In a new post at Minding the Campus, Peter Wood writes of the College Board’s new AP US History exam.

It seems some folks on the left don’t like having their agenda questioned.

Pushing American History as a Long Tale of Oppression

The Republican National Committee adopted a resolution on August 8 criticizing the College Board’s new Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) course and exam. The RNC called for the College Board to “delay the implementation” of APUSH for one year and convene a committee to draft a new framework “consistent with” the traditional mission of the course, state history standards, and the United States’ “true history.”

The resolution quickly caught the attention of the left-of-center media.  MSNBC leaned in; The Daily Beast growled; Right Wing Watchglared; TalkingPointsMemo repeated; and Wonkette sassed. A good time was had by all. Doktor Zoom’s report on Wonkette epitomized the spirit of the left’s response. The good Doktor explained that in the eyes of the RNC, the new “exam framework doesn’t even say that America is the Bestest, Freest, Most Wonderfullest Republic that ever existed in the world, and it also completely fails to say that Jesus handed the Constitution to George Washington.”  Newsweek, on the other hand, took the trouble to explain the opposition to APUSH—though its headline, “What’s Driving Conservatives Mad about the New AP History Course,” assumes that the opposition is primarily conservative.

Making sure that the Advanced Placement U.S. History course is reasonably comprehensive, fair-minded, and accurate ought to concern people across the political spectrum, not just conservatives.  However, the decision by the Republican National Committee to weigh in with a resolution “condemning” APUSH (as the headline in Education Week put it) ensures that partisans of all sorts will pile in.


 
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