A Republican legislator suggested to me a happy byproduct of the absurd Senate resolution to ban AP U.S. History is, “It took the focus off Common Core.”
Last year, state Sen. William Ligon, R-Brunswick — the sponsor of the AP U.S. History resolution that glided through the Senate last week — targeted Common Core State Standards. Ligon got surprisingly far with a bill that would have banished Common Core from Georgia, especially when considering his legislation was, as we say in the South, a hot mess.
Ligon’s bill would not only have booted Common Core from schools; policy experts worried it would have banned any test, course or curriculum reflecting a national effort, which could have affected the SAT, ACT and AP classes. The bill was sailing to passage until educators and parents rebelled.
Ligon’s bill to outlaw Common Core and his new anti-APUSH campaign were both scripted by extremists who believe American values are being stomped by lefties in Birkenstocks and Hollywood liberals in Jimmy Choos.
The College Board revised its AP U.S. History course — an accelerated course with the potential for college credit — to move away from dates and names and into the critical analysis that everyone keeps saying American students lack.
Ligon contends APUSH was revised with an anti-American cast and an indifference to the Founding Fathers and what makes this country exceptional.
No so, say history teachers, including Chad Hoge, social studies department chair at Centennial High School in Roswell. While SR 80 claims the founding fathers are minimized, Hoge says they’re mentioned more in the APUSH framework than the Georgia Performance Standards.
At a hearing on the resolution, state Sen. Judson Hill, R-Marietta described the course — an advanced course taken by the state’s top students — as projecting “a relentless negative portrayal” of our history.
At the same hearing, College Board senior vice president Trevor Packer made clear the College Board will not allow the purging of history for political purposes. “Neither the AP program, nor the thousands of American colleges and universities that award credit for AP U.S. History exams, will allow the censorship of such topics, which can and should be taught in a way that inspires students with confidence in America’s commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, ” he said.
Of course, the nation’s highest achieving states aren’t joining this AP U.S. History smack-down. Parents in those states aren’t going to sacrifice their children’s education to political farce.
In its challenge to APUSH, Georgia stands with a handful of states, none of which is an academic leader. (Because true leaders don’t sell out their students for political points.)
Virtually, all the metro Republican senators voted for the resolution last week, making me wonder if parents in communities where many high achieving students participate in the AP program were paying attention.
That the Senate passed SR 80 so easily proves legislators haven’t studied their own history. Because if they had, they’d recall the last canned piece of education legislation they embraced – the 65 percent classroom spending solution – was such a disaster even the GOP sponsor later disavowed it. This will be no different.
If the College Board refuses to budge, SR 80 urges state education officials to consider alternatives. That will never occur. Parents won’t stand for it.
And Georgia — which earned an F last week in a new study on where we set the bar in student proficiency — is never going to find or create a version of AP U.S. History that colleges will take seriously.
It’s never going to happen because Georgia is not seen as an education leader.
And the Senate vote shows why.
