Myra Blackmon,a frequent contributor to Online Athens in Georgia, writes in opposition to those who want to teach a sanitized version of U.S. history.
She writes that it is important to understand that we have made mistakes, committed terrible wrongs, and that dissent and protest hold an honored place in our history. To pretend that we were always in the right is bad history.
Here is a sample of a great article:
“I worry when I read stories about groups demanding a more positive treatment of slavery — the greatest evil our great nation ever perpetuated — and an emphasis on the idea that God has somehow chosen America to be “better” than other nations.
“Civil disobedience, protest and questioning government are fundamental to our success as a nation. Without them, we would still have child labor, no protection for workers, legal segregation and discrimination. Women would not have the vote, and wives and children would still be considered the personal property of their husbands and fathers.
“The idea that we would discourage any disruption of the social order, all under the guise of “respect for authority,” frightens me.
“We were born of protest and a disruption of a social order the founders believed unjust and morally wrong.
“I love my country. I am proud to be an American. I believe to my core that we are an exceptional nation. Not because we never made mistakes, never had bad leaders and always rescued others from tyranny. I believe we are exceptional because we lived and learned from all our history.
“America is exceptional because we rebuilt our economy after the end of legal slavery, because we survived the Vietnam war, because we are working to repair the damage we perpetrated on the people who lived here before the Europeans arrived.
“America is exceptional, not because we are a Christian nation, but because we are a nation where the practice of any religion is protected. We didn’t get there easily.
“America is exceptional because we have maintained the orderly transfer of power through tumultuous times. We have learned from wrongdoing like Watergate and used those lessons to strengthen our democracy.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, who wrote APUSH? Apparently, no one is revealing that and the listed authors said they were not the authors. Can you shed light on that, as in who are the actual authors? Or any of your commenters?
LikeLike
SafeLibraries, no one group writes APUSH. It’s not a canned curriculum. CollegeBoard publishes the guidelines and parameters for the class, including the types of concepts to be studied and sample exam items. AP teachers design their courses to meet those criteria, and those courses are audited to ensure that they indeed do. This way we won’t have someone calling a laughably easy or ridiculously biased class AP, which should signify a course that could substitute for typical college entry-level study. The process is the same for all AP courses (I teach English Lit). The conservative wing of the JeffCoSB clearly has no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to AP–either what’s expected or how the course actually works. They certainly don’t get how history is not just what happened to the winners–it’s the whole box score: every bloop, error, ugly play, and ridiculous substation along with the hits and runs.
LikeLike
Okay, so you are saying the authors of APUSH are not known. Diane’s blog is very visible. I’m hoping someone knows the authors and can reveal them here. Thanks for responding.
LikeLike
AP courses don’t have authors like textbooks do. Groups of teachers at the high school and college level set the guidelines for the course. Committees of similar teachers serve as question leaders for each exam. Perhaps I’m reading you wrong, but it sounds like you’re looking for a secret chamber of folks win a specific agenda who happen to “write” AP courses, which isn’t the case (trust me when I tell you that no one has authored my AP course but me). AP has been around since the 1950s, which is before Coleman was a twinkle in his parents’ eye, much less Common Core. a twinkle in Coleman’s. Do I agree with CC, or Coleman, for that matter? Nope. But I also don’t conflate the two because Coleman’s name pops up in both.
LikeLike
I teach AP Human Geography, and while I agree that right now most AP is not a “canned curriculum,” I am very concerned about the new APUSH and AP European History changes. Not because I think that it’s too controversial or radical or whatever, but because, with a SEVENTY EIGHT PAGE curriculum framework, those classes are now really using a canned curriculum, because there will be little time to teach anything else. I hear that’s going to happen to all AP classes eventually, and I will be out it this happens to APHG. I don’t just want to teach to the AP test. There are a lot of parts of human geography that aren’t covered in the test, such as genocide, that I feel VERY strongly need to be covered. And I won’t be able to do that if I have to teach such an enormous framework.
LikeLike
PS: I’ve read a bunch of the APUSH new framework. I think it’s fine, just that the length of the framework will preclude teaching much else if one wants to get the students ready for the test.
LikeLike
That would be “substitution,” not “substation.” My iPad hates me this morning.
LikeLike
I laughed out loud reading this. As we’ve discussed here at CORE lately, when you are in the middle of something as intense as fighting against Chicago’s attacks on public schools, it’s good to remind yourself that we have faced worse in the past. When in doubt, I go back to the abolitionists (especially Elijah Lovejoy of Illinois, a personal favorite, and John Brown) and the men and women who lead, fought and won the Civil War. Thanks for the reminder that every time we think that “history” has finally been settled, we are treated to another stupid and racist version of the “Gone With The Wind” – “Birth of a Nation” attack on fact. I’ve been reading the Memoirs of U.S. Grant of late. I had just gotten to the point where he describes (briefly) his time in charge of Memphis between Corinth and Vicksburg. It was at that point, after Shiloh, that Grant realized (as did Sherman) that the war was against slavery as well as for the Union and that the Confederacy would have to be decisively defeated in battle.
