Oklahoma State Rep. Dan Fisher presumably has an array of tough issues to tackle for his state from unemployment to the environment to crime. However, Fisher has decided to take on the ignoble task of banning Advanced Placement history classes in the state because he objects to the inclusion of negative aspects of American history and the omission of material embracing “American exceptionalism.” As an academic, I have previously criticized politicians (here and here and here and here) intervening in our school system to impose their own values or priorities on educators. This however ranks as one of the worst such intrusions that we have seen.
Oklahoma has been one of the states rejecting the Common Core curriculum for K-12 programs. There are valid arguments for states in insisting on control of such curricula as a general matter even if one disagrees with the merits of objections to the common core. However, this is beyond the pale. AP classes are a mainstay of our educational system and allow students to get truly advanced studies in given subjects. I have argued for years that we need to ramp up such courses on civics and history. It is therefore particularly distressing to read Fisher’s bill. It is not only would deprive these students of advanced courses but it would place Oklahoma students at a serious disadvantage in college applications which put great weight on such courses.
Fisher’s primary objection is that the AP history courses, in his view, emphasize the wrongs about America. However, these courses allow students to study not just the triumphs but the mistakes of history so history does not repeat itself. We are not a great nation because we did not commit errors and even crimes in our past. We are a great nation because we overcome such history, recognized our failings, and become a better nation despite such failings. The Trail of Tears, Alien and Sedition Acts, Japanese internment camps, Red Scare and other dark chapters reveal both our succumbing to fears and our transcending them. Part of AP curricula is to train students to read history in a critical and objective way. Converting our history into some Disney tale will teach students little about our country or themselves.
The “exceptionalism” of this country is precisely that we are not perfect but strive to be better.
This us what happens when you elect Republicans. More to come. Downward and backwards.
Ah yes, right on the mark.
Of course rightists don’t want history as it really was taught to students. How else could they save them from communist mind control? Pogo was discussing this just the other day. Leave out the seedier facts about American history to our youth. Emphasize America’s exceptionalism by never ever bringing up the KKK again. Let fade away from the collective memory banks. Right, rightists?
Inga – you know nothing about education or curriculum development. I won’t tell you how to clean a bed pan if you don’t don’t tell me how to write a lesson plan.
” I have argued for years that we need to ramp up such courses on civics and history.
All they’re getting is Marx and Zinn and postmodern activist twaddle.
Look, live by politics, die by politics.
The New School folks shoved their ideological agenda down the throats of US students because Democrats control the teachers union.
Parents have no say in what’s being taught.
This measure is using politics just as they did. Can’t squawk about it when your party is no longer in power. That’s the risk they took.
No anthropological history studies in Oklahoma? That’s Indian country.
Arapaho, Cayuga, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chickaswa, Choctaw, Creek, Delaware, Ioway, Kaw, Kickapoo, Modoc, Ottawa, Pawnee, Ponca, Potawatomi, Seneca, Shawnee, Wyandotte, Tonkawa and Yuchi tribes.
It’s “Commie Core.”
I normally agree with Professor Turley on most every issue but sir I ask of you, PLEASE research much further into the connections of Common Core, The College Board and The New School. Dig enough and what you will find will horrify you as an educator.
davidm is correct. This entire tangled vile web is far more linked and intricate than anyone realizes. Its about a small group of people controlling the entire education system for the entire public school system to push a political agenda. Leftwing or rightwing, that is just wrong….and very dangerous ultimately.
http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2014/03/ap-american-history-goes-socialist-founding-fathers-depicted-as-rich-white-elites-2828458.html
I find the use of ‘commie or socialist’ to usually be nothing more than an insult. In this case it is rather true. Common Core, The College Board and the New School all push a very radical leftwing and socialist agenda. All for profiteering at the same time. All run and controlled by the same people. Scary stuff really.
Not only does Common Core need to be removed but so does ‘the College Board’. who is essentially the goon enforcer for the New School agenda.
Follow the money and follow the policy.
http://www.fiscalrangers.com/apush-2014-revisions-factsheet-ap-us-history-exam-being-modified-by-common-core-architect-david-cole.html
The New School’s curriculum is highly experimental and avant-garde, offering classes such as: “Heterodox Identities,” “Games 101,” “NYC: Graphic Gotham,” “Punk & Noise,” “Masculinity in Asia,” “Queer Culture,” and “Play and Toil in the Digital Sweatshop.
