AP US History Test considered biased

Anna Eklund and Serena Gregory

Martin Luther King Jr., Benjamin Franklin, George Washington Carver, James Madison and Rosa Parks. If you’ve heard that the new AP U.S. History course description doesn’t mention these legendary Americans, you have not misheard. But whether the new version of the class skips over key moments in the United States history and even belittles the Nation are still being highly discussed across the country. For this reason, there has been recent controversy about the new AP US History test being too liberal and many states have already banned the test. Georgia, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas have already gone away with it, or are in the process of removing it from there curriculum. “The College Board’s new Advanced Placement US history test is strongly bias left and should be scrapped,” said Georgia Senator William Ligon in an argument that he already won in three states.

The new test is “unfair and sends erroneous signals about capitalism, race, among other topics”, expressed many other state legislators. The test is already in use and teachers have to prepare students for the biased test by teaching them biased things. The US history test lost all funding in the state of Oklahoma recently when a bill was made by the republicans on Oklahoma’s House Education Committee. Conservative lawmakers say that the current curriculum “exposed to many of the country’s flaws-like slavery and the treatment of Native Americans.”

Many people think the students of this generation should learn about our countries past mistakes and the truth about American History. On the other hand one concerned judge said that “we need to teach our kids about the good, the bad, and the ugly, I think our children should be raised knowing that their forefathers made mistakes too.” Many education officials agree with think the idea of what this but some parents think they deserve more of an input on their students education, and the education board should stop trying to take the history of our country and make it into a one sided story. Parents are complaining that the US a nation is so behind in Math and Science because “they are getting this meaningless liberal crap every day.”

The class is College Board’s second most popular, after AP English Language and Composition, with 442,890 students taking the exam in 2013. After the changes, the course description for the first time also called for teachers to impart critical thinking skills to their students, ideas in line with the Common Core, a set of guidelines for math and English that most states have adopted. These changes first went into effect during the 2014-2015 school year. The new course description raised little notice until July, when some members of the Texas State Board of Education expressed concern that the class would bring Common Core into Texas schools. State law bans Common Core.

This past September 19, the Texas State Board of Education passed a resolution asking that the AP U.S. History curriculum be rewritten “in a transparent manner to accurately reflect U. S. history without a political bias.” Around the same time, Julie Williams, a school board member in Jefferson County, Colorado, a district of more than 84,000 students just west of Denver, proposed completely revamping the college-credit-earning course in the local schools because she said the new version had “an emphasis on race, gender, class, ethnicity, grievance and American-bashing while simultaneously omitting the most basic structural and philosophical elements considered essential to the understanding of American History for generations.” In response to the proposal, hundreds of Jefferson County students skipped school in protest, citing concerns that the plans would lead to censorship.

The AP US history test as you know it may be scratched in our state in a few years. The College Board is already rushing to make new tests that will conform to the harsh regulations of the four states that already banned it.

An Oklahoma student rallied his peers and around 22,000 others to come together and stop the banning of the AP US history test in his state. This petition needs only a few thousand more signatures to secure this students dream. To help out go to change.org and look for the petition called “Don’t ban AP Courses.” Your signature can help change the outcome of this whole situation.