Daniel Boone, a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel, who has the interests of our schools at heart because he knows that education is the way to economic prosperity and a fulfilling life.

Kuempel throws local school districts under the bus - Again!

State Representative John Kuempel continued to attack public education by actively participating in the witch hunt that killed CSCOPE thereby costing many school districts in the state money as they will now need to develop their own individual curricula instead of sharing resources with all other districts. Superintendent Burnie Roper of Lackland ISD called the claims of anti-Americanism in CSCOPE “ridiculous.” Given that Lackland ISD serves many children from the sprawling airbase I doubt Roper’s anything less than a patriot.

Shortly after the vote Thomas Ratliff, Republican member of the State Board of Education, issued a press release that said in part “With the elimination of CSCOPE, the amount of resources and human capital required to develop curriculum for those 875 districts just multiplied because they are all on their own again.  This is the very duplication of effort and waste of taxpayer dollars that CSCOPE had solved, at least before today.”

Last session Kuempel disregarded pleas from constituents and local school board members who urged him to protect funding for public education and instead voted to cut public education funding by $5 billion.

Once again Kuempel has thrown the school districts in HD 44 under the bus telling them to find the resources to replace the service CSCOPE had provided them without fully restoring funding to prior levels. Local control means that each independent school district had the choice to use CSCOPE or not, with this vote Kuempel and those who supported this witch hunt have removed that option.