Thursday, January 30, 2014

Common Core History – Failure

The tragedy of Common Core Standards is that after teaching revisionist propaganda, they want to control the questions and answers on the SAT with Marxist propaganda.

Common Core is the creature of the U.N. and global Marxist GNOs being pushed by Obama and his cronies.  Larry Kieger sets the record straight in his 3 Part analysis - Norb Leahy  
New College Board US History Takeover: American Exceptionalism Out, Flaws In. Part 1  by Larry Kieger, Historian, Author

 (Editor: Larry Krieger, a respected historian and author presents for the first time what the Common Core US history standard will resemble, and it will be worse than you think. The Common Core has not published specific standards around history, or civics leaving critics to speculate about history content based upon Common Core suppliers like Pearson. Pearson and their subsidiaries have published textbooks that have been criticized for under-representing American achievement while focusing on her faults. It was assumed than when the Common Core Clique got around to history standards, they would resemble textbooks that only America’s enemies would applaud. Well, those assumptions have been proven true. The College Board is issued a 98 page document entitled “AP United States History Curriculum Framework.” The President of the College Board is non other than David Coleman, author of The Common Core Standard. We can assume therefore, that the College Board History Framework will ipso facto become the Common Core Standard. The Report Card will publish a 9-part expose covering each of the nine historical periods in the CB Framework of this monstrous 98 piece of garbage in the hopes that a little sunshine will awaken the public. Make no mistake, this AP History Framework is a dagger at the heart of the spirit and exceptionalism of America. It use in the classroom will guaranty future generations will be taught to despise America and all she stands for).
How would you describe the American experience? Generations of Americans have looked to America as a land of liberty, opportunity, and democracy. President Reagan gave enduring expression to this vision when he used the image of a “shining city” to express his ideal of an America “God-blessed and teaming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace.”

This idealistic vision of America did not inspire the College Board’s new AP US History Framework. In the Fall of 2014 almost half a million American high school sophomores and juniors will be taught a curriculum that presents a very different version of American history than the one currently in place. The new Curriculum Framework for AP US History is best described as a curricular coup that will override state-approved curriculum guidelines and indoctrinate students in a flawed radical interpretation of American history.
Report Card will devote a special series of articles that will carefully analyze the new College Board AP US History Framework. We will examine what the Framework emphasizes, deemphasizes, and omits. As you read this vital series of articles we urge you to answer the following three questions:

1.      Does the new Framework leave you with a feeling of pride in America and its ideals and historic achievements?
2.      Do you feel that your local school board would approve of this new Framework?

3.      Would you want your children to attend an AP US History course based upon the College Board curriculum?
The Report Card believes that your answers to these three questions will all be an unequivocal NO! Fortunately the new AP US History Framework is not an accomplished fact. There is still time for you to carefully scrutinize the Framework and then contact your local and state officials to demand that they call upon the College Board to write a new Framework that does not circumvent state guidelines and ignore time-honored American principles.

Period 1: 1491 – 1607
The College Board Framework begins its 9 unit chronological coverage of American history by requiring teachers to devote 5 percent of their classroom time or 9 lessons to the period from 1491 to 1607. On first glance this seems to be a highly unusual and even extravagant use of valuable calls time. After all, high school state-approved frameworks typically begin with the founding of the Southern, Middle Atlantic, and New England colonies. It is also important to keep in mind that the Framework devotes the same amount of time to the period from 1491 to 1607 as it does to the period from 1980 to the present.

The College Board’s decision to devote 5 percent of the AP US History course to the period from 1491 to 1607 did not happen by accident. The College Board curriculum writers use this time period to establish a global picture that introduces Native Americans, West Africans, and Spaniards. Once contact is established among these three groups the Spanish use their superior weapons to conquer the Aztecs and Incas and transport West African slaves to newly established sugar plantations in the West Indies.
AP US History students may be forgiven if they are wondering why so many valuable lessons are being devoted to topics that actually precede the traditional starting point of colonial American history. A glance at their schedule will tell them that they enrolled in AP American History and not AP Western Hemispheric History.