In 2007 Coleman and Zimba together with educational analyst Sue Pimentel co-founded Student Achievement Partners (SAP), a non-profit organization which researches and develops “achievement based” assessment standards.[10] Funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Achievement Partners played a leading role in developing the Common Core State Standards in math and literacy
When Coleman left Student Achievement Partners in October 2012 to head the College Board, Zimba and Susan Pimentel continued to lead Student Achievement Partners, which is now devoted to facilitating the implementation of the Common Core Standards.
The Common Core
In 2009 the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers launched an initiative to write Common Core State Standards for elementary through high school English Language Arts and Mathematics. The Common Core State Standards aim to prepare students for college and careers by identifying the skills students should learn from kindergarten through high school.[13] David Coleman was on the English Language Arts writing team, which was chaired by Student Achievement Partners co-founder Sue Pimentel. Coleman’s friend and Student Achievement Partners co-founder Jason Zimba was a leader on the Mathematics writing team. As of June 2014, the standards have been adopted by 44 states.[14] Since Coleman’s departure to head the College Board, Student Achievement Partners has continued to support implementation of the Common Core standards.[15]
The Common Core has created a national market for book publishers and test developers.[16] Beginning in the 2014 to 2015 school year, U.S. primary and high schools will begin using standardized exams closely aligned with the new Common Core’s standards.[17]
The College Board
On May 16, 2012 the College Board chose Coleman as its president
Coleman and the College Board announced a redesign of the SAT slated for spring 2016
Coleman was named one of the 2013 Time 100, Time magazine’s annual list of what it considers the 100 most influential people in the world. The encomium was announced in the magazine in an article written by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, a prominent supporter of the Common Core State Standards.
AP history has been changed. Read up on the changes. Its a political agenda that originates out of The New School in New York. All the changes the College Board are implementing are being forced into the Common Core. The entire agenda is straight out of the New School.
I normally do not like politicians doing stuff like this for political means but in this case the legislator is correct. I suggest everybody go read up on this for themselves. You will be surprised at just who is hijacking our entire education system. One school of far left radicals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_School
Philosophical tradition
The New School for Social Research continues the Graduate Faculty’s tradition of synthesizing leftist American intellectual thought and critical European philosophy. True to its origin and its firm roots within the University in Exile, The New School for Social Research, particularly its Department of Philosophy, is in the minority in the United States in offering students thorough training in the modern continental European philosophical tradition known as “Continental philosophy.” Thus, it stresses the teachings of Parmenides, Aristotle, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Arendt, Freud, Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, et al.[18] The thought of the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School: Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, et al. holds an especially strong influence on all divisions of the school. After the death of Hannah Arendt in 1975, the philosophy department revolved around Reiner Schürmann and Ágnes Heller.
The New School’s curriculum is highly experimental and avant-garde, offering classes such as: “Heterodox Identities,” “Games 101,” “NYC: Graphic Gotham,” “Punk & Noise,” “Masculinity in Asia,” “*** Culture,” and “Play and Toil in the Digital Sweatshop.
Yep David I see thousands of kids in the streets most any day holding banners saying they hate the USA. I find most kids loving the country but with a healthy skepticism that keeps them for falling for ideas from guys like you.
mespo – I do see students in the street every day hating the USA and that is because the left-wing teachers got them there. If you do not see them you are blind to what is going on around you.
@davidm2575
“But as I investigated this a bit more and looked at the curriculum, I see that there is a huge problem here. What they are doing is defunding a program that indoctrinates their children into only one perspective.”
Just curious what curriculum problems, excuse me “huge problems” your investigations uncovered? I suspect if there is there is a problem with AP history in OK, then the problem would likely exist in most, if not all states. And how would speeches (not real actions or history) by Ronald Reagan or any other politician better educate our young?
“…….,…….the legislature should use persuasive means to ask the schools to add to the curriculum the information that makes them imbalanced”.
as you seemingly have spent hours on the curriculum(wish I had that many spare hours every day) what parts of the OK AP history class are so unbalanced?
