UPDATE: Controversial Colorado History Plan Still Alive

[Hissyspit]

Source: Associated Press

@AP: BREAKING: Colorado school board approves review of U.S. history class changes that sparked protests

@AP: Correction: Colorado school board expands curriculum committees; history proposal still on the table: http://t.co/3UVIkLAieq/s/RhdT

Controversial Colorado history plan still alive

BY COLLEEN SLEVIN
OCT. 2, 2014 11:31 PM EDT

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — A suburban Denver school board under fire for proposing a review of Advanced Placement U.S. history has voted to include students, parents and administrators in its curriculum reviews, but isn't backing off the original history proposal that has sent waves of students into the streets to protest.

Hundreds of students, teachers and parents packed the Thursday evening school board meeting and watched live video on a screen set up outside.

Some in the audience yelled "resign" and "recall, recall" as the board voted 3-2 to expand the membership on two existing curriculum review committees. They will now include students, parents and administrators and their meetings will have to be held in public.

It's not immediately clear whether the committees will review the history course.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/5638f9e60740470db9db30b204b33a1a/history-fight-coming-head-suburban-denver

[Dont call me Shirley]

1. Link? Is it the state education board reviewing the changes?

[politicat]

4. The district. The CO Dept of Ed has not weighed in to my knowledge.

Home rule state.

[marmar]

2. I find this sh*t Orwellian and terrifying......

..... Kudos to the students who are taking action. You rock!

[BrotherIvan]

3. We all wish students cared about their education

Well, these students are showing that they do! GO! There needs to be some very serious repercussions for this school board as well.

[gvstn]

20. Damn hippies!

[BrotherIvan]

21. In my short stint in teaching, I wish I had seen more of that

But maybe you don't know what you have til it's gone. I'm glad these students don't want to be lied to. Maybe the racist Republicans who want to turn back the clock will just die out.

[intheflow]

7. Kudos to the teachers, too.

They started the protest by having sick days. They brought it to the attention of the students.

[AnalystInParadise]

8. Why?

IF we are going to talk about slavery and the mistreatment of Indians which Colorado mandates by state law, then where is the problem is talking about the Revolution and American Exceptionalism? Even PBO believes in American exceptionalism.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/05/28/obama_i_believe_in_american_exceptionalism_with_every_fiber_of_my_being.html

[marmar]

12. 'history classes to promote patriotism and downplay civil disobedience'

Sounds like it's favoring one view of history over another. Is it history class or Advocating a POV class?

And the President can believe in American exceptionalism if he so chooses. I don't.

[AnalystInParadise]

13. I find it to be

bringing the curriculum into balance, if we are going to talk about the bad of this country (and we have plenty to choose from), then we should also talk about the good of this country historically (of which there is also plenty to choose from). Balance should never be dismissed.

Ok, well I believe in it also. YMMV.

[marmar]

14. But this is clearly an attempt to take it out of balance......

...... if current HS history classes are anything like mine were, the pro-USA POV is already dominant.

[AnalystInParadise]

15. Not in my kids High School in Texas

Every state is different, hell, many districts are different from each other. I am no expert on Colorado's curriculum, (and I suspect you are not either)I am happy to leave it to the school board. If there is some kind of huge problem with the changes it will be settled in court. What I do know is that I do not reflexively side with 16-18 year old's on the basis of what they believe represents good or bad school curriculum. I tend to trust the adults more than the kids.

[daleanime]

24. Then how about the teachers and parents involved......

do you trust them?

[AnalystInParadise]

27. Not the parents

It is just the inverse of the puke parents that rail against Common Core. And I need to hear the teachers reasons. People and politics are bad bedfellows when it comes to education. I am more than willing to hear arguments, so far tonight I haven't seen or heard an argument, just a lot of assumptions about what I should believe.

[daleanime]

40. Started by teachers.....

although I would love to see a more complete discussion, the school board looks to be on the wrong side of this. JMHO.

[Esse Quam Videri]

36. Leave it to the School Board?

Maybe you should stop digging the hole you have dug for yourself. The school board was taken over by right wing ideologues in last year's off year election. Along with running off a great superintendent - who they replaced with a former right wing assistant superintendent from my district, they are trying go change the way teachers are evaluated. This change in evaluations will lead to the possibility of teachers not receiving annual compensation increases.
The three right wing board members need to be recalled as soon as possible.

