Dive Brief:
- The College Board released new guidelines on Thursday for its Advanced Placement U.S. History course, with changes to how teachers are supposed to teach about the nation’s identity, the Cold War, and the founding fathers.
- In 2014, an update drew ire from conservatives who said the course’s focus was unpatriotic and failed to name key political leaders.
- The current update, the latest in a series since 2006, is intended to quell those concerns.
Dive Insight:
Curriculum standards have become one of the key political battlegrounds in American education, with political divides surfacing over the Common Core State Standards as well as new Next Generation Science Standards. They can quickly become a flashpoint for questions of federal and state involvement in schools, but also for questions of content and focus.
As no one course can cover everything, what gets left out can raise the ire of those on either side of the aisle. For AP U.S. History, that was American economic successes and the names of key figures to teach. For the Common Core, similar battles were waged over how to teach early math skills.
The update has assuaged some of the backlash from conservatives. "It's hard to read the thing and not come away satisfied that they have done not just a much better job but a more thoughtful job," Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and a critic of last year’s update, told CNN. But others say the College Board conceded too much. The debate, as always, is not over yet.