The Framework’s global approach actually has a very important purpose. It enables the curriculum writers to establish their key theme that European exploitation led to native decline and black bondage. The Framework explains that, “Many Europeans developed a belief in white superiority to justify their subjugation of Africans and American Indians using several different rationales.” Once established, this negative view of American history becomes the dominant theme in the Framework. As we will document, the new College Board Framework is far more interested in the concepts of superiority and conflict than it is in the concept of cooperation and unity..
Period 2: 1607 – 1754

The College Board justifies the need for a revised AP US History Framework by proudly boasting that their new course of study will “help teachers to prioritize among the possible topics to cover across the scope of U.S. history.”
The Framework’s focus on “key concepts” will “relieve the pressure for teachers to cover all possible events and details of U.S. history at a superficial level.” The concepts discussed in the Framework thus form “the required knowledge for each period.” It is important to carefully note the phrase “the required knowledge.” The College Board has in effect supplanted local and state curriculums by unilaterally assuming the authority “to prioritize” historical topics. This inevitably means that some topics will be magnified in importance while others are minimized.

The period between 1607 and 1754 provides a particularly glaring example of the Framework’s biased approach to U.S. history. Known as the Colonial period, this era witnessed the development of a distinctive American identity. What fundamental characteristics will the Framework identity as being essential parts of the American character?
The Framework authors begin their presentation of the Colonial period by asking teachers to compare and contrast the different social and economic goals of the 17th century Spanish, French, Dutch, and British colonizers. We are then told that unlike other European colonizers the British-American colonies were characterized by the development of “a rigid racial hierarchy” (page 27). This rigid social structure is in turn derived from “a strong belief in British racial and cultural superiority” (page 28). This sense of “cultural superiority” inevitably leads “the British colonies into violent confrontations with native peoples” (page 28).

The Framework’s emphasis upon British cultural superiority, slavery, and conflict with native peoples forms the core content of a three-week unit that comprises 10 percent of the course. At this point many irate and perplexed readers may wonder whatever happened to traditional subjects such as meetings of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Puritans mission to build “a city upon a hill,” and the contributions of leaders such as Roger Williams and Benjamin Franklin. The alarming answer is that the Framework either minimizes or simply omits these fundamental topics.
The Framework’s unbalanced and biased coverage of the Colonial era represents a radical departure from its existing topical outline and from state and local curriculum guides. While students will learn a great deal about the Beaver Wars, the Chickasaw Wars, the Pueblo Revolt, and King Philip’s War, they will learn little or nothing about the rise of religious toleration, the development of democratic institutions, and the emergence of a society that included a rich mix of ethnic groups and the absence of a hereditary aristocracy. The Framework blatantly ignores such pivotal historic figures as Roger Williams and Benjamin Franklin and such key developments as the emergence of New England town meetings and the Virginia House of Burgesses as cradles of democracy.

The absence of coverage on the development of religious toleration is a particularly egregious flaw. Freedom of religion is one of America’s greatest contributions to world civilization. Yet, inexplicably the Framework omits the Pilgrims, mentions the Quakers just once, and fails to discuss the importance of religious dissenters such as Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams and the consequences of the First Great Awakening.
Thomas Jefferson described New England town meetings as “the best school of political liberty the world ever saw.” Jefferson was right. We encourage parents, teachers, and students to attend local meetings and ask school and political officials if the new College Board AP US History Framework is aligned with their locally mandated courses of study. If it is not, then the public has a right and a responsibility to demand that the College Board rescind the new Framework and adopt a more appropriate course of study.

(Larry Krieger was born and raised in North Carolina. He earned a BA in history and an MAT in social studies education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also earned an MA in sociology at Wake Forest University. Larry has taught urban, rural, and suburban students in a teaching career that began in 1970. During that time, Larry prepared students for both the AP US History exam and the SAT II US History test. In 2004 and 2005 the College Board recognized Larry as one of America’s most successful AP teachers).
Source: thereportcard.org, by Larry Krieger exclusive to the www.thereportcard.org.  Posted on 28 January 2014. Tags: American exceptionalism, College Board AP History, david coleman, educational standards, failure of common core standard, Larry Krieger, political correctness

US History Takeover: Washington Out, Chief Little Turtle In. Part 2  by Larry Krieger, Author, Historian, Larry Krieger www.thereportcard.org
(Editor: Larry Krieger’s second installment for The Report Card discusses how the College Board AP Framework minimizes America’s Founding Fathers, and The Declaration of Independence, while emphasizing Indian battles and Indian chiefs like Little Turtle. The Framework totally fails to make mention of any Revolutionary War Battles like Valley Forge. The Framework is of a piece with historical revisionism that seeks to “blame America first.” We note that the College Board is run by David Coleman, the author of The Common Core, so expect the long awaited Common Core History Standard to resemble the College Board AP Framework. The College Board plans to implement the Framework  for the 2015 school year).

