College Board Supports Student Protests in Colorado

An AP history student screams her indignation at the school board's messing with the AP History curriculum

 It ought to come as no surprise that when a standard national curriculum with name cachet is tampered with, diluted there are bound to be consequences from the official body that governs its content and any changes. So it should have come as no surprise when the Denver Post reported yesterday (p. 3A) that the College Board (source of the SAT and its AP versions) supports the student protests in Jefferson Country (which have included thousands of students including from Columbine High School and Dakota Ridge H.S..).   As the Post report stated:

"The College Board's Advanced Placement program, which oversees the AP U.S. History course at the center of the Jefferson County protests, said in a statement Friday that it supports the teens and their actions.

'These students recognize that the social order can - and sometimes must - be disrupted in the pursuit of liberty and justice' the statement said.

'Civil disorder and social strife are at the patriotic heart of American history - from the Boston Tea Party to the American Revolution to the Civil Rights movement."

It also would have come as no surprise that the College Board stated firmly that "if a school or district 'censors essential concepts from an Advanced Placement course then that course can no longer bear the AP designation".

So one is left to wonder how the  JeffCo sorry excuse for a school board thought they could get away with this perfidy when other states (e.g. Texas) had no recourse other than to drop its revisionist history AP curriculum and go to an exclusively state-sponsored program instead. I mean this stuff is basic: you can't seek to have a program which pretends to be AP history but is actually cafeteria -style revisionist piffle that Larry Schweikart and his groupies might be proud of.  And yet even in yesterday's Post, on the Op-Ed page, one JeffCo school board numskull (John Newkirk) sought to defend the local school board's bastardized history curriculum.

Which makes one wonder what planet Newkirk is living on. Newkirk complained the JeffCo board was "widely criticized for leaving out parts of our underlying story, yet when board member suggested engaging the community - via a curriculum review committee- she and the board were widely criticized,"

As they should have been! Because the time for "engagement" of the community was before the proposal was submitted and accepted at a closed door (i.e. non-public) meeting. So, Newkirk actually writes out of both sides of his mouth, because if you're holding closed door meetings to get a curriculum fast-tracked and passed you are not engaging the community nor do you have any intention to do so. This is what both students and teachers perceived and why they took action.

What Newkirk actually advocates is discussing the curriculum after it's already approved, akin to closing the barn door after all the cows have escaped.  The worst balderdash of all from his op-ed piece was when he blathered:

"The reaction to a new board majority of non-union candidates has been loud and prolonged. This I fear is largely due to fear of the unknown and change in the status quo."

In fact it was largely due to what the Denver Post reported Friday (p. 8A) to the effect that controversy had swirled since a conservative board had been elected to run the 85,000 student district - and most people knew these conservos had their own agenda. It didn't take long for it to surface with the revisionist AP curriculum. The insistence by these board members that positive history be emphasized and civil disobedience de-emphasized, capped it - along with the insistence that students acknowledge respect for authority and appreciate the value of the free market (sic.) By then, everyone with a brain knew what was afoot and the protests ensued.

So, in many ways, one can blame the clueless Jefferson County voters for removing the trio of hard working board members and putting in the current clowns.  In this guise, the Neanderthals  attacking the students can cease and desist giving the middle finger  when  they pass them in their cars and shouting: "Where are the truant officers?"

The worst insult, as it ought to be for the students (as well as JeffCo teachers),  is the derelict claim by some nincompoops that the students are being exploited as "pawns"  by the teachers. One of these bozos even asked in a letter to the Post yesterday: "Have the students, one month into the semester, the ability or knowledge to critique curriculums?"

Yes, they do, if they have even an overview of how the content might be adjusted or changed. So when JeffCo Board VP Julie Williams'  intent to "promote the positive aspects of U.S. history" - broke in the newspapers (and I do believe students read them, if only online)  along with the reported objectives "to avoid teaching civil disorder and social strife" - the students knew what was afoot: vanilla, or sanitized U.S. history. They didn't have to review or know the entire curriculum to arrive at their conclusions.

The true fact, as voiced by one Jefferson County teacher (ibid.), is the students themselves "have taken this thing on and run with it". They have watched the news and read online info  - they aren't layabout dummies or zombies after all - and have expertly used social media including Facebook and Twitter, to connect with classmates and spread the word.  So, if the JeffCo nattering nabobs have a problem with the protests, they'd be more correct to blame social media and the internet than the teachers.

Addendum:

The Common Core does not include standards for history (though it probably should - more so than for algebra and geometry) so alignment to a national curriculum was not a factor. However, just as Common Core emphasizes a stronger focus on critical thinking, College Board authors note that the new AP U.S. history framework emphasizes analyzing and thinking skills using primary sources. For example, using the Warren Commission's own report but along with an understanding of physics, human anatomy to show it is false, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-jfk_15.html

Students, Teachers Fight Against "Vanilla" AP History in Colorado

As I noted in a previous blog post (April 26, 2013) I have little or no use for local school boards. They are politicized creatures and are part of what is degrading the educational system in the U.S. In the referenced blog post, for example, I cited way too much interference by School Boards- low level politicos and hacks - whose primary objective is to impose THEIR agenda on schools and dumb down kids.

This was the first thing that struck me on return to the U.S.in 1992 : the degree of interference in all manner of school policies, even choice of textbooks and curricula. School boards thereby sought to imprint their schools with their own biased slants, agendas and beliefs. Obviously, such micro-managed oversight kills innovation and creativity in its tracks, not to mention the ability of students to achieve an objective insight into the objects of their inquiry..

