Revised AP U.S. History Standards Will Emphasize American Exceptionalism

Newsweek ^ | July 29, 2015 | By Zoë Schlanger

[Brad from Tennessee]

The company behind Advanced Placement courses for U.S. high school students will release a revision to the standards for AP U.S. history on Thursday morning, after significant pushback from conservatives who claimed the redesigned course framework, released last year, painted American history in too negative a light.

The new framework significantly pares down last year’s framework, simplifying and condensing the course’s Thematic Learning Objectives from 50 to 19, according to an official at the College Board, the nonprofit organization that administers AP exams. In the process, a new section on the concept of “American exceptionalism” has been added. Some names that were omitted from last year’s framework, such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, have been added—a key sticking point for critics of the prior document, who objected to Founding Fathers being omitted and negative aspects in American history being more emphasized, they claimed, than positive periods. Ben Carson, a GOP presidential candidate, said the curriculum was so anti-American that students who complete it would be “ready to sign up for ISIS.”

Last year, after the College Board released its redesigned standards for AP U.S. history, a document more than a decade in the making, Oklahoma, Georgia and Texas all introduced bills threatening to pull the course altogether. The Jefferson County school district in Colorado convened a board committee to review the curriculum, stating that all materials should promote “patriotism” and “respect for authority,” and “should not encourage or condone civil disorder.”

[Mollypitcher1]

Long past time to hold the antiAmericans feet to the fire. Now, the responsibles for last year’s fiasco should be fired. Hold them all responsible.

[wastoute]

Don’t teach FROM Howard Zinn and that bunch. Teach ABOUT how they tried to destroy America.

[tbw2]

I can’t think of any successful society that went around teaching “we’re bad”.
I’ve heard Japan of the 1920s and 1930s wrote books close to that, but came back nationalist and we ended up fighting their empire in the 1940s.

[originalbuckeye]

My niece was taking APUSH last year. I asked her what she was studying. She said they had learned about the Native Americans and then were studying the 1930s. My sister is a Socialist so I have to be careful what I say to her daughter, but all I was thinking was ‘wow, there was a lot of history in between those two subjects’. Glad to hear someone is trying to get our History taught correctly again!

[ozdragon]

parents must make their views heard. About 15 years ago my children were in an elite NYC public high school. I saw that the American History book was written by Howard Zinn. I immediately went to the teacher and the principal and made it clear that this was unacceptable. After a serious discussion they agreed to also use an acceptable text book and present both views of US history. Fortunately both the teacher and the principal were really centrist. I fear that I would not have gotten a good a result today. BTW: my children are politically centrist, liberal socially and conservative on defense and economy.