[Neurotica]

39. This is AP U.S. History--a national curriculum--and 3 "adults" on the SB should not be trusted

Those 3 conservative members of the Jefferson County, CO, School Board are attempting to change the national AP curriculum in their local area because they do not agree with examining our history in a critical fashion.

By the way, this has been happening in Texas and some other states as well. You may want to take a look at the work that the Texas Freedom Network has done with respect to educating people about the agenda of the Texas State Board of Education.

This effort, if successful, would potentially be detrimental to those students in the affected Colorado county because *all* AP U.S. history students take the same AP exam. If they do well, they can get credit at many colleges for that course. If they learn different material, or the same material in different ways, they may not score high enough on the exam to get credit.

My son is currently taking AP U.S. history in a (currently) unaffected state, and I am thankful that his teacher and school district allow a free exchange of ideas, encourage critical thinking and support an honest examination of our history.

[Lost In America]

16. Here in Colorado, this bill isn't about "bringing the curriculum into balance". It's about pushing

the wingnut agenda at taxpayer expense.

No thanks.

[AnalystInParadise]

17. Do you have a link

I am very open minded on this issue and I am not being snarky, but I haven't seen anything saying that.

[jtuck004]

26. So you would prefer we downplay slavery, ignore Native peoples, ignore women?

Because, from the article:

"At issue is a new approach to AP History this year that focuses more on examining historical documents and discussing the nation's history, rather than memorizing facts. The course also gives more attention to the period before the arrival of Christopher Columbus as well as slavery and women's roles. Some conservatives say the course was influenced by a movement in academia to de-emphasize the United States' uniqueness and treat it as one nation among many."

This is what the cons want to do away with, focus more on the rah rah and how great we were when we only counted black people as 2/3. Consider tragedies such as the immoral Japanese Imprisonment in this country so inconvenient you would rather forget it happened at all.

That is what you see as balance? Because that is what is written in your post, as far as I can tell.

Yes?

[AnalystInParadise]

28. IT is an American history class, correct?

Not real why the focus on the time period before Columbus would be needed. Since I also don't really want curriculum on Columbus or the other explorers either, this feels like a consistent position.

Are women's roles and slavery already covered in Colorado? Is there a need for MORE or can we diversify the curriculum and cover more topics. (The old walk and chew bubble gum at the same time argument)

[jtuck004]

30. ot real why the focus on the time period before Columbus would be needed > So we don't pretend

we didn't kill and imprison millions of people and take the villages and towns they already built, and make sure they lived lives of utter poverty and degradation for the next hundred or so years?

Or we could have cheerleader class.

Ask most women if they were represented well in their history classes. Betcha won't like the answer. (are you really that out of touch?)

[AnalystInParadise]

31. What does the period before Columbus have to do with anything

I have no problem talking about the mistreatment of Indians, that is AMERICAN History.

And I feel that women are represented as well as can be expected in 2014. I do not feel out of touch at all and would appreciate respect and a lack of personal attacks, I am being respectful towards you.

[Drahthaardogs]

34. how about ludlow.

Rockefeller has a show on history channel. They forgot to say how he went to Europe and Mexico and basically enslaved entire villages of italians, creole mexicans and, and slavs. That is my history but how many kids know about the coal wars. Hell do you even know about them?

[starroute]

18. You can't both downplay civil disobedience and talk about the Revolution

And it's very hard to study the Civil War without the Underground Railroad and John Brown and all that stuff that came before it.

It's not a case of balance. It's a matter of fundamentally distorting the way major historical events happen by leaving out all the dissidents and troublemakers.

Not to mention that this is Advanced Placement American History -- the course where you're supposed to learn all the more grownup stuff they left out in 5th grade and 8th grade and 11th grade.

[AnalystInParadise]

23. Who said they are taking out the UR?

Or the Revolution? I don't get it....

It still sounds like balance to me, I am very open minded and would gladly change my mind if I saw anything that showed a radical unbalancing of the curriculum.

[starroute]

25. They claim they don't want to glorify civil disobedience

This really is censorship and not balance. If you don't understand that, you should do a little googling on the protests.

There's also the fact that the school district has been told that students taking their AP American History course would be ineligible to take the AP exam if the standard curriculum is not followed. The point is that this is intended to be real history and not some kind of rah-rah brainwashing.

[AnalystInParadise]

29. Glorifying civil disobedience?

I don't think any of us should by GLORIFYING it. Talking about it and making sure it is known that is the path of last resort? Sure, but that is not really something that needs to be taught. People have been engaging in it long before anyone thought to teach it.