Now, as if to reinforce this, the battle is on in Jefferson County, Colorado - after a misbegotten local school board has seen fit to try to revamp AP History. This has triggered protests from thousands of students who want their history straight - not perverted, "positivized" or rendered like mush. The teachers also are in full revolt as they should be, since no teacher worth his or her salt ought to bend over to replace genuine history content with PR, and mischievous malarkey. That leads inevitably to the swill we behold from clowns like Larry Schweikart and his  '48 Liberal Lies About American History - when he's the one doing the lying!

Anyway, here's the backstory: like 6 other states Colorado law allows local school boards to override school districts and impose their own history content, such as for AP studies, courses.  Taking advantage of this, the Jefferson County school board held a closed door meeting (wherein most nefarious deeds get hatched) last Thursday.

At the meeting, Board Vice President Julie Williams proposed that a committee be formed to review the current Advanced Placement History Curriculum and change it. She wrote in her goofy proposal:

"Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law. Instructional materials should present positive aspects of the United States and its heritage."

Of course, thinking teachers and students mocked this gibberish via Twitter. Two of the tweets:

"Roe vs. Wade was about the best way to cross a river."

"The Declaration of Independence refers to a song by Beyoncé"


These takes are spot on, given if one only teaches the positive aspects of American History one ends up with propaganda, muddled bilge or worse,  pabulum fit only for kindergarteners, and no genuine comprehension of the opposing forces that shaped our history. How, for example, would you portray the Civil War? As just a bunch of opposing armies getting together to sing songs and sign agreements?

If the JeffCo proposal were to succeed, students would never learn about:

- The basis for the American Revolution, or be allowed to read Thomas Paine's fiery 'Common Sense'

- The Haymarket Massacre and the influence of labor unions in U.S, history

- The Civil War and its bloodiest battles such as Shiloh and Antietam

- The Sand Creek Massacre and the betrayal by the U.S. gov't of its signed treaties with the Indians - to take their land.

- The use of propaganda by Edward Bernays to goad the U.S. into WWI

- The assassination of John Kennedy and the role of the CIA, national security state.

- The pretext for the Vietnam War in the Tonkin Gulf Resolution wherein it was falsely claimed that the U.S. fired in N. Vietnamese gunboats in international waters after being fired on first.

- The false pretext for the Iraq war and "Operation Iraqi Freedom"  pushed by Bush, Cheney and the Neocons like Paul Wolfowitz,

The omission of any or all of these would reduce AP history in JeffCo to mush, suitable only for history dummies and  FOX News broadcasters, but not serious students of history. Worse, it would instill false consciousness in any student that accepts it, see e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/09/class-consciousness-or-false.html

Let's also be aware it was propagandist and PR maestro Edward Bernays himself who wrote in his booklet, Propaganda:

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country.”


If the curriculum proposed by the JeffCo School Board and Julie Williams doesn't follow Bernays' odious playbook, then I don't know what does.

As for civil disobedience, as one Denver Post letter writer put it (Sept. 24):

"We have seen throughout our history that acts of civil disobedience such as the American Revolution, the labor movement, women's rights, and the civil rights movements often spur needed change."

Indeed! So if Rosa Parks had just sat like a zombie and never moved to the front of that bus in Alabama, there never would have been a bus boycott or much else. She knew she had to choose civil disobedience and in doing so helped create history.  If Martin Luther King had not led marches in Selma and Montgomery, same thing. Ditto for the revolutionaries dumping tea into Boston Harbor. Similarly, if all the Vietnam War protestors had just watched TV all day that illegal war might have gone on years longer with many thousands more deaths.

It follows that schools must therefore not be repositories of false facts or omitted events, lest they become vehicles for creating mere consumers as opposed to citizens, As authors D. Stanley Eitzen and Maxine Baca-Zinn note in their wonderful book, 'In Conflict and Order', p. 443:


"The schools perform several vital functions for the maintenance of the prevailing social, political and economic order.  Through their curricula, testing, and bureaucratic control, and emphasis on competition, the schools reflect the social class 'structure' of society  by processing youth to fit into economic slots similar to those of their parents.."

 Schools thereby became  Agents of Corporate False Consciousness.

Now with actual deliberate AP history curriculum changes proposed, with a conscious effort to hide or blind students to their nation's actual history, the costs and stakes have become much higher. We are now very near, in JeffCo, to what the German students suffered during the reign of Hitler and the Third Reich: the selective  'canned' teaching of history to promote and emphasize "patriotism and respect for authority" over historical truth.  

As D. Stanley EItzen and Ms. Baca-Zinn have observed(ibid.) , respect for authority (the "order" paradigm)  has its place but not in all  arenas and venues.  If one only conformed to authority no change would ever come. Rosa Parks would have remained in her place and not violated "authority" by moving to the front of a bus in Montgomery.  Martin Luther King would have remained in his church and wrote sermons and never taken to the streets.  Vietnam protestors would have stayed in their university classrooms and never made a single protest sign or marched. Oh, and a President like JFK would never have printed $4.2 billion in U.S. Notes outside the Federal Reserve system,  e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/yes-those-us-notes-were-real.html

or sought a rapprochement with Fidel Castro (including secretly sending medical aid, etc.) while his Joint Chiefs wanted to oust the Cuban leader.

Stephanie Rossi, who teaches AP History at a Jefferson County school put it very well this morning when interviewed on CBS Early Show:

"If we can't talk about the struggles that people go through history, to gain a greater equality, a greater America how can we convey a true story and a complete picture to our students?"

In fact, we cannot, and would only be left with a pseudo-history more to the liking of the Larry Schwiekarts of the world and their clueless followers. 

Fortunately, the protests have forced the JeffCo board members to table the proposal for now but every real citizen needs to pay attention to see if the board will try again to sneak them through.