Changing Our History

Imagine teaching the history of WWII without mentioning Adolf Hitler, the Nazi atrocities or the Holocaust. Or teaching the Civil War without Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Delete the Founding Fathers and their role in the American Revolution.  But, do teach about the atomic bombs that we dropped and how that raised questions about our American values.

The College Board, the company which issues the SAT college entrance exams and other Advanced Placement exams, has created a new 'framework' for the AP U.S. History exam, which will radically change the way American history is taught.

According to Stanley Kurtz of NationalReview.com, "the traditional emphasis on America's founders and principles of constitutional government will soon be jettisoned in favor of a left-leaning emphasis on race, gender, class, ethnicity, etc."  While this may conflict with existing history standards in the states, questions and debate have been virtually suppressed in the way this exam has been publicly released. Sample questions have been made public, but largely this test is being kept under tight wraps, along with a warning to certified AP teachers that any discussion of the new test will subject them to losing their AP teaching privileges. Says Kurtz, "This is clearly an effort to silence public debate over these highly politicized and illegitimately nationalized standards. If the complete sample test was available, the political nature of the new test would become evident."

An example of this new version of history may be that "the Constitution can be studied as an example of the Colonists' belief in the superiority of their own culture." Continues Kurtz, "so while allowing some minor flexibility on details, the new AP U.S. History framework effectively forces teachers to train their students in a leftist, blame-America-first reading of history, while omitting traditional treatments of our founding principles." http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/382400/new-war-over-high-school-us-history-stanley-kurtz

Ken Mercer, of the Texas Board of Education, has been working to put a stop to this tranformative practice. According to Mercer, the hands of states and local school boards are tied, because if the students are required to take this test, then teachers have to teach for the test. Although, in theory, they have 'leeway' to add other information, the students will only be tested on the 98 page document given to teachers. Mercer believes that teaching outside the document would be doing a disservice to the students if they want the students to pass the test. http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/07/15/surprise-surprise-common-core-masterminds-behind-new-ap-u-s-history-curriculum/

The College Board President and CEO is David Coleman, one of the architects of Common Core, the controversial federal curriculum standards for K-12, currently being opposed by many teachers and parents.

In a live telecast on movie screens across the country last week, Glenn Beck brought together educators and activists in an attempt to stimulate grassroots opposition to Common Core. There will be another screening of the event this Tuesday, July 29th and is called "We Will Not Conform." Look for it at a theater near you. Also check out commoncorefails.com for ways in which you can help stop this federal takeover of education. The time to speak up is now, as these tests will be rolling out in the Fall.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about our country's history is what our children must learn. We must push back on the progressive agenda to change the telling of our history. Is it too much to ask that our children be taught American history devoid of an ideological agenda?