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All part of the agenda to justify privatization of education where, as Mitt Romney said on the campaign trail, "I believe everyone is entitled to the best education they can afford."
This is incredible, but by a vote of 11-4 a legislative committee in the Oklahoma legislature has voted not to fund AP courses in high schools because they believe the curriculum is "unpatriotic".'
I wonder what they teach in that course?
1. That there was once slavery in the US?
2. That we pushed Indians off their lands and onto reservations?
3. That Prohibition of alcohol was a dismal failure?
Sounds downright subversive to me
Undoubtedly, the same group that wants to teach "creation science" as part of the curriculum.
Maybe one thing kids could study is the US Constitution, for example Amendment X.
They want everybody to worship the 2nd amendment, and carry guns all over the streets and hate the government
Why did they blame Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma city bomber then?
What makes it even more embarrassing another redneck lawmakers is pushing a law where foreign language classes in public schools in Oklahoma would be illegal. He wants to totally outlaw them. This is the GOP's war on education.
Although I don't agree with this policy, I must point out that okie called these lawmakers rednecks and also assumed that the GOP is the party at war with education. I find it unbelievable how many times people generalize and make all surts of negative assumptions about political parties and people who live in the South. Ironically, okie is even in Oklahoma his/herself
This is another huge example of why curriculum needs to be set at the federal level. Why in the world would we find it a good idea to selectively teach students some subjects in one state while another has full access to all of them? The separation of church and state clause within the First Amendment should be protecting this....and we all know this is religiously driven.
Then the war on education would just move to the federal level, I'm afraid. Republicans at the national level many times have proven themselves capable of and interested in interfering with morally correct and sensible issues.
There has been a lot of controversy about the APUSH curriculum because it is now going to be doing fewer topics but going into more depth on the ones it does cover. Conservatives say it is heavy on the darker parts of US history, but it's not supposed to be a full curriculum really. The framework does not exclude major historical figures as much as it fails to explicitly include them.
The history portion is one of the main reasons its being questioned. The complaint is it isn't balanced. In the section on the 60's, it deals with the Black Panthers, apparenty, but there is no mention of Martin Luther King. If this is true then it is indeed unbalanced. The reality of any time is a combination of the inspirational and the anger.
When I was in high school the history class which would corrilate today had a truely amazing teacher. We had debates over each chaper/era. But you get assigned a role of a real person and must argue with the arguements which someone of that time, and as you 'represent' a specific person what they believed. It forced you out of the box and see the complexity of how history happens. Of course he'd be barred from that today. Imagine having students debate the institution of slavery, including supporting it, and how that just wouldn't play today.
If I was a parent, I'd have trouble with teaching history with a chosen message. If the history portion is being widely questioned then its more than a couple of concervative Oklahomans who disapprove, and a good sign it needs to be redone.
They want everybody to worship the 2nd amendment, and carry guns all over the streets and hate the government
Why did they blame Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma city bomber then?
Then the war on education would just move to the federal level, I'm afraid. Republicans at the national level many times have proven themselves capable of and interested in interfering with morally correct and sensible issues.
What you see at "morally correct" and "sensible," more than a few people would probably see as morally incorrect and non-sensible. Who's right? And who is to determine who's right?
Wow, so much bigotry from supposedly educated open minded individuals. One person posted a link from an AP history teacher that detailed the problems with the course and none of you bigots have bothered to address the points the teacher laid out. If what the teacher laid out is correct, this course is just another version of "hate whitey" and "hate USA" courses. There should be a balanced approach to US History. The wrongs of the past should be held in the light of the morals and beliefs of people of the time in which they occurred. This isn't to say that such events were right for the time they occurred, it's an explanation of their reasons for the actions they took which involves more than merely racism. It's so sad that so many "educated" individuals show such hatred towards an entire region of the nation. I'm just surprised the term "fly-over country" hasn't been brought out among the many other bigoted terms used by the people here.
Wow, so much bigotry from supposedly educated open minded individuals. One person posted a link from an AP history teacher that detailed the problems with the course and none of you bigots have bothered to address the points the teacher laid out. If what the teacher laid out is correct, this course is just another version of "hate whitey" and "hate USA" courses. There should be a balanced approach to US History. The wrongs of the past should be held in the light of the morals and beliefs of people of the time in which they occurred. This isn't to say that such events were right for the time they occurred, it's an explanation of their reasons for the actions they took which involves more than merely racism. It's so sad that so many "educated" individuals show such hatred towards an entire region of the nation. I'm just surprised the term "fly-over country" hasn't been brought out among the many other bigoted terms used by the people here.
Does it occur to you that regardless of what the curriculum actually is that it is not the state legislature who should make these decisions? That's why we have a state school board and a curriculum development committee for public education.
Such decisions ought to be made by educators or at least by those not standing for election and pandering for votes every few years.
The action itself is despicable here. However, the larger concern is that a state legislature has no business micromanaging development of a curriculum in the school system. If as a policy matter, they want to mandate a class in "Civics" or in "Personal Financial Skills" they can do that. However, the actual content of the course belongs in the hands of those not motivated by politics.
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