New Hanover Board Seeks AP History Delay | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Dan Way, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

School board says course is biased, revisionist history and could violate state law

    RALEIGH — One of North Carolina's largest school districts is calling on the College Board to delay for one year its new Advanced Placement U.S. History course, labeling it an inaccurate, deeply biased, revisionist view of America.

    The New Hanover County Schools Board of Education passed a resolution Aug. 19 saying the College Board's history curriculum "will have the effect of usurping North Carolina graduation requirements." Lindalyn Kakadelis, director of education outreach at the John Locke Foundation, says the way the course is offered likely violates state law.

    The resolution urges the State Board of Education and state Superintendent June Atkinson to press the College Board to delay the course implementation for at least a year.

    The College Board is the private company that administers standardized tests to K-12 students, measuring their readiness to attend college.

    New Hanover also was a catalyst in a statewide uprising among state school officials against Common Core, resulting in a law, signed July 22 by Gov. Pat McCrory, creating a commission to replace those controversial standards. David Coleman, generally considered to be the architect of Common Core, is president of the College Board.

    State Rep. Jeff Collins, R-Nash, said he would like to know more about the alarms being sounded by New Hanover County Schools and critics across the nation.

    Collins was a co-sponsor in 2011 of House Bill 588, the Founding Principles Act, requiring all North Carolina high school students to take a semester-long American History class focusing on founding principles and documents.

    New Hanover school board members say the State Board of Education and the state Department of Public Instruction are allowing students to substitute the third-party AP U.S. History course, which contains virtually no mention of the nation's founding documents, for the state-required classes.

    "That would be a concern to me, obviously," Collins said.

    "If, indeed, they are de-emphasizing the original documents, that's exactly contravening the purpose of the legislation," Collins said. "It was to make sure [students] did know what our founding documents were all about."

    DPI officials did not respond to several phone calls and emails.

    Collins said he always encourages people to read original documents such as the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution to view in the Founding Fathers' own words what they believed.

    "That's what I'd like to see the students presented, not some 21st century author's opinion about the Founding Fathers or what their purpose was," Collins said.

    Don Hayes, chairman of the New Hanover school board, the state's 14th largest school district with more than 24,000 students, said the AP course displays a "bizarre focus" about America's foundation. He said board members hope the resolution will arouse awareness among other school districts to the objections.

    "I just think it's not a fair view of American history, the history of this country, and other board members share that same sentiment," said Hayes, a former history teacher and assistant principal in the school district.

    "I think that unfortunately you have in this country people who are not proud of the history of this country. They want to turn things around, and to me it's very concerning," said Hayes, a Navy air crew veteran who did two tours in Vietnam. "That's why we as a board have taken the steps we're taking."

    Opponents in Texas, Alabama, and South Carolina are attempting to have the AP History curriculum removed from their schools, and Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, is among those slapping the course with unflattering critiques.

    "There appears to be this kind of a victim mentality throughout," Hayes said of the AP History material. "I was just frustrated with the way things were presented and the things that were left out."

    Among those omitted from the course are figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King. George Washington is reduced to only a passing reference about his farewell address, and the nation's founding documents largely are excluded from the material.

    If the troubling aspects of the curriculum are not corrected, Hayes said, "we have the option of just not offering it." Dropping the course this school term was considered, but school board members decided that would be too disruptive so close to the start of school.

    Instead, the district sent letters to parents of students who elected to take the course to make them aware of the board's concerns. They are being given an option to transfer their children into another course.

    "We're also making them aware we have no control over the course," Hayes said.

    "Do we want an outside force we can't control? Is that the direction the state wants to go?" Kakadelis said.

    "The extensive framework that's now given is something that's new to the College Board, and new to AP teachers," Kakadelis said. Other critics also have called this a "curricular coup" portending "dangerous precedents" for all AP classes.

    Kakadelis said it is unsettling that the College Board switched its AP History supporting material from a five-page, general outline for AP teachers to an expansive, 98-page course design downplaying positive American ideals and achievements.

    While teachers can add items to the College Board's AP curriculum, both Hayes and Kakadelis say that is unlikely to happen, and teachers will be limited in their ability to insert other material into lesson plans.

    That is because AP classes are designed to help students pass the AP exam and earn free college credits, "and so what teachers are going to focus on is what's on the AP exam," Kakadelis said.

    However, Dartmouth College announced in 2012 it is not accepting any more AP credits. It does not believe the AP classes contain the rigor, resources, context, and professorial direction a student needs. Kakadelis raised the possibility that other colleges and universities could follow suit.

    "We need to look at all of our AP classes ... to make sure that the kids who take them have the foundation that they need to take them," she said. She does not believe most high school students who had no U.S. history classes are properly prepared for the new AP History's intense analysis.

    Last year 11,000 North Carolina students took the AP History exam. More took the elective course than took the exam because the exam is required only to get the college credit, not pass the course.

    Kakadelis said the Founding Principles Act makes it "very clear" that every student should take American History I to instill civic literacy about the foundational forces that shaped the nation.

    The act lists nine items that must be covered with "a great deal of discussion and understanding of those documents, and those ideas, and ideals of what's made America great," she said.

    "But what we have found out looking at graduation requirements is the state Board has allowed AP History to take the place of History I and History II," Kakadelis said.

    "We've got to make sure we're following the law. Whether we agree with the law or not doesn't necessarily matter," she said.

    Kakadelis says students should not be able to opt out of U.S. History I. If the state board decides to let students supplant U.S. History II with AP History, then a formal process should be undertaken to determine whether the standards match, she said.