College Board bows to critics, revises AP U.S. History course
After a year of defending its 2014 framework for the AP U.S. History course against conservative criticism that it was presenting a negatively biased view of American history, the College Board just released a new “clearer and more balanced” course guide and framework that includes many of the subjects the critics had complained were missing from the previous one.
The College Board, which owns the Advanced Placement program, said in statement published on its Web site that “feedback gathered over the last year” has guided the changes. The statement, published a day after College Board President David Coleman met with a chief framework critic, said in part:
Every statement in the 2015 edition has been examined with great care based on the historical record and the principled feedback the College Board received. The result is a clearer and more balanced approach to the teaching of American history that remains faithful to the requirements that colleges and universities set for academic credit. The new edition has been embraced by educators, including AP U.S. History teachers who reviewed it at the recent AP Annual Conference.
The 2014 framework was created after AP U.S. History teachers complained that the old version forced them to race through topics without time to immerse students in major ideas. The 2014 document took a view of U.S. History as a series of conflicts over power, and did not mention important American historical figures by name, including Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Just as soon as it was released, it was savaged by conservatives, including the Republican National Committee, which passed a resolution last summer saying that the framework “emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.” They called for a congressional investigation. Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon who is a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, said that “most people” who complete the course would then be “ready to sign up for ISIS.” (Yes, he really said that.)
And last month, a group of historians from a wide range of schools, including Harvard, Stanford, Yale and Princeton universities, as well Lynne Cheney, former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the wife of College Board bows to critics, revises AP U.S. History course - The Washington Post: