Setting the Record Straight
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Recently a group called Families Engaged, which is just Lynn Davenport and Mary Lowe (both talking head agents of American Federation of Teachers) put out a misleading letter about HB1605 and the TEA’s Open Resource Curriculum. They continue to spread lies and spin the realities of HB1605 in order to stifle reform and maintain status quo for the teacher union they represent. Below is a paragraph-by-paragraph breakdown of their lies.
Families Engaged Lies
Subject: Repeal House Bill 1605 - Amplify Vendor Bill
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) opened a modifiable portal for SBOE review this week. The letter you recently received from Representative Brad Buckley regarding HB1605 asking you to endorse a product which is not supported by the teachers nor parents is an indication this bill is not being well-received by taxpayers.
Setting the Record Straight
First, it’s not modifiable. Second, it is supported by many parents and teachers, but that is not the measure of whether any product is good or bad. (BTW these women don’t speak for either group.)
Families Engaged Lies
The link provided by the TEA to review the OER is not operable and ends the review session before the reviewer can read the full content. The vast majority of the OER content is hidden from view. Additionally, the online portal for parents is dynamic and modifiable. Digitizing instructional materials allows them to be altered at any time without accountability. This essentially nullifies the possibility of Due Process, which is codified in the Fourteenth Amendment. There can be no such thing as transparency with dynamic technology. HB1605 ensures that parents will continue to be excluded from seeing and knowing what their children are learning. The issues with HB1605 are as follows:
Setting the Record Straight
The TEA review site is up and running here. None of the content is hidden from view, in fact you can read the teacher guides, student handbooks, parent letters, everything. The online portal is not dynamic nor modifiable, this allegation is a complete fabrication. ALL of the TEA OER is in PDF format for printing. It is designed to be used in print format. The entire paragraph is simply made up, as we say in Texas, hog wash.
Families Engaged Lies
Open Education Resources (OER) - OER was listed 65 times in HB1605. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) coined and defined Open Education Resources (OER) in 2002 to establish a global curriculum and implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030. The US Department of Education defines OER to shift resources from textbooks to technology.
Setting the Record Straight
The UN did not coin the term, but regardless of who did, OER simply means free, open to the public, no license required, curriculum. Open Education Resource is to curriculum what Open Source is to software – free and open. No need to fabricate some grandiose conspiracy. Liberty University has their own OER. Would anyone suggest Liberty is playing part in a UNESCO conspiracy? More hogwash.
Families Engaged Lies
Removes practical control and transparency for parents - HB1605 mandates OER instructional material “allows for free use, reuse, MODIFICATION or sharing with others as described by Section 31.07101” According to the bill, Amplify must be dynamic and can be modified at any time. Parents will not be able to keep up with what their children are being taught. The parent portal was a marketing ploy perpetuated by lobbyists during the legislative session.
Setting the Record Straight
This is simply a lack of understanding of what they are reading, or worse, an intentional lie. The curriculum is not modifiable at any time. However, as with any curriculum, schools may choose to not use certain units with the curriculum. If they chose to do so, they must replace it with a TEKS-compliant unit, and post that unit on the parent portal 30 days prior to the beginning of the school year so parents have access to review the replacement unit. In fact, HB1605 mandated and created a parent portal which gives parents access to everything their children are being taught in schools. Opposition to this is simply unconscionable and clearly coming from teachers unions and their mouth pieces.
Families Engaged Lies
Not a classical education - A classical education involves a teacher instructing students with textbooks and time-tested curriculum, not dynamic and modified lessons printed and piled together as scripted lessons to be regurgitated by teachers. Amplify Texas is a rebranded digital resource to be distributed on 1:1 technology devices purchased by school districts across Texas.
Setting the Record Straight
The TEA OER is NOT Amplify. This is as close to a classical education curriculum as public schools have seen in decades. One begins to see these folks have clearly not read the TEA OER curriculum for themselves. The TEA OER has nothing to do with tech or tech usage, Families Engaged is attempting to confuse and cloud the conversation. Notice they do not give any actual examples from the curriculum. One of their folks recently admitted to not having read or looked at it at all. “She simply knows it’s bad.” Unlike Families Engaged, I’d suggest you click on the link above and go read it for yourself.