Period 3: 1754-1800
At the present time, a five-page outline provides AP US History teachers with a clear chronological list of topics that they should cover in their courses. This traditional outline conforms to the sequence of topics approved by state and local boards of education. In contrast, the new redesigned Framework provides a detailed 98-page document that defines, discusses, and interprets “the required knowledge of each period.” The College Board has thus unilaterally assumed the authority to replace local and state guidelines with its own biased curriculum guide. These biases can be clearly seen in how the Framework emphasizes, deemphasizes, and omits selected topics in the period from 1754 to 1800.

The Framework begins this critical period of American history with a full page devoted to how “various American Indian groups repeatedly evaluated and adjusted their alliances, with Europeans, other tribes, and the new United States government” (page 32). The Framework then generously grants teachers the flexibility to discuss Pontiac’s Rebellion and Chief Little Turtle (page 32).
While the Framework emphasizes “new white-Indian conflicts along the western borders (page 36) and “the seizure of Indian lands” (page 37), it all but ignores George Washington’s life and indispensible contributions to American history. Although Washington was “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” he merits only one random Framework reference: “Although George Washington’s Farewell Address warned about the dangers of divisive political parties and permanent foreign alliances, European conflict and tensions with Britain and France fueled increasingly bitter partisan debates throughout the 1790s” (page 34).To put this glaring omission into perspective, imagine how South Africans would respond if an unelected agency issued a history of their country that contained just one reference to Nelson Mandela.

The Framework’s decision to all but omit George Washington extends to his command of the Continental Army. Most state and local curriculum guides require teachers to discuss the significance of Valley Forge and the battles of Sarasota and Yorktown. Instead, the College Board Framework completely ignores all Revolutionary War battles and commanders. Veterans and their families will by dismayed to discover that this is not an oversight. In fact, the College Board ignores military history from the Revolutionary War to the present day.  Students will thus not learn about the valor and sacrifices of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Army of the Potomac, the Rough Riders, the doughboys, the GI’s, and the servicemen and women who fought in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
The Framework’s superficial coverage of the Revolutionary War is typical of this poorly organized unit. For example, the Framework devotes just one sentence to the Declaration of Independence (page 34). John Adams later wrote that “the Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.” While the College Board Framework invites teachers to discuss “the architecture of Spanish missions” (page 34), it does not invite teachers to fully explore the republican ideals that motivated America’s founders. Confused students may wonder what cause motivated the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the soldiers at Valley Forge, and the framers at Independence Hall to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes, and their “sacred honor.” For example, Richard Morris risked his life and sacrificed his fortune to promote the cause of freedom.


 
New College Board History Coup: “Government of the People, By the People Out” White Racial Superiority In. Part 3 by Larry Krieger, Historian, Author,  Larry Krieger Part 3 exclusive to www.thereportcard.org

(Editor: Larry Krieger, a respected historian and author presents for the first time what the Common Core US history standard will resemble. In part 3 of the series, Mr. Krieger reviews the College Board Framework periods 1800-1848 and 1844-1877. In these sections the College Board Framework advances the notion that “manifest destiny” was an expression of white racial superiority. Its omissions are numerous and include only one scant mention of Lincoln. The Common Core has not published specific standards around history, or civic leaving critics to speculate about history content based upon Common Core suppliers like Pearson. Pearson and their subsidiaries have published textbooks that have been criticized for under-representing American achievement while focusing on her faults. It was assumed than when the Common Core Clique got around to history standards, they would resemble textbooks that only America’s enemies would applaud. Well, those assumptions have been proven true. The College Board is issued a 98 page document entitled “AP United States History Curriculum Framework.” The President of the College Board is non other than David Coleman, author of The Common Core Standard. We can assume therefore, that the College Board History Framework will ipso facto become the Common Core Standard. The Report Card will publish a 9-part expose covering each of the nine historical periods in the CB Framework of this monstrous 98 piece of garbage in the hopes that a little sunshine will awaken the public. Make no mistake, this AP History Framework is a dagger at the heart of the spirit and exceptionalism of America. It use in the classroom will guaranty future generations will be taught to despise America and all she stands for).
Period 4: 1800 – 1848

