Misinformation

CRT and the Culture Wars

CRT is just the latest culture war issue. The state of Texas determines what is taught in public schools. Those who claim CRT is in K-12 education are trying to make things that are widely supported by the corporate world (diversity, equity, and inclusion) sound evil. CRT is being redefined to include anything to do with SEL, diversity, inclusion, and sexual orientation. Those who warn about CRT do not want to do anything about racism and injustice.

The campaign against CRT has led to attempts to ban books. While we believe that parents have a right to be made aware of books that high school students might read with explicit content, some parents want to make decisions for all parents by banning books that have been approved by Texas Education Agency and vetted by librarians and teachers. This is unacceptable.

Parents already have the right in Texas to opt THEIR children out of assignments.
The district already has a process in place to review books when a formal complaint is made. Not a single formal complaint was made in GCISD until a school board candidate stated this fact, many months after the vitriol started at board meetings.
Removing books from the library can violate students' First Amendment rights according to a 1982 Supreme Court decision.
Some of the books parents have complained about are covered on the AP exam.

Misinformation about GCISD Test Scores

There is a lot of bad information going around about GCISD STAAR test results, with some people claiming that a large percentage of students are not passing.

In almost all grades, over 95% of GCISD students meet or exceed expectations on the STAAR. In two grades, for two subjects, that number is slightly lower but still well over 75%.

10% of GCISD students are Englich langiage learners, and 82% passed the English/Reading STAAR test.

GCISD is ranked as a top 1% school district in the state and a top 10% district in the nation.

That said, the STAAR test results are not a good measure of a student's mastery of concepts or a good measure of the quality of the district or teacher quality. According to the article STAAR testing can make parents less informed about a student’s progress:

STAAR is designed to compare student groups from across the state.
STAAR is worse than useless for looking at individual students. If you use the data to draw conclusions about individual student learning, you’ll draw false conclusions about what that student has learned.
As both the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and ETS have repeatedly stated, the test questions are not designed to measure mastery of academic concepts. While each question is aligned with a specific Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) student expectation, it is not designed to judge the extent of a particular student’s learning.
As W. James Popham, an international expert on assessment and accountability and former president of the American Educational Research Association, points out in his book “Transformative Assessment,” these tests are comparative, and not intended to determine student success or quality of teaching.

You can also read a little about the history of testing in GCISD here.

Clips from GCISD School Board Meetings

Recordings of all board meetings are available to the public here.

The below speaker does not think GCISD "children" should be allowed to speak at school board meetings because they are not taxpayers.

The below speaker believes BrainPop is anti-Christian and anti-American and believes that Martin Luther King's dream that individuals will not be judged by the color of their skin has been realized. She believes equity goes against what MLK died for.

Moreover, regarding the Constitution, there are no references to God because the document was meant to be religiously neutral, as public schools are supposed to be. America at the time was religiously diverse, and religion was viewed as a matter of individual choice.

This is not to say that the Bible's scripture did not influence the views of the Founders as a guide on morality. However, so did other sources and movements, such as the Enlightenment and Common Law.

And if you're curious, here's the lowdown on that 34% claim.
Source: Journal of the American Revolution

The below speaker claims that parents who want their children to move on to solid careers have made the switch to private and charter schools if they can afford it. Those left behind in public schools are low-income students who are being held back even more by social emotional learning (SEL). This flies in the face of all of the SEL research.

Social Media Posts

The contentious nature of local politics and school board elections is discouraging people from moving to our area and discouraging teachers from applying to our district. We know of several families who have moved out of the district entirely because they do not feel welcome here. More recently, the attacks on our teachers are causing them to leave the district!

When Trustee Braun was a candidate, she deferred to the individual who posted the below remarks to answer questions that the Dallas Morning News asked in its standard questionnaire for school board candidates. Candidate Braun wrote this person's name below several questions, deferring the public to him for answers. The last picture came from a visit to a Dove Elementary open house, where he took pictures of the student work and posted it on Facebook, claiming the IB program teaches white people are evil. He was a Republican precinct chair and ran unsuccessfully for state-level office.

Below are some examples of hate and misinformation being spread about our schools. Sadly this is just a small sample. The first picture contains comments directed at a recent graduate of GCISD by a community member serving on a Colleyville city committee.

The same person who threatened a black member of the community and thinks there is merit in deporting certain citizens seems to have a problem with Protect GCISD.
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The gem of a third comment below is from a former GCISD school board candidate.