By Alice Linahan | 11.17.2021
D
o not be deceived by what happened yesterday at the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 11. The SBOE voted down 4 of the 5 publishers’ Instructional Materials (IMs) as proposed. The publishers now have until 5:00 pm on Wednesday to fix the concerns with content and submit the updates. Then, the SBOE will vote again on Friday which publishers’ IMs will be on the approved SBOE Health IM list.What you are hearing from the media and unfortunately from some Pro-life Nonprofit groups, who are pushing for the approval of 2 publishers (Quaver Ed and Goodheart- Wilcox), is the claim that the Sex Ed components are now opt-in, as the law requires, and will be separate modules. And, they will claim that the IMs align with Pro-life Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills Health standards (TEKS). Please do NOT be deceived by these organizations who will use this so-called win to fundraise. THIS IS NOT A WIN.
Frankly, these groups are about protecting babies and in the womb, but they are destroying them in the classroom. And the 100+ people who were there to testify AGAINST the IMs know the truth. You can hear the full testimony here.
All four of these proposed Health Instructional Materials (IMs) are online digital-based curriculum management systems. All four have access to use student’s intellectual data to modify student behavior through Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
The curriculum content is “dynamic” not “static” (like an actual textbook), as stated by the Quaver Ed marketing video found here, content can be updated 4 times per year. And, is a “Living” curriculum that can be modified.
But, what is also “dynamic” not “static” and is NOT visible to the User Interface is the backend of these curriculum management systems where the algorithms are designed. Remember as I have warned before, an algorithm is an opinion embedded into code.
The SBOE needs to be asking…
Are we setting up school districts to be suid by approving IMs, giving third parties access to Texas students to assess, track and modify students’ values beliefs, behaviors, and “Mental Health”. As I warned about here.
Are Curriculum Management Systems being used as multi-tiered systems of support (disguised as IMs) in violation of the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, PPRA: through the use of psychiatric, psychological examination, assessment, evaluation, or testing; Psychiatric or psychological treatment/interventions deceptively embedded into the Instructional Materials (IMs) without the knowledge, disclosure, or written permission of parents?
Below is the video of a great testimony by Lee Spiller with the CCHR Texas. To be clear, he is quoting rule, not law. The law doesn’t have that broad definition and does not seem to distinguish between academic or non-academic. These are the questions and clarification that MUST to discussed before ANY online digital Health IMS are approved.
For the full video CLICK HERE >>> www.adminmonitor.com/tx/tea/committee_of_the_full_board/20211116
A view from the classroom of today would astound onlookers that mental health and social, emotional, and behavioral interventions have replaced academics. With these wrap-around mental health services and interventions into personalities, values, beliefs, and dispositions at school, teachers are expected and forced to monitor and collect personal behavioral data on our children that has nothing to do with education.
Data is collected, logged into state longitudinal data systems, shared, and ultimately, exposes our children to ‘surveillance capitalism.’ This personal data is freely given and used by outside contractors, foundations, and businesses to create software, curricula, activities, and programs that delve into changing the personal qualities of children and their families according to a government set of objectives. Schools represent a “captive audience” and as such, prime targets for social policy change.
From a purely educational viewpoint, this could be termed “The Destruction of the American Educational System.”From a health care perspective, this could be viewed as “The Subversion of the world’s Finest System of Health Care.” From a societal vantage point, this could be described as “The Subduing of the American Family.” However, because of the integration of business and labor, this could also just as accurately be dubbed, “The Collectivization of American Capitalism.”Analyzed from a public policy perspective, it could be called “The Demise of Representative Government.
I urge you to again contact the SBOE members and demand that they represent the people! 100s showed up yesterday in opposition to ALL 4 of these online, Digital Instructional Materials. The SBOE needs to hear from you ASAP. The final vote on these 5 Instructional Materials (IMs) will be on FRIDAY!!
Join me in letting the SBOE know, they must VOTE NO on ALL proposed IMs. Call, Email, Tag them in social media. Let them know.
VOTE NO!!
Keven Ellis, Chair, ellisSBOE@gmail.com Pam Little, Vice-Chair pam.little@tea.texas.gov Pat Hardy, District 11 pat.hardy.1109@gmail.com Tom Maynard, District 10, tom@maynardfortexas.com Audrey Young, District 8 audrey.young@tea.texas.gov Will Hickman, District 6 will.hickman@tea.texas.gov Jay Johnson, District 15 jay.johnson@tea.texas.gov Sue Melton-Malone, District 14 smelton51@gmail.com
In the video below you will hear the two best comments made by SBOE members yesterday before they voted. Now let’s get them all to vote NO on Friday! Call, email, and contact via social media all the SBOE members!!
For the full video CLICK HERE >>> www.adminmonitor.com/tx/tea/committee_of_the_full_board/20211116
From one Mom to another- I want to thank Shoshana Zuboff for the words to speak to my children on the use of their private intellectual property, collected for others’ profit. From the book ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.” “When I speak to my children or an audience of young people, I try to alert them to the historically contingent nature of “the thing that has us” by calling attention to ordinary values and expectations before surveillance capitalism began its campaign of psychic numbing. “It is not OK to have to hide in your own life; it is not normal,” I tell them. “It is not OK to spend your lunchtime conversations comparing software that will camouflage you and protect you from continuous unwanted invasion.” Five trackers blocked. Four trackers blocked. Fifty-nine trackers blocked, facial features scrambled, voice disguised…I tell them that the word “search” has meant a daring existential journey, not a finger tap to already existing answers; that “friend” is an embodied mystery that can be forged only face-to-face and heart-to-heart; and that “recognition” is the glimmer of homecoming we experience in our beloved’s face, not “facial recognition,” I say that it is not OK to have our best instincts for connection, empathy, and information exploited by a draconian quid pro quo that holds these goods hostage to the pervasive strip search of our lives. It is not OK for every move, emotion, utterance, and desire to be cataloged, manipulated, and then used to surreptitiously herd us through the future tense for the sake of someone else’s profit. “These things are brand-new,” I tell them. “They are unprecedented. You should not take them for granted because they are not OK.” – Shoshana Zuboff
