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[Marshal Jim Duncan]

55 leading American History scholars object to the College Board’s new AP U.S. History (APUSH) framework and the 2014 AP exam:


http://www.nas.org/images/documents/Historians_Statement.pdf


Comments?

 

[blbronco]

As long as they are as adamently opposed to some proposed "re-writing" of history that doesn't make us look as bad in parts, then good for this group.

 

[Marshal Jim Duncan]

These guys are a pretty outstanding group of scholars. While I would hazard that the average perspective of the group is a more conservative bent, that certainly isn't true of all of them. As the letter makes clear, these scholars WANT a presentation of history that includes warts and all. The College Board's new curriculum went well beyodn that.

You can likely count on more names being added to the list as well.

While our legislature does plenty of stupid things and (whatever state legislator brought this forward) possibly could've been more nuanced in its attempt to tackle this, they are far from the only ones crying foul on this AP History curriculum and testing.

 

[07pilt]

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/what-happens-when-a-38-year-old-man-takes-the-ap-histor-1692111934

When I took US History in college the class was basically taken straight from A People's History by Howard Zinn and the Professor told us about the time he told his draft board he was going to shoot them all with a shot gun. The class, however, never really got very ideological, to the point that a kid tried to engage the Professor in some weird confederate general appreciation conversation. History on the college level isn't about what the facts and dates are. It is about being a historian and sussing out a history from source material. It isn't about indoctrinating people for or against American Exceptionalism. It is about making them historically literate enough that they can indoctrinate others for or against American Exceptionalism, which is what the test in the link above appears to do.

 

[Anodyne]

These guys are a pretty outstanding group of scholars. While I would hazard that the average perspective of the group is a more conservative bent, that certainly isn't true of all of them. As the letter makes clear, these scholars WANT a presentation of history that includes warts and all. The College Board's new curriculum went well beyodn that.

You can likely count on more names being added to the list as well.

While our legislature does plenty of stupid things and (whatever state legislator brought this forward) possibly could've been more nuanced in its attempt to tackle this, they are far from the only ones crying foul on this AP History curriculum and testing.

I haven't read the new guidelines so I'm only offering general thoughts about the composition of the list. Most of the signers are obscure even in the professional history field (that doesn't invalidate their thoughts---hell, I'm an obscure history PhD and professor--and I can't really speak to the political scientists on the list), and most of the others are well-known conservative activists (Lynne Cheney, Balch, Heritage Institute, Thernstrom, etc) . A good number are emeritus or emeritus in all but name. Many-times more professional historians would be hostile towards this statement, if asked. The AHA issued a strong letter of support for the revised framework last year, and there was hardly any noticeable criticism for doing so. And there are moderates and conservatives within the AHA, who have recently been outspoken against other progressive issues like an ASA-style Israeli boycott (which AHA members soundly defeated). So I wouldn't typify AHA as wholly-liberal entity. Anything initiated by the NAS will be viewed by a vast majority of historians as part of a conservative 'agenda,' and I would assume that to sign the letter indicates a conservative bent, or complete lack of awareness about the NAS.

Again, I'm not interested in weighing in on the NAS or AHA stances right now. Just trying to place this particular list of folks into the broader professional history context.

 

[Marshal Jim Duncan]

I'm struggling to grasp what effect being an emeritus professor has on one's ability to have a scholarly understanding of American History and what ought to be properly emphasized in an AP setting, other than having greater age and experience might more likely lead to one being outside the current (nearly) lock-step orthodoxy.

 

[Anodyne]

I'm struggling to grasp what effect being an emeritus professor has on one's ability to have a scholarly understanding of American History and what ought to be properly emphasized in an AP setting, other than having greater age and experience might more likely lead to one being outside the current (nearly) lock-step orthodoxy.

If you're putting together a list of scholars purported to be representative of the current profession, then you don't want a lot of emeriti signers. As a whole, they have a reputation as being out of touch. They almost certainly no longer teach, supervise dissertations, or do any service in departments, and often don't keep up with current trends in historiography. So they might have particular insight from life experience, but they don't make up an impressive portion of a list of 'leading scholars.'

 

[Marshal Jim Duncan]

Good grrief. Talk about out of touch.

 

[Anodyne]

Good grrief. Talk about out of touch.

I'm just telling you, as a member of the history profession, how this list of scholars comes off. They might be absolutely correct about everything they say, but this is far, far, far from a list of "leading scholars" of American history. The NAS has been pushing this issue for over a year, and they only mustered 55 signatures---about 1/3 of which are public policy types with no reputation as historians? It's a fringe group, whether you agree with the stance or not.