College Board APUSH Controversy Heightens: NAS Scholars Publish Open Letter

A group of scholars has recently NAS Letter of objection to the changes proposed for the Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) curriculum framework. Thus far, the letter, penned by members of the National Association of Scholars (NAS), has totaled 55 signatures. A number of distinguished academics and professors have added their names to the non-profit organization’s open letter, criticizing the College Board’s so-called reforms.

“We wish to express our opposition to these modifications,” states the group. “The College Board’s 2014 Advanced Placement Examination shortchanges students by imposing on them an arid, fragmentary, and misleading account of American history.”

Members of the National Association of Scholars calls for the College Board to immediately abandon its plans to revise the APUSH framework, and have, instead, suggested it opts for a “warts and all” approach to American history. The organization is pushing for a more robust curriculum that focuses on the nation’s common ideals, the Constitution, elections, diplomacy and wars. However, the group also hopes to avoid an overly hagiographical approach by ensuring teachers cover past instances where “… we have disagreed and fallen short of our ideals.”

Annually, many hundreds of thousands of high schoolers take part in the Advanced Placement U.S. History classes offered by College Board. The program has come under fire from some American conservatives for ignoring, or downplaying, American citizenship, exceptionalism and patriotism. However, the decision to alter the curriculum triggered protests in Colorado last year.

As part of the new APUSH framework, students will be expected to shift their attention, away from America’s core ideals and political institutions, towards global and transnational perspectives. Meanwhile, American exceptionalism will be placed on the backburner, and will be substituted by exploration of how various cultures, identities and values have changed throughout U.S. history; the new APUSH framework will force teachers to emphasize this in the context of the “… formation of gender, class, racial and ethnic identities.”

During the open letter, NAS members express their disapproval with the College Board’s rigid control over what educators can and cannot teach. In the past, teachers have been provided a degree of flexibility, in terms of how they approach different aspects of American history within their own classrooms. The group went on to explain that the College Board is set to introduce “… a lengthy 134-page document which repudiates that earlier approach, centralizes control, deemphasizes content, and promotes a particular interpretation of American history.”

In concluding, the group offers the following appraisal of the College Board’s revised APUSH curriculum: “A formal education in American history serves young people best by equipping them for a life of deep and consequential membership in their own society. The College Board’s 2014 framework sadly neglects this essential civic purpose of education in history. We can, and must, do better.”