The Falsified Controversies Surrounding AP History

I've been posting this message all morning to editors, school board members and any place else I can find. The falsifications and misinformation around the AP History course have spread far and wide over the Internet, with people buying into the claims and propagating the same fictitious information without ever checking the AP US History course to see if any of it is accurate.

None of it is... 



Q: Does AP US History Teach about our Country's Heroes?
A: I don't know. Does your School Teach about our Country's Heroes?
Q: Of COURSE WE DO!
A: Then of course the AP US History teaches about them... since it is taught with your  curriculum. 
Q: (?) oh...but...
A: He lied.
Q: oh...

This whole mess in Colorado with the High School and the Censorship.. it is all based on the false information given to Julie Williams about the AP US History program and framework. Not just her. It was also given to News Week, and it was very convincing, I mean.. why would anyone lie about something like that?

Then... things weren't adding up, and I went to the College Board website and looked the program over. What I discovered in only a few short minutes was that Larry Krieger has mislead everyone, with the intent of forcing the AP to go back to the old format.
Here is why...

Larry Krieger, owner and designer of InsiderPrep, and former AP History teacher, is the influence behind  Julie Williams in Colorado-- who, as she told  Breitbart Texas ..  the proposal they are trying to pass is to preserve US history from the progressive APUSH and it is similar to actions taken by the Texas SBOE.

"Texas passed its resolution against AP US History. In Colorado, people are talking about that," she said. "What does it hurt to look into this? Our students deserve to have the best, appropriate education possible," she added. "Without looking into this, we could be harming our students," she said. She indicated that over the past year "APUSH and a new fifth grade Sex Ed curriculum were slipped into the schools with little public knowledge."

Julie's claim that it was "slipped in" isn't correct, On Sept 10, 2014, the Colorado State Board of Education already discussed the issues that Larry Kieger has been fabricating and propagating regarding the 2014 AP History program. Larry Kieger invited himself into that meeting via telephone conference. The board  listened to arguments for over 90 minutes, and decided it was still acceptable for the State Schools. You can listen to that part of the Board meeting (here)

Texas dropped the AP on the testimony of Larry Krieger
Larry has been doing quite a bit of talking and writing.
Newsweek Interview with Larry Kieger
(my first encounter with this man)

By Krieger's own admission, there is nothing false or misleading or untrue inside the AP material. The College Board has said over and over that this is a Framework design and as such it negates all of these complaints against the AP History program. So let's pull some sheets shall we?

Let's look at the orchestrator of these complaints.

Larry Krieger owns InsiderPrep, which is a business that creates and sells books and materials to help a student prep for the AP classes and tests. -- Well, it did help up until this year. See, Larry's Prep course is based on the old study methods, where memorizing is more important than critical thinking.

The AP History program has changed drastically, in that it is only a Framework now, not a full course like it was in the past. So, there is no ..."series of chronological chapters that match the sequence of topics in the College Board’s official APUSH Course Description booklet." ... Which is how Larry Krieger's program is developed. AP is now a comprehensive, adaptable Framework.

Quote right off the AP Web site :
A new Curriculum Framework Evidence Planner helps teachers customize the framework by specifying the historical content selected for student focus. It can also be provided to students to track the historical evidence examined for each concept and as review for the AP Exam.
Schools and teachers develop their own curriculum for AP courses. Submitting a syllabus to the AP Course Audit ensures teachers have a thorough understanding of AP U.S. History course requirements and are authorized to teach AP.

See that one line? "Schools and teachers develop their own curriculum ..."

Meaning that the framework Can Be fully Right Wing Conservative, going over each of the founding fathers in detail and focusing on the deeds of courageous people... OR ... it could be middle of the road, focusing on the growth of the nation, or it could be both, or neither.

The idea behind this interesting change is -- There are simply too many areas of Local State History (which have been left out of the AP classes) to cover them all. Also, every district assigns a different value of importance to Local State History. There are over 14,000 School Districts in the United States.

David Coleman, now president of the College Board, came up with an idea which addressed this issue, and solved the problem. For 2014, AP created a Framework, instead of a static text design. This new design allows the teachers and districts to create a program suitable for their own use.

