Commenters on the AJC Get Schooled blog opposed state meddling into the content of AP U.S. History. Alarmed over revisions to the class, some lawmakers and state schools Superintendent Richard Woods want the College Board to rescind the revisions. Here is a sampling of reader comments:
LexGa: Shouldn't Mr. Woods be more interested in improving our children's education rather than spewing trite little phrases like "Georgia-owned and Georgia-grown"? When I hear people like him and legislators make these ludicrous proposals, it's easy to see why, along with Mississippi and Alabama, we are the brunt of so many jokes from the rest of the country. God help us. It's clear we don't have the judgment needed to elect people who can help us.
ConcernedMom: This governor and this school superintendent are not interested in educating our children for the future. They are mired in the past. They want education to be the way it was when they were kids. "Georgia-grown, Georgia-owned" has nothing to do with making our children ready for challenges that we cannot even begin to imagine in their work future.
NewsPhile: Richard Woods may have been a good teacher and a good curriculum director in a small district setting like Irwin County, but it's quite a leap to state superintendent. According to Ga. DOE, Irwin had 80 graduates in 2014. The 66.7 percent graduation rate was below the state's average of 71.5 percent. The system has one elementary, middle school and high school. Fewer than 1,800 students are enrolled in the system, of which 37 percent are minority. There is no mention of any AP courses in the school's curriculum, understandable for a system this small. I'm pulling for Woods to make the adjustment to his new job and make it quickly. Our students and all of Georgia have a lot to lose if Woods becomes just another politician.
Mr.Reb: As a history teacher, I can promise you I will not conform to any revision. If need be, I will tell my kids what they need to know for their test, and then explain it is propaganda designed to fool them into obedience and blind patriotism. Even if you wanted to cover up the Indian Removal Act, the Treaty of Fort Laramie (and hundreds of others), the reign of terror in the South, Jim Crow, the unregulated "Wealth of Nations" nightmare that led to the Gilded Age and the Depression, you can't. Kids grow up and start searching for knowledge. You let them find out that everything they were taught in school was wrong, and you'll have some young adults completely jaded with the idea of patriotism.
Don: As a parent of a high schooler planning on APUSH next year, I feel it should be my decision whether my child can take that course or not. Despite what so many would like to believe (and were taught 30 to 40 years ago), our history is not perfect. No country is perfect. It is that sort of mindset that lead us into two world wars and fueled a nuclear arms race.