Having been brought up by a father who understood that (and who fought in the infantry during World War II and who told me he was the first U.S. soldier to enter the Natzweiler concentration camp at the time of its liberation) and a mother who had also served in battle during World War II (she was a nurse on the island of Okinawa serving in a field hospital from April through September 1945), I was reminded always how flimsy “history” could be if we weren’t always fighting for as much accuracy as possible.
Both of my parents are long gone, but they would have “gotten it” about this latest skirmish. Even though General Eisenhower tried to make certain that every soldier in the U.S. forces in 1945 saw first hand the camps (there were dozens of “little” ones like Natzweiler-Struthof for every major one in the Allied sector like Dachau), we still have to face the ugliness of every Holocaust denier. And the ugliness of those who try to whitewash the facts of U.S. Slavery and the need for a terrible war (that “terrible swift sword”) required to end the enslavement of four million human beings — the largest source of “liquid capital” in those states (both Union and Confederate).
LikeLike
George N. Schmidt: what you said.
For those that may not be familiar with Elijah Lovejoy—
[start quote]
Elijah Lovejoy died defending his printing press from a mob on the night of November 7,1837, in Alton, Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. Lovejoy, a Presbyterian minister, edited a religious weekly, the Alton Observer. His editorials in that paper had become increasingly critical of the institution of slavery. The mob that attacked Lovejoy claimed that his views on slavery threatened to undermine the stability and prosperity of the town. The mob claimed that a local right of self-defense overrode any constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression. Unruly, violent, and illegal as it was, the mob was led and incited by local professionals and politicians, including the Illinois attorney-general.
[end quote]
Link: http://www.lib.niu.edu/2007/iht07140138.html
“As long as I am an American citizen and American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, and to publish whatever I please on any subject.” [Elijah Lovejoy]
😎
LikeLike
Great commentary. Much appreciated.
One of the truly great things about Eisenhower was how he insisted on the filming of the camps before they were demolished, so that there would be evidence should anyone want to deny what happened. And still, there were and are deniers.
I agree with Ms. Blackmon that America is, in the annals of history, an exceptional nation, but as a middle school teacher of history I have always liked, and shared with my classes (because it’s a good beginning of the year bell ringer), George Bernard Shaw’s statement that “what we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history”. So I don’t agree that we have learned the lessons of Watergate and have come out the stronger democracy for it. Watergate is forgotten, and our democratic institutions and media are so weakened at this point that I am fearful that we can survive the next one.
LikeLike
I think the district school board does not realize their specs could result in the decertification of the AP course, meaning that it the credits would not, as intended, be counted for college entry with an advanced status.
LikeLike
Well, yes, but I believe the students would still have the right to take the exam if they paid for it and arranged it. The exam score may result in credit or permission to skip an intro course in college, not the HS course grade. The course credit has nothing to do with “college entry with an advanced status.” That’s dependent solely upon the standardized test score.
I’d be much more concerned with censoring what certified history scholars (ie teachers) are “allowed” to teach. Censoring by one side OR the other!
LikeLike
Pculliton,
Students can take AP exams without ever taking the associated AP class.
LikeLike
Yes, teaching economist, I know that…
LikeLike
I am pretty sure Diane Ravitch and most people here oppose Common Core. Correct? College Board promoting Common Core is not appreciated here. Correct? AP exams are created by the College Board. Correct? When people say “the district school board does not realize their specs could result in the decertification of the AP course,” that is accurate, at least the decertification part. Correct?
Here’s the questions? If College Board is wrong on Common Core, why should College Board be supported if it decertifies an AP course? (Let alone no one knows the authors of APUSH and a deliberate effort is made to hide them.) People are essentially supporting College Board if they are using the potential for its decertifying AP courses as a means to pressure schools to accept ghostwritten APUSH. Correct? Can you support College Board as it pushes APUSH while you also oppose it for pushing Common Core? It just seems to me you cannot do both, particularly if APUSH is sort of a part of Common Core.
LikeLike
1) It’s CollegeBoard’s course. They pretty much have the right to determine whether anything promoted as APUSH fits the guidelines they have established. There is no “deliberate effort made to hide” the authors of APUSH. If by authors you mean the committee tasked with designing the standards, they are published by name and institution right in the Course Description for APUSH, which may be accessed here: http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap-us-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf Lots of other documents, all properly credited to their authors, are also available at AP Central for this and all the other courses. The information is there if you’d take time to investigate it.
