The pendulum has swung back in the other direction. After being bullied by liberals into revising its take on American history so as to devote more attention to racial and cultural divisions in America, the College Board is feeling pressure from the right to give the founding fathers (aka dead white males) their due.
The College Board, which writes the test that much of the nation’s advanced placement course lessons are based on, last week issued a new course and exam description that has more focus on the positive role of the framers, America’s effort to rid the world of the Nazi threat during World War II and how entrepreneurs transformed the world’s most dynamic economy. Those points of emphasis are expected next year to replace the previous test questions, which some historians and teachers say took a negative view of the U.S.
The previous version of the Board’s AP test released last fall was lambasted not only by conservatives but by members of academe, who tend to be liberal. Many protested that the test, with its emphasis on social politics over historical facts and dates, failed to adequately prepare students for college. A separate Fox article from June quotes Harvard University history professor Harvey Mansfield as saying:
Lost in the new guidelines is the central role of the American Founders in inspiring our country. Students are not led to the idea that America is an experiment in self-government, that all its struggles and troubles, its drama and heroes, come back to its great ambition to make freedom and equality a reality. Instead of this, the guidelines present America as just another society, wandering, mistaken, prejudiced and boring.
It’s doubtful that this will be the last word in what has become a rhetorical tug of war between those who believe education should take the form of grievance-mongering and those who think it should be education.
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