Building the Metaverse: Texas Commission on Virtual Education

Through House Bill 3643 (Rep. Ken King) and the 87th Texas Legislature, the Texas Commission on Virtual Education (TCVE) was established in the fall of 2021. The charge of the Commission was to develop and make recommendations regarding the delivery of virtual education in the public school system. The Commission was also tasked with the provision of state funding for virtual education under the Foundation School Program.

If there's anything we learned during the plandemic it's that distance learning is an oxymoron. Students in all grades fell behind and learning loss ensued. Despite warnings from parents and experts sounding the alarms on the isolation and developmental delays brought by instruction on devices while sheltered at home, the schools remained closed.

In the heat of the lockdowns, Abbott created a bogus window-dressing strike force to open Texas led by powerful BigPharma lobbyist Mike Toomey. Abbott signed a $300M contact tracing deal with MTX orchestrated by two K12 education lobbyists who were paid $50,000 each:

I published an article on the "quiet revolution" and bipartisan effort to?"Reimagine Education"?for our public school children. Governor Greg Abbott teamed up with Dallas ISD and TEA Commissioner Mike Morath to push "distance learning" for all kids in Texas in response to the coronavirus. They called it Operation Connectivity.

The statewide implementation of this initiative was led by the?Operation Connectivity Task Force. Former Dallas ISD Superintendent Dr. Michael Hinojosa and TEA Commissioner Morath served as co-chairs of the task force. Senator Larry Taylor, former Chairman of the Committee on Education in the Texas Senate and Representative Dan Huberty, former Chairman of the Public Education Committee in the Texas House, served as members of the task force, including the?EducationSuperHighway?funded by the Gates Foundation and Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.

Senator Donna Campbell sounded desperate to get this virtual highway complete. It's a huge red flag when Gates and Zuckerberg are driving this highway. Slow down!

In 2019, Gates invested $650M in Crown Castle just before the pandemic. During the lockdowns Dallas ISD and Richardson ISD purchased Crown Castle wifi hotspots for all students to dial in virtually on their devices. Coincidence?

King Rex Gore

I took Latin in high school. Rex means king or ruler. A significant Abbott donor and charter school investor named Rex Gore is Chairman of the Texas Commission on Virtual Education (TCVE). Gore also serves as the State Board Educator Certification (SBEC) through 2027. SBEC develops certification and continuing education requirements and standards of conduct for public school teachers. Like TEA Commissioner Morath, Rex Gore is not an educator. He is a social entrepreneur and wealthy business owner whose children received a classical education at Regents in Austin.

Virtual for thee, classical for me. Noblesse oblige.

Virtually Unavailable

While in Austin last week for a meeting with TEA Commissioner Morath to expose his failed Amplify reading software initiative, we tried to meet with Rex Gore and he was not available. He doesn't see a need for public testimony in his kingdom. References listed on his application tell us all we need to know about WHO is driving this bus. Tom Luce has long been involved in education reform. Stacy Hock was on Morath's philanthropic council and the Next Gen STAAR Commission. Tom Torkelson was embroiled in a private jet scandal at IDEA charters and Brook Rollins is with TPPF, the school voucher pushers.

Mary Lowe, the co-founder of Families Engaged for Effective Education confronted TCVE Chairman Gore for not allowing public testimony. Crickets.

The Commission was stacked with testimonies from vendors and charter school proponents who will financially benefit from the resources allocated by the 88th legislature based on the recommendations from the Commission. This particular mother testified about Great Hearts Online charter schools where her four boys attend virtually. Grab your kleenex.

Raquel Zapata failed to mention her job as the Director of Academy Operations at Great Hearts Online Charters.

Who is driving the bus?

Great Hearts Online Director Raquel Zapata said, "At the school I'm not only a parent. I'm also a partner in their education because they are at home."

Lies by omission. She has a direct conflict of interest. Who invited her? Who is driving this agenda to steer funding and hard-earned taxpayer dollars to special interests and the charter school industry?

Since the 1990s, charter schools have promised innovation and an alternative to the traditional public schools which resulted in a parallel system of taxation without representation. Charter schools receive public funding with little accountability. Charter schools do not have democratically elected boards but they have the same crappy STAAR test and standards (TEKS) as public schools. Their performance is even worse than our mediocre public schools, so what's the point?

Former Utah Senator Howard Stephenson was another stacked testimony brought in to support virtual learning. He received a B.S. degree in psychology and aerospace studies from?Brigham Young University and a Master of Public Administration (1977). He currently consults and speaks nationally on digital teaching and learning, advocating for personalized teaching and learning and K-12 dual language immersion on devices. He also cried during his testimony.