Families Engaged Lies
Increases screen time - Technology was mentioned 50 times in HB1605 Under Section 28.0211 of HB1605, “the commissioner shall ensure full subject Tier 1 instructional materials are available as OER instructional materials in an integrated manner and for approximately 240 minutes of instructional time per day including time needed each day for accelerated instruction under Section 28.0211.”
Setting the Record Straight
While 240 minutes in mentioned, nowhere in there is it talking about screen time. It is no secret that the goal is to get all core instructional materials to a 4 hour, or 240 minute, day. This is easily recognized by any parent as a good thing. The TEA OER is specifically a paper curriculum, intended to be printed.
Families Engaged Lies
Reduces the role of teacher - Teachers will be relegated to digital facilitators and purveyors of printed manuals with scripted lesson plans, undermining the experience and knowledge of professional educators. A teacher’s time cannot be reallocated to teaching when they are burdened by printing manuals locally and begging for printer paper and limited printing rights.
Setting the Record Straight
Teachers do not print books. Ironically in the previous paragraph they claim it’s digital/screen time, now they say it’s going to require teachers time to print. Hogwash. In fact, the TEA OER will make teachers’ jobs easier and free up their time. One of the biggest complaints heard from teachers is about the amount of time they have to spend creating lesson plans. Under the TEA OER lesson plans will be done and posted online in the parent portal prior to the school year starting. This empowers teachers to teach, hone their skills, and spend time with the students.
Families Engaged Lies
Common Core - Amplify aligns with the Common Core Standards which is illegal in the State of Texas. Common Core shifts learning away from academic standards to behavioral standards. HB1605 is digital Common Core.
Setting the Record Straight
This is simply made up. Not only is it not Common Core, but it is also as close to a classical education as we’ve seen in public schools in decades. Once again, she now claims its digital where in the prior paragraph she acknowledged it’s print. Pick a narrative folks. Better yes, let us stick with the truth. The TEA OER is also the only curriculum which will be 100% TEKS compliant.
Families Engaged Lies
Massive government growth - HB 1605 has a $2.44B fiscal note, further expanding the failing TEA. TEA concealed a $50 million no-bid contract. They spent another $19M to buy the rights to Amplify Texas. TEA gave another $84 million consulting contract to the Boston-based Public Consulting Group to revise the curriculum. TEA is now taking bids to revise the revisions.
Setting the Record Straight
None of this is related to the content, quality or implementation of the TEA OER. None of it is factual either, for example, state law does not allow for no-bid contracts. As for changes – newsflash – the TEA OER is in the IMRA review process. This is the time that changes are suggested and possibly implemented, including changes brought by the public. I again encourage you to read it and you can give your feedback to the SBOE at the fall meeting.
Families Engaged Lies
Money carrot—Based on how districts are funded and grants issued for use of Amplify, schools cannot afford to opt out. Effectively, HB1605 does not give local districts a real option outside of OER (Amplify). HB1605 is a back-door state curriculum that undermines local control and autonomy.
Setting the Record Straight
Hogwash. If a school district purchases any other curriculum, they still get their curriculum allotment. They do receive $20 per student additional if they purchase the TEA OER. Amplify has nothing to do with this, no matter how many times they want to repeat the name.
Families Engaged Lies
False choices for school districts - House members were told schools could opt out. However, based on how districts are funded and grants are issued for use of the curriculum, the schools cannot afford to opt out. Effectively, the bill does not give local districts realistic options outside of OER.
Setting the Record Straight
Same as previous paragraph. Repeating it doesn’t make it true. Schools get the full allotment if they purchase another curriculum. (Any other curriculum is not free of licensing fees though.)
Families Engaged Lies
Texas Education is in trouble - HB1605 aligns with the Texas SBOE Long-Range Plans for Technology (first published in 1988), which aligns with Department of Education National Education Technology Plans (first published in 1996) and UNESCO initiatives.1 The latest State (and national) education planning documents explicitly recommend a “mastery-or competency-based education learning and assessment system that is self-paced rather than the current system that places students in a particular grade based on their ages. Instruction for each student would be individualized and students would be assessed as they reach certain instructional milestones.”2 Powered by adaptive software,” “students no longer need to be bound by the traditional classroom space or by traditional learning methods. Data can be used to present the right lessons at the time most needed.”3 The “personalized, flexible, empowered learning environment” envisioned in the SBOE’s Long-Range Plan for Technology 2018-2023 is “conceived as a vision for education by 2030.” Effective June 2021, Texas Education Code 29.928 mandates that “a study on competency-based educational programs” be completed by the end of this year, December 1, 2022. In short, the “school transformation” movement in Texas is real.