Bill W, this issue is actually bigger than Oklahoma. The Republican National Committee voted to fight this last year.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2014/08/college_board_statement_on_ap.html
The AP curriculum pushes all the spurious Democratic talking points about the evil white man with themes pertinent to the need for anti-discrimination laws, affirmative action, feminism, and acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage. It even promotes the book “The Feminine Mystique” and Gloria Steinem. It is pure propaganda. You can read it for yourself at the following link:
http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap-us-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf
The federal government needs to get out of the education business entirely. The Department of Education that Jimmy Carter started should be abolished.
Dual enrollment is not necessarily going to help.
Some universities (Northwestern, for example) will not accept community college credits for classes that were counted toward high school graduation. I wasted hundreds of dollars in tuition to co-enroll my daughter in advanced mathematics classes at the local community college while she was attending our local magnet science & technology high school.
Moreover, if the concern with AP History is that it is factually flawed, the same concern would apply to any community college course , as well. The problem with the Oklahoma proposal is that he does not want the teachers to teach history, he wants them to be cheerleaders for a specific vision of the United States.
Porkchop wrote: “The problem with the Oklahoma proposal is that he does not want the teachers to teach history, he wants them to be cheerleaders for a specific vision of the United States.”
Actually, I think it is the other way around. The current curriculum is a cheerleader for a specific historical perspective that leads children to hate our country. So they are pulling the funding for it. The solution is to present information from both historical perspectives. If the teachers added American Exceptionalism to their historical information, it would probably pass the committee.
Incidentally, this issue passed with all Republicans voting for it and all Democrats voting against it. This is not surprising because the curriculum is basically the Democrat’s version of history that leads to hating America.
Porkchop – you do have to be careful that the courses transfer. We have had a problem with that here, but they finally came up with a catalog that covers all classes taught by both the colleges and universities in the states and what the other colleges and universities will accept them as. Usually US history transfers as do most history courses. Here community college course HAVE to be taught be people who have a Masters in the field. The universities do not require the same, i.e., sections of English 101 are led by history grad students.
When I first read Professor Turley’s article, I was outraged that the legislature would insert themselves into the educational curriculum by banning information. Education is about hearing a wide variety of viewpoints. But as I investigated this a bit more and looked at the curriculum, I see that there is a huge problem here. What they are doing is defunding a program that indoctrinates their children into only one perspective.
A much better solution would be to establish a voucher system where parents can choose the school that is doing real education. Introduce competition. As the holders of the purse strings, the legislature should use persuasive means to ask the schools to add to the curriculum the information that makes them imbalanced.
I also agree with Paul that dual enrollment is much better than AP.
Davidm2575
I think if we teach about the forefathers and if we worry about anything we should worry about the way they teach the Bill of Rights in the 6th grade. It is very confusing http://news.yahoo.com/common-core-assignment-makes-sixth-graders-scrap-bill-140407552.html This is old but informative
The students would be far better off with the school making a deal for teaching dual credit classes with the community colleges. Fewer and fewer colleges are accepting AP credits but are accepting community college credits. Schools push a lot of students who do not qualify into these classes because it makes their stats look good, but not that many actually take the AP exam. If they all had to take the AP exam, like it was in the beginning, they wouldn’t have enough to make a class.
I one point in my life I wrote a Cliff Notes version of AP US History to be sold on disk to assist students. Since I was a contractor I do not know what ever happened to the material that they paid me for. However, there are some historical flaws in the program. And the beginning readings of the program are often slanted.
Pogo Hears a Who
Your Textbook by A People’s History of the United States with A History of the American People by Paul Johnson. was it? really?? wow
That is not teaching history but it is indoctrination. Sorry. I would have made history my major and it would never have been by these untruths perpetuated in a White Mans Documentation. I am sorry but I disagree. How intelligent people want 19th century prejudices indoctrinated into their children in the name of leaving out everything that they should know about because America is an experiment in Disneyland and Hollywood.
The Book looks like something Teddy Roosevelt would write. We are never going to overcome our prejudices and pride until we look at our problems of the past the way they were and love America anyway because it is never going to be white again and it is best to look at the future holistically and realistically rather than nostalgically from a skewed point of view
Wow
I had to read that twice cause it’s late. So, he want’s to teach about the Angel Columbia drifting across the plains to show the pioneers to go ever Westward to their Manifest Destiny. (lol)
Thank God I missed out on this. I am still studying and driving my friends nuts on this very blog.
Some in Texas wanted to eliminate teaching Thomas Jefferson.
Amen Professor Turley…Amen!!! he needs to get a life…..