Vice Chairman of the State Board of Education Thomas Ratliff and Senate Education Committee Chairman, and now candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston) will debate on education policy issues, including CSCOPE, on Saturday in Tyler, TX.  The following is a statement regarding this debate from ATPE State President Ginger Franks, a special education teacher who represents the association’s 100,000-plus membership across the state. “This is not really about the merits of CSCOPE. It’s about the fact that a politician is trying to take away educators’ right to decide which lesson plans to use for purely political reasons. Tools like CSCOPE help teachers manage lesson plans and many districts, especially smaller school districts, rely heavily on this tool. It would be a shame to deny access to a tool that many teachers find helpful, especially when there isn’t a readily available replacement for it. This is a violation of educators’ right to teach the students in the way they feel is the most efficient and effective method, whether it is CSCOPE or not.” The debate will take place at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the University of Texas -Tyler Ornelas Activity Center. ATPE encourages all educators to attend. For those that can't attend, the debate will be live streamed. The feed will be posted here on the TeachtheVote blog when it becomes available. Be sure to check back.