2) Explain what you mean by ghostwritten APUSH. Who is doing this ghostwriting? If you’re implying that the names presented as the committee guiding the development of the course are fronts for some secret group doing the actual work, then that’s quite the accusation in addition to being quite the insult to those professionals at both the high school and college level. The protests in Colorado have arisen because the school board wants to supplant a full curriculum requiring inquiry and examination of American history, including the ugly parts, with a version that’s whitewashed. You’re a librarian. I certainly hope that’s not an outcome you’d support.
3) AP and Common Core are two different things. An AP course is presented as a high-school equivalent to an entry-level college/university course in that subject, whether it be US History, introductory Calculus, Spanish Language, or what have you. Common Core is a completely different set of standards which make no such claim. It’s not administered by the CollegeBoard. The connection is, of course, David Coleman–but that doesn’t mean one is integrated with the other. I have lots of issues with Common Core, especially how it’s being sold (and definitely the punitive testing attached to it that’s forced onto teachers and schools), but Common Core is not responsible for any part of the AP program. Coleman–he’s a separate issue.
LikeLike
@BarefootGal (and others),
I see reporters saying the authors of APUSH are being actively hidden. I’m not saying the actual authors are “some secret group.” I’m asking instead, with Diane’s many educators reading here, does anyone know who are the authors? Somebody must know.
My reason for asking this is contained in reports like these listed below, and particularly note the part about Dr. Fred Anderson saying he didn’t write what the College Board said he wrote. If that is true, and that’s how it’s reported, then saying there’s a “deliberate effort made to hide” is likely accurate. And people can see on page v of what you linked (thank you) that there’s Dr. Fred Anderson’s name right there, right in the top position. Yet the doctor says he did not write it: “Dr. Fred Anderson, one of the 19 educators listed on the page, lamented in a letter to the Colorado State Board of Education that he did not have ‘any hand in drafting this Part, so I can only guess at why the examples that appear were chosen.’ ‘The Part’ that Anderson was referring to is nearly 50 pages of course content.”
I’m guessing that if people knew APUSH was written by Senator Ted Cruz, the protestors would be moving to preclude, not push, the framework, and organizations like MoveOn dot org would not be organizing the students, or would organize then in the opposite direction. Given the interest is what’s best for the children, please someone must know who wrote the thing, because the named authors are saying they did not write it, and that just screams out for scrutiny:
“Analysis of the College Board AP U.S. History Framework,” by Larry Krieger, The Heartland Institute, 25 March 2014.
“Why Won’t the College Board Reveal Its AP U.S. History Authors?,” by Jane Robbins, The Heartland Institute, 15 August 2014.
“How the College Board Politicized U.S. History,” by Stanley Kurtz, National Review Online, 25 August 2014.
“‘Biased’ American History Curriculum Penned by Ghostwriter,” The Blaze, The Blaze Magazine, October 2014, p.5:
Usually authors are proud to have their names recognized for influential pieces of work. Not so for the Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. history curriculum guide, otherwise known as the Framework. No one is claiming credit for the latest edition—a version of which has been accused of undermining American exceptionalism. The Republican National Committee charged that it “reflects a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.” And while the Framework makes mention of Chief Little Turtle, the leftist Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Panthers, it fails to refer to the likes of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King Jr.
The Heartland Institute asked the College Board, who published the Framework, to reveal the authors of this “biased, poorly written, and ineptly organized document.” The College Board responded that Page v of the framework revealed the professors and teachers involved. However, on Page v, the only names listed are under the heading of “Acknowledgements.” Dr. Fred Anderson, one of the 19 educators listed on the page, lamented in a letter to the Colorado State Board of Education that he did not have “any hand in drafting this Part, so I can only guess at why the examples that appear were chosen.” “The Part” that Anderson was referring to is nearly 50 pages of course content.
This Framework will be applied to almost 500,000 students in more than 8,000 high schools across America this year.
LikeLike
Precisely, Barefoot Gal.
LikeLike
“AP and Common Core are two different things.” Used to be. Becoming more and more alike all the time, I have noticed. But I would say Common Core assessment questions are becoming more and more like AP questions, not the other way around.
LikeLike
One named consultant saying he didn’t write a part of a document doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved with other parts of it. I’m assuming Dr. Anderson didn’t deny having any involvement? If he had, then I’d be appropriately concerned. Since he did not, I will go ahead and assume the full list of contributors authored the document.
The rest of your commentary reveals an inherent bias in your questioning, as all of the sources come from the same end of the political spectrum. None of these are academic sources, nor are they written by historians. Although National Review has some journalistic integrity, The Blaze isn’t even in the same galaxy except for political bent. The Heartland Institute is a think tank whose educational work centers on promoting charter schools, educational policy, and market-based school “reform” solutions that are basically the whole reason this blog exists–and it fights AGAINST them.