Stephenson is a member of the Mormon church where some members are championing synthetic biology and the melding of man with machines. I attended a summit Utah last spring with the Mormon Transhumanist Association where I learned about the agenda in K12 to push for virtual learning on devices used to harvest data and track every move:

Virtual Governor

King Abbott has done a masterful job of hoodwinking his base into thinking he's a staunch conservative fighting for Texas values. His campaign war chest surpassed that of George W. Bush and according to Texas Tribune, "Since?Greg Abbott?first declared he would run for governor on July 14, 2013, he’s raised the equivalent of $83,793 per day to fund his pursuit of power. That’s $20,000 more than the median Texas household earns in a year."

Abbott is a member of the World Economic Forum who refused to denounce Klaus Schwab and the Great Reset agenda. That agenda involves a shift towards virtual reality and artificial intelligence. It nudges us into the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Building the metaverse depends on the captive market of public school students. Texas educates 1/10th of America's children which totals roughly 5.4 million students.

STEMuli Metaverse Hybrid Learning

Former DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa testified at the Virtual Education Commission about Dallas Hybrid Prep where the founder of STEMuli calls it a school within a video game. Founder Taylor Shead worked in an Apple Store before STEMuli and is working to scale the hybrid model nationwide after receiving millions in grants and seed funding. She refers to it as the Educational Metaverse. Dr. Hinojosa said Apple helped them design the school where each child is 2:1 with an iPad and a Mac device. Children attend school virtually three days a week and have an avatar represent them online where a virtual eyeball follows them throughout the virtual lessons:

Rowe Your Virtual Boat

In the February TCVE meeting, the Commission heard from?TEA Commissioner Morath and Operation Connectivity representative Gaby Rowe. This informed them of the status of virtual education including information on student access to digital devices and at-home broadband.

“Bridging the digital divide for the Students of Texas became Mission Critical with the onset of COVID-19, enabling us to develop successful solutions with speed and at scale like never before.”?Gaby Rowe, Principal, GROW Associates, LLC and Project Lead for Operation Connectivity

Virtual Forces

Many of the people on?Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's Task Force?and Governor Abbott's?Strike Force?have deep ties in education technology, the Texas Virtual Schools Network (TxVSN), charter schools, and the school choice voucher movement. They viewed the plandemic as the perfect opportunity to siphon dollars and students away from public education to get every kid on a device for at-home learning. They cite Milton Friedman's free-market principles in attempt to apply it to the captive market of schoolchildren. Friedman said, "Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change."

Virtual Cash Cow

Texas has a huge?$27 billion budget surplus as we head into the next legislative session. Instead of spending the surplus on wasted endeavors, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has the power and the bully pulpit to tell the Texas Education Agency to reject federal funds and the strings by using the surplus to fund our schools for a classical education. We should proclaim the 10th Amendment and tell the federal government to butt out of education. There's no constitutional justification for the Department of Education or the acceptance of federal funds in Texas. He revealed his priorities this past week for the upcoming session.

Yawn.

Texas received ?$11.2 billion of federal funding for schools. The funds were appropriated as part of the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief?(ARP ESSER or ESSER III) Fund. This federal funding was passed in March 2021 under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Funds were designed to be used by K–12 public and charter schools for resources purchased between March 13, 2020 and September 20, 2023. The?estimated allotment?is a district’s ESSER I entitlement multiplied by 10 and subject to change depending on final allotments. ESSER was a carrot to control.

They can make a school district do just about anything when they dangle the money carrot.

The TCVE bill creates a new funding stream that will be steered to vendors grabbing for dollars. Senator Larry Taylor is over the subcommittee to allocate the funding. Taylor did not seek reelection but he's long been a champion of experimental technologies and learning strategies. These subcommittees are able to operate outside of transparency. Are they recorded? Who is directing them?

Texas Public Policy Foundation keeps popping up on our radar. TPPF's Emily Sass was an invited testifier. I've seen Emily Sass speak several times. She looks like a 20-year-old homeschool kid. Why is she so keen on kids dialing in remotely? Is it because she's a paid lobbyist? Most of the people we meet with TPPF want a classical model of education for their own children, yet they push for digital learning for "those kids" in public schools. Why? Who profits off of virtual learning??

Call to Action!

On Wednesday, December 14 there is a final hearing at the Texas Commission for Virtual Education at 10:00 am - 3:00 pm. We are asking King Rex and the Commission members to allow for public testimony. If Texas taxpayers are expected to fund this boondoggle, we should have an opportunity to testify. Why should special interests and profiteers be given preferential treatment at these hearings?

The first draft report of the Texas Commission on Virtual Education found here was missing 10 pages on funding. Alice Linahan wrote this article exposing the national security threat of this virtual commission:

Teachers need not apply.

UPDATE: I attended the hearing on December 14 and the Commission unanimously approved all of the interim charges and will finish the report by the end of the month to inform the legislature for the upcoming session. Full steam ahead.