[starroute]

38. It's more like the path of first resort

Civil disobedience is as American as apple pie. Henry David Thoreau invented it in protest against the imperialistic nature of the Mexican War. (Though that fact, along with Abraham Lincoln's disgust at the same war is one of the things that gets muddled out of existence in jingoistic histories that generally smerge it together with Davey Crockett and Remember the Alamo and all sorts of unrelated stuff.)

The second resort is probably destruction of property and industrial sabotage. The third is violence against individuals. The fourth is bloody revolution. And the fifth is hauling out Madame Guillotine and chopping a few heads.

So there are all sorts of reasons for glorifying civil disobedience. It's perhaps the only way of demanding an end to business as usual while not breaking the system. And for textbooks to edit it out of American history can only leads anyone with a grievance to give up on peaceful solutions and go directly to steps two, three, four, and five.

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. Because they clearly have political indoctrination in mind

Here's their original proposal:

Review criteria shall include the following: instructional materials should present the most current factual information accurately and objectively. Theories should be distinguished from fact. Materials should promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights. Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law. Instructional materials should present positive aspects of the United States and its heritage. Content pertaining to political and social movements in history should present balanced and factual treatment of the positions.

www.boarddocs.com/co/jeffco/Board.nsf/files/9NYRPF6DED70/$file/JW%20PROPOSAL%20Board%20Committee%20for%20Curriculum%20Review.pdf

AP History should not be promoting the free enterprise system. 'Respect for authority' is a pretty dodgy thing to put in there as well; after a call for accurate and objective information, and 'fact' distinguished from 'theory', a long list of what must then be promoted or not condoned is very hypocritical. The protests seem to have made them back down from that list now (thanks to the kind of disrespect for authority that they wanted the course to suppress), but the people behind that proposal really can't be trusted to review any school course.

[haele]

42. This is about AP history, not 9th/10th grade US history

This class that is being protested is supposed to substitute for USHIST 100 or 101 as part of their core classes when they go on to college, which means they need to discuss tough topics and put a historical context on to it.
They don't need to be answering questions "One if by Land, Two if by Sea" or "Slavery was voluntarily given up when technology improved manufacturing" or "Reservations were large federal land grants to protect those Indians who wanted to retain their culture and avoid Western Settlements".
They need to be writing essays on the Whiskey Rebellion, The Trail of Tears, The Mexican/American War, Bloody Kansas, Tammany Hall, the Hay-market Riot, Suffrage, Prohibition, the Bonus March - all of that, and more.

College level courses require questioning and putting history into context, even the American Exceptionalism part.

Haele

[certainot]

5. only thing in the way is republican radio and a bunch of blowhards like rosen and caldera and mandy

connel, filling the airwaves with bulllshit

now without liberal talk radio they have it easy- no competition- the prime necessity for spreading the dominance of rw radio in the us.

[mountain grammy]

6. The idiots who elected this board will be voting for

Cory Gardner and Bob Beauprez in Nov. Stupid people voting, as bad as the stupid people not voting. I want to drink a diet coke!

[littlemissmartypants]

10. Don't do it, mountain grammy.

It's the aspartame.

[BrotherIvan]

22. DUzy

[Judi Lynn]

9. Trying to force us to be ruled daily by a hierarchy of back-wards, slow, vicious idiots,

hot to get control over everyone, except for their favorite violent, heavily armed louts they'll need to keep us in line.

They are too stupid to realize they give themselves away in everything they do.

[littlemissmartypants]

11. Exactly. eom

[Enthusiast]

33. It didn't happen unless it's on network news.

[C Moon]

19. I'm sure Koch money can be found behind this.

[Enthusiast]

32. Thank you, Hissyspit. Oh, these fuckers have big plans for this nation.

"You ain't seen nothing yet."

Ronald Reagan

[Esse Quam Videri]

37. Tangentially this is where this is heading

http://www.coloradoindependent.com/149589/state-board-of-ed-member-u-s-ended-slavery-voluntarily

"Colorado’s latest education official to condemn high school history course standards wonders why those who wrote the curriculum missed what seems to her an obvious point — that the United States voluntarily ended slavery."


Good god!

[blkmusclmachine]

41. ,

,

[The Last Dem.]

43. And i would say!

Without history, a society shares no common memory of where it has been, of what its core values are, or what decisions in the past account for the present circumstances.

Author Unknown.