Clearly your definition of scholarship and inquiry and mine are radically different. As such, there’s no reason to prolong this conversation any further. You seem determined to ignore everything I’ve presented in good faith (and with actual knowledge of how AP courses work) because you’ve already staked a position you cannot seem to be swayed from, so I’m wasting my time. As we say down South, at this point I’m just getting dirty and annoying the pig.
LikeLike
@BarefootGal, your last response is rude. I’m merely asking if anyone knows the true authors. Your saying my sources are one sided so you’re not going to talk about the pig anymore, or whatever, has nothing to do with asking who are the authors. One of the College Board claimed authors wrote to the Colorado State Board of Education that he did not have “any hand in drafting this Part, so I can only guess at why the examples that appear were chosen,” referring to the nearly 50 pages of course content. That’s from my sources, no matter how you wish to smear them. I’ll assume the “author” was accurately quoted in the letter he wrote to the CSBE. So there’s a CB-listed author saying he was not the author. Who are the real authors? Someone here knows. BarefootGal, you clearly do not know, so please do not continue to be rude.
LikeLike
Precisely.
LikeLike
Sorry– it’s late. “Precisely” (twice!) was meant as a reply for SafeLibraries.
LikeLike
http://www.plunderbund.com/2014/10/04/reynoldsburg-school-boards-dirty-divisive-tactics/
Sorry to hijack, but this underhanded “strike management” is almost comical. Looks like someone opposing the teachers used the same Microsoft Word template for Strongsville and Reynoldsburg to bulk print the fliers. Plunderbund is about the only true media we have left in Ohio.
LikeLike
The saddest part of Reynoldsburg is, they did everything “right”, by the reform book. They’re held up as an example of the success of ed reform. I’ve seen the district used twice for that purpose, once by the USDOE and once by an ed reform pundit who sells ed tech.
The people who work there did that: they produced the demanded gains in test scores.
It didn’t matter. They cut their pay anyway and now they’re trying to get rid of their union. It’s such a profound betrayal. They were lied to. They did what they were told to do and it got WORSE.
There doesn’t seem to be any way to win this game.
LikeLike
It is whack-a-mole reform in Ohio. The Reformers keep popping up in Strongsville, Reynoldsburg, Westerville, Cleveland. If the school board in Reynoldsburg is not representing parents and students, who are they fronting for? As Ohio moves towards third world status under Kasich, we can only wonder what his presidential aspirations will bring for all of America. The Heartland seems to be the test kitchen for Reformers trying out even more extreme measures than in NY or LA. Dropping health care for teachers? Basing math on the Bible? Teachers are volunteers? Ohio, while a purple state, is completely ruled by far right, anti-education Republicans. With no checks and balances, the Reformers can do what they want. It is where the most extreme movements get started and spread. Reynoldsburg may be teachers’ Thermopylae.
LikeLike
I am glad you are shedding light on this issue. Did you know besides protests by parents, teachers and students against the Colorado district trying to revise history, the teachers also took a risky stand and conducted a “sick out”?
LikeLike
People need to get the order of operations correct here. The teachers began their sickout first. The student protest came later. The anti-protest folks have accused the teachers of prompting the students to do what they did, which is kind of hard to accomplish if you’re not even in the building. Plus, as you can see from the articulate and passionate student response, the students are hardly a bunch of easily-led sheep. Kids who just want to skip class don’t show up at school board meetings, and they certainly don’t make signs and stand at roadsides for hours. They use the walkout excuse to lie around at home and play Xbox. That’s not what we’re seeing here.
LikeLike
MathVale
October 4, 2014 at 12:09 pm
“The Heartland seems to be the test kitchen for Reformers trying out even more extreme measures than in NY or LA. ”
I think there’s truth to that. Read the national media on charter schools or ed reform and see if anything they write is even vaguely related to your experience in Ohio. I get a kick out of it, in a way, because it’s such a big area of the country! How can you pontificate on “charter schools” and ignore the reality of charter schools in OH, MI and PA?
I keep thinking there has to be an epic crash between what is a NATIONAL narrative and STATE reality, because the twin tracks can’t just run along parallel forever! 🙂
LikeLike
Local control is great as long as one agrees with what the locals are doing.
LikeLike
And the flip side “National control is great as long as one agrees with what the Federales are doing.
LikeLike
Indeed I think that is correct. The level that a decision is made is not nearly as important as the content of the decision.
LikeLike
It’s time everyone remembers a different bit of history and all meet in the woods outside the cities where CC police can’t find us. Someone needs to preserve the truth.
LikeLike
Bill,
I think this controversy has nothing to do with the CCSS, but everything to do with local control over the curriculum.
LikeLike
I am seeing more and more CCSS and SBAC material that reminds me of AP test material. Meeting in the woods will be necessary.
LikeLike
“Exceptional”
Exceptional is
As exceptional does
Exceptional gist?
Or “Exceptional” buzz?
LikeLike