Restraining Order Puts Llano ISD at Center of CSCOPE Controversy

Kids in school learn that it only took four major battles to secure Texas’ freedom. But that was before today, before Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Rep. Steve Toth and a few of their favorite patriots fired the first shots in the Battle of Llano ISD.

The enemy, of course, is CSCOPE, the curriculum tool that’s become a hot target for Texas culture warriors who claim its lessons support an anti-American and anti-Christian agenda.

After enlisting lawmakers to make an example of CSCOPE, the program’s Tea Party foes discovered that by striking CSCOPE down, they had made it more powerful than they could possibly imagine. Once CSCOPE’s state-funded managers pulled the plug on the lesson plans, they fell into the public domain—free for any teacher to copy its lessons. Rural school districts have indicated they still want to use CSCOPE’s lessons next year.

Now CSCOPE’s opponents have gone to the courts, and announced at a press conference today that they’ve secured a temporary restraining order preventing Llano ISD teachers from using any CSCOPE lessons.

Llano Tea Party president Bill Hussey is one of six plaintiffs in the suit (read the whole thing below), which says Llano ISD will run afoul of a new state law if its employees use CSCOPE lessons in the classroom. Senate Bill 1406, by Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston), “bring[s] the lesson plans under the same vetting process that the [State Board of Education] uses for textbooks and instructional materials,” according to the House Research Organization.

But thanks to a 2011 law, that vetting process is totally optional for textbooks, notes Thomas Ratliff, a Republican State Board of Education member who’s pushed back strongest against the “Stop CSCOPE” movement. Under a different bill passed earlier this year, districts have to hold hearings and get public input before adopting new curriculum materials.

Ratliff says CSCOPE is subject to the same local control afforded to any textbook, and he doesn’t see much merit in the Llano ISD case. “Whoever wrote that TRO would do very well on the state standardized test for creative writing,” he says.

That man is Tim Cowart, a personal injury and family lawyer in Llano who introduced himself today as “not a government lawyer,” “not an education lawyer,” but “a podunk lawyer from Tow, Texas, that’s spelled T-O-W.” Standing next to Dewhurst today, he recalled how Hussey visited him with a story from the local newspaper about Llano ISD planning to use CSCOPE, despite the new law about the state review process.

“What they’re all saying is [S.B. 1406] doesn’t apply because CSCOPE is in the public domain. … I can say this, I’ve got a neighbor of mine in Tow, Texas, named Boose”—he didn’t bother spelling that one out—”and Boose tells me that you can try to glue quills onto an armadilluh, but that’s not gonna make him a porcupine,” Cowart said. Dewhurst, beside him, stared straight ahead as Cowart went on, “In this situation these lesson plans were developed by these educational service centers, thus they are subject to State Board of Education approval.”

Cowart said District Judge Dan Mills signed the restraining order last Friday “based on our side of the story.” Next, he’s scheduled to fight it out with Llano ISD’s lawyers at the Burnet County courthouse this Friday, August 16, at 1:30 p.m.

In a statement today, Llano ISD administration said it “believes that its actions are legal, and is contesting the claims raised in the lawsuit.” Llano ISD Superintendent Casey Callahan wouldn’t elaborate on the legal case they’ll make on Friday, but did say he’d been hearing from “many concerned teachers” since news of the lawsuit broke. “We didn’t expect this. I don’t know how else to put that.”

The coming court fight is just the latest chapter in a controversy that looked to be finished months ago, except on conservative networks like Texas CSCOPE Review and Alice Linahan’s Women on the Wall Radio. They’ve kept up the drumbeat calling for Ratliff’s impeachment (over conflict of interest with his lobbying work for Microsoft) and further investigation into CSCOPE’s finances. Toth, a Republican freshman from The Woodlands, urged Ratliff today to either resign his SBOE seat or give up his business with Microsoft—repeating a suggestion, common among CSCOPE’s loudest critics, that Ratliff is pushing an effort by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to promote the Obama administration’s Common Core standards.

“The layers have been peeled back, and peeled back,” Linahan said today. “I firmly believe that Common Core is in Texas.”

Gov. Rick Perry has vowed that Texas won’t adopt the Obama administration’s Common Core standards—but Linahan says CSCOPE is rooted in the same collectivist, pro-critical-thinking mindset. In an email promoting today’s press conference, she detailed what’s at stake:

If we allow our public schools to be taken over by the Common Core/CSCOPE philosophy of education they will fail. Charter Public and Private schools will no doubt fill in the gap. The challenge is these schools are run by appointed boards and they are beholden to who provides the grant money. Local elected school boards will be no more. The gift of earning that vote by a local school board giving freedom and control to parents and teachers in the community will be no more. Our American System will be effectively dismantled from the ground up. School Choice then becomes no choice.

Today Dewhurst thanked Linahan and other anti-CSCOPE activists for their efforts, and said the restraining order against Llano ISD is evidence that “the active participation of citizens” remains critical to our democracy.

“I personally have a problem with any effort to politicize this fight,” added Dewhurst, who is facing a primary challenge from Dan Patrick.

Update Friday at 4:33 p.m.: Saying his court lacks jurisdiction judge in Burnet County has set aside the temporary restraining order on Llano ISD, the Austin American-Statesman‘s Kate Alexander tweeted today.

For background on the CSCOPE panic, check out our web feature posted Friday: “Adios, Reality: Texas Culture Wars Take a Madcap Turn.”