Setting the Record Straight
The TEA OER is literally the opposite of everything they are warning about in this paragraph. These ladies should be ecstatic. One has to wonder why they aren’t. TEA OER is a classical curriculum, in paper format, with specific grade units of study. Nothing they warn about in this paragraph applies to the TEA OER. So, in those warnings we’re all on the same page, only they still oppose. They side with American Federation of Teachers (liberal teachers union) in their opposition to more rigorous curriculum.
Families Engaged Lies
Creating a new social order - The SBOE published their Long-Range Plan for Public Education 2018. The plan presented a stunning redirection of Texas public school systems, unveiling “student-centered, adaptive learning” as the cornerstone of a new social order. School buildings are to be local outposts of nanny state-satellite centers where computer “data-driven” educational, vocational, health and social services are provided to virtual learners under one roof just like Jasper's 1993 New American article forewarns. In the name of “equity, accessibility and personalized learning;” “data-driven and science- based” instruction; “college and career readiness;” “comprehensive counseling and social emotional learning;” “student engagement and student empowerment;” the state is pushing to replace teacher-led learning with computer-led learning, thereby “tying every child into a master computer system.”
Setting the Record Straight
It is unclear what they are saying here. Can’t respond to word salad.
Families Engaged Lies
There is no status quo - Legislators can demand locally developed curriculum centered on specific content goals, administered by teachers engaged in the conversational Socratic method. Legislators can demand the reprioritization of student: teacher ratios over student-device ratios. Or, legislators can barrel forward into a brave new world of computer-led learning, where children are programmed for
“outcomes” algorithmically defined by unaccountable third-party interests. Legislators can allow children to be subjects in a project where no human answers for anything.
Setting the Record Straight
Again there is no computer requirement here. Since 2012 local schools have been selecting curriculum, how has that worked out for students? For parents? For academic rigor? Lynn and Mary are against all education reforms and push to maintain status quo at the behest of AFT.
Families Engaged Lies
Families Engaged works with parents, teachers, and school boards across the state. We hear complaints from teachers who became familiar with Amplify when piloted in districts such as Temple ISD, Canyon ISD, and Midland ISD. These are not high-quality instructional materials and require districts to supplement with additional materials. The pilot districts were given stipends from TEA to supplement the content. The results were misleading and gave credit solely to Amplify. Parents are fed up with the technology expansion and do not want their children tracked on devices and their data harvested by vendors and the government.
The unprecedented threats by the tyrannical TEA to takeover districts creates unspoken pressure to comply with “The Agency” to adopt OER. Unfunded mandates contribute to budget deficits giving school districts no choice but to accept the HB 1605 grants. If a district chooses not to adopt Amplify, will they be targeted for takeover under this Commissioner Morath’s regime?
Setting the Record Straight
This is NOT Amplify. Why do Lynn and Mary continue to lie? Is it because they cannot win on the merits of the TEA OER? Notice they do not ever provide specific examples from the OER, nor do they send you to read it for yourself? There is a reason for that.
Families Engaged Lies
Please do not sign another endorsement of this experimental product without understanding the end goal of TEA and Commissioner Morath to shift all learning and assessments from textbooks to technology and digital devices using AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics in order to usher in UNESCO’s plan for a global education system.
The solutions to fix our failing government schools are:
- Repeal bad laws like HB1605
- Abolish TEA and the 20 Regional Service Centers and restore local control
- Remove behavioral and technology TEKS, education technology and 1:1 devices
- Return to tried and proven pedagogies (great teachers, strong academic curriculum, books, paper and pencil) and pay the teachers with the money saved on wasteful devices and vendors.
Setting the Record Straight
It is important to know HB 1605 created a new parent portal which will give parents access to all their child’s curriculum so they can know exactly what is being taught in the classroom. This is a good thing that we should all be cheering..
Secondly, the TEA OER is a new curriculum, written and owned by the State of Texas. It is NOT Amplify, nor does Amplify have any rights or financial benefit from it. When Families Engaged labels the TEA OER as Amplify, they are purposefully lying to their readers.
Lastly – OER is a term of industry for free curriculum. Once the TEA’s OER is complete, anyone (a homeschool momma, private school, or public) will be able to download, print and use the curriculum for free. (There are licensing restrictions against commercial use only.)