On first glance the new AP US History Framework appears to be an impressive course of study. The 98-page document includes 9 coded skills, 8 coded themes, and 27 key concepts. But looks are deceiving. In reality, the redesigned College Board Framework is a biased, poorly organized document that often neglects important traditional topics. It provides a dry and uninspiring course of study that ignores the California Social Science Framework’s famous exhortation to emphasize “the importance of history as a story well told.” These weaknesses can all be clearly seen in the College Board Framework’s treatment of the period from 1800 to 1848.
The origins, development, and extension of America’s commitment to democratic rights and values should occupy a prominent place in any U.S. history course. Unfortunately, the College Board Framework consistently fails to address this crucial theme. As we have pointed out in our earlier articles, the Framework ignored both the House of Burgesses and New England town meetings as vital cradles of democracy. Unit 4 continues this shameful neglect by completely ignoring both Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy. The Framework fails to note that Jefferson’s electoral victory marked a historic peaceful transfer of power and that Jackson’s presidency marked the rise of the common man and a significant expansion of the suffrage.

Although Jacksonian democracy did not attract the interest of the Framework authors, it did attract the interest of the famous French political philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville. In 1831, de Tocqueville travelled to America seeking to understand what he described as “the image of democracy itself.” In his classic book Democracy in America de Tocqueville wrote that the most striking characteristic of American democracy was “the general equality of condition of the people.” As the first great analysis of American exceptionalism, excerpts from Democracy in American should be a required part of the AP US History curriculum. Instead, the College Board Framework chooses to omit de Tocqueville and instead emphasize that “resistance to initiatives for democracy and inclusion included proslavery arguments, rising xenophobia, antiblack sentiments in political and popular culture, and restrictive anti-Indian policies” (page 39).
The Framework’s biased view of American history is not limited to domestic events. Issued in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine became the cornerstone of American foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. It is important to remember that Monroe’s famous doctrine made a distinction between republican government in American and monarchical government in Europe. Monroe warned the European powers that the Western Hemisphere was no longer open to colonization. Issued at a time when American military power was relatively weak, the Monroe Doctrine was nonetheless a bold statement of America’s intent to defend and support democracy in the Western Hemisphere. This is not, however, how the College Board Framework interprets the Monroe Doctrine. According to the Framework, “The U.S. sought dominance over the North American continent through a variety of means, including military actions, judicial decisions, and diplomatic efforts” (page 42). The phrase “diplomatic efforts” apparently refers to the Monroe Doctrine since the Framework then grants teachers the flexibility to use the Monroe Doctrine as an example of their point about America’s intent to assert its “dominance over the North American continent.”

American history contains numerous examples of men and women whose struggles and achievements have enriched our history. The period between 1800 and 1848 includes a particularly fascinating group of forceful personalities. For example, Dorothea Dix launched a crusade to create special hospitals for the mentally ill, William Lloyd Garrison galvanized a movement to abolish slavery, and Henry Clay crafted compromises to reduce sectional tensions. Although all three of these leaders have generated questions on previous AP US History exams, they now join Jefferson, Jackson and de Tocqueville in being relegated to the sidelines of AP US History.
The College Board’s list of omissions does not end with key political leaders and social reformers. Unit 4 either omits or fails to adequately discuss the Louisiana Purchase, the opening of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the impact of the Erie Canal and the rise of Transcendentalism. It is important to note that all of these topics have traditionally been tested on many AP US History exams. Their omission raises troubling questions about the Framework’s biased agenda and its inability to provide an authentic portrait of the American story.

Unit 4 begins in 1800 and then deliberately chooses 1848 “as an ending point because of the Seneca Falls Convention” (page 20). The Seneca Falls Convention is a watershed event that marked the beginning of the women’s rights movement in the United States. Despite their decision to end Unit 4 in 1848, the Framework authors actually begin the unit with a brief indirect reference to the convention as a voluntary organization that promoted women’s rights. As a result, the Framework neglects leaders such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and their seminal Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments. The Framework authors then provide yet another example of the document’s poor organization by concluding Unit 4 with the Missouri Compromise of 1820!
Period 5: 1844-1877

The fifth unit in the College Board’s AP US History Framework covers the period from 1844 to 1877. The Framework recommends that teachers devote 13 percent or about 23 days to this era. The Framework’s badly flawed unit provides vivid and disturbing examples of the document’s biased political agenda and unexplained omissions that ignore state and local guidelines. Taken together these flaws will leave students with a distorted and incomplete picture of how American history unfolded.
All state U.S. history curriculum guides include a unit on Westward expansion and the concept of Manifest Destiny. Textbooks have traditionally defined Manifest Destiny as a belief that America was destined to extend its democratic institutions, agricultural advances and technological innovations across the continent. In contrast, here is how the College Board Framework defines Manifest Destiny: “The idea of Manifest Destiny, which asserted U.S. power in the Western Hemisphere and supported U.S. expansion westward, was built on a belief in white racial superiority and a sense of American cultural superiority, and helped to shape the era’s political debates” (page 44).

This is not an isolated or careless definition. As we have documented, the Framework uses the theme of “a belief in white superiority” (page 25) to serve as a foundation for its biased and objectionable portrayal of American society and culture.
The Texas Revolution and the Mexican-American War are key parts in story of America’s westward expansion. Despite their obvious historic significance, the Framework completely omits events in Texas and reduces the Mexican-American War to a mere sentence fragment. Since the Framework ignores the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo confused students are presumably left to find out for themselves  how the United States acquired over 500,000 square miles of new territory that included present day Arizona, Nevada, Utah and parts of Colorado.

The Mexican-American War transformed the United States into a continental nation and ignited a bitter dispute about the extension of slavery into the new western territories. Instead of continuing this compelling story, the Framework directs student attention to the fact that “substantial numbers of new international migrants…entered the country prior to the Civil War” (page 45). These unnamed “international migrants” were predominately immigrants from Ireland and Germany. The Framework ignores the fact that these immigrants came to American to escape famine and political persecution in their homelands. Instead of emphasizing America’s historic role as a refuge for “huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” the Framework emphasizes that the newcomers encountered a “violent nativist movement that was strongly anti-Catholic and aimed at limiting immigrants’ cultural influence and political and economic power.”
Responsible curriculum guides should acknowledge that Irish immigrants did experience prejudice and discrimination. However, in its zeal to emphasize the negative, the Framework fails to provide a balanced presentation. For example, the Framework should note the key role that Irish immigrants played in the growth of the Catholic Church in the United States and the formation of powerful big city political machines.

After its digress about immigration, the Framework returns to the sequence of events that led to the Civil War. Although the Framework identifies historical causation as one of nine featured “historical thinking skills” it inexplicably omits key events that form an essential part of the momentous chain of actions and decisions that led to the firing on Fort Sumter. The Framework’s list of causal events is limited to just the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott decision (page 46). While these events are very important, the Framework inexcusably omits the role played by the contentious debates over the Wilmot Proviso, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, popular sovereignty, Bleeding Kansas, and John Brown’s raid. Taken together these events form essential parts of what the renowned Civil War historian Bruce Catton called “the coming fury.”
In its comprehensive analysis of state curriculum standards, the Fordham Institute concludes that good standards identify and dramatize the achievements of exemplary leaders. Based upon this criteria, the College Board Framework is a dismal failure. As we have documented, the Framework systematically ignores key leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson. Unit 5 continues this shameful pattern of omission by reducing Abraham Lincoln’s career to two brief fragments. The Framework apparently believes that the only things students need to know about Lincoln is that he was elected president in 1860 and issued the Emancipation Proclamation three years later. For reasons that are not explained, the College Board Framework omits the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural and his Reconstruction Plan.

Unit 5 concludes with a section that includes both the Civil War and Reconstruction. Incredibly, these two topics are scheduled to generate a combined total of eight 45-minute lessons. The Framework actually devotes as much attention and classroom time to pre-Columbian native populations (see page 23) as it does to the Civil War (see page 47). The Framework’s superficial and uninspired coverage of the Civil War is an affront to the over 600,000 Americans who died in an epic struggle that historian Eric Foner calls “the central moment in American history.”
Posted on 30 January 2014. Tags: america's heritage, College Board AP History, curriculum reform, educational standards, Larry Krieger, political correctness


Larry Krieger was born and raised in North Carolina. He earned a BA in history and an MAT in social studies education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also earned an MA in sociology at Wake Forest University. Larry has taught urban, rural, and suburban students in a teaching career that began in 1970. During that time, Larry prepared students for both the AP US History exam and the SAT II US History test. In 2004 and 2005 the College Board recognized Larry as one of America’s most successful AP teachers.

 

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