A Framework is exactly what it sounds like -- a list of guides regarding what will be on the AP Test -- areas which need to be addressed  by the curriculum. Then there is a Demonstration Curriculum, to guide the teacher in creating her own. This Demonstration Curriculum, is titled very clearly Sample Data, and then SAMPLE Curriculum. For a Demonstration to be useful, a Sample, filed in with Sample Data was required, otherwise you would be looking at blank pages.

Both Larry Kieger's claim and Julie's parroting out into the wind tunnels -- that something is missing -- is silly. It isn't missing ANYTHING. If it has a Left or Right or Conservative or Liberal bend, then it was put there by the school or the teacher, not AP. -- Think of it as Object Programming if you know something about that.

Except, there is a problem... a problem for Larry, anyway. See Larry's Prep and Study course no longer fit the AP History program, because there is no way of telling what the district is going to focus on ahead of time. So there is no Chapter to Chapter.. so basically his Prep courses are useless and no one is going to buy them. So... Larry is out of a job. Apparently he's not that happy about it either (and I have to admit I wouldn't be happy myself... but I wouldn't go around doing what he is doing).

Since Every school, indeed every teacher can create her own syllabi, paying attention to areas and focuses of history which are most in line with the state and local focus-- Larry has nothing to sell and his publications are no longer marketable. -- Unless he talks you into believing that the new AP Framework design is somehow bad.

This is very difficult to do, because there is nothing false, misleading or wrong with the facts or the framework. So, he has to go after something with a lot of emotion behind it, something that will cut through logic and distract you away from the very cool idea of putting together your own AP classes -- teaching the AP like you always thought it should be taught.

Thus begins Larry's impassioned propaganda campaign against AP History, where he takes out bits from the examples of the New AP, (A technique known as Cherry Picking), twists some things up to show bias (A technique known as Appeal to fear: exploitation of anxieties or concerns), while presenting Sample Data as the Real Data (A technique known as Disinformation), it is all up to the teacher and the school what to build with the Framework -- and then he begins screaming Leftist Democrat Indoctrination(A technique known as Labeling: use of dysphemistic terms to promote negative reaction), and banging on tables.
If you have the Facts, then negotiate with the facts. If you have the Law, then negotiate with the law. If you have neither, then bang on the tables and scream.
Larry has found new friends. People who are professional propaganda workers, like Jane Robbins, who joins him because she is attempting to discredit Common Core, and David Coleman was the Lead for the Common Core Project. Through Robbins, Larry meets others who are also working to stop Common Core and he bands up with them. Now he is coming to your School to spread these false claims.

The claims are very specific. They are not random. They are from a script which obviously Jane Robbins wrote for him. They are not just a list of items, they are a part of a propaganda method, which, in his book 'Mein Kampf', Adolf Hitler called "The Big Lie." So this is not just Larry coming to tell you a few things at the Board meeting. This is an attack, and it should be greeted like one. Because the Truth is, the AP History Course is exactly what you always wanted it to be.

Again... from the AP History area of the Web Site where you put together your State's AP Curriculum.

The AP® Program unequivocally supports the principle that each individual school must develop its own curriculum for courses labeled “AP.” Rather than mandating any one curriculum for AP courses, the AP Course Audit instead provides each AP teacher with a set of expectations that college and secondary school faculty nationwide have established for college-level courses.

AP teachers are encouraged to develop or maintain their own curriculum that either includes or exceeds each of these expectations; such courses will be authorized to use the “AP” designation. Credit for the success of AP courses belongs to the individual schools and teachers that create powerful, locally designed AP curricula.

The AP U.S. History course should be designed by your school to provide students with a learning experience equivalent to that of an introductory college course sequence in United States history. Your course should provide students with the analytic skills and factual knowledge necessary to deal critically with the topics and materials in U.S. history.

There are no specific curricular prerequisites for students taking AP U.S. History.

All students who are willing and academically prepared to accept the challenge of a rigorous academic curriculum should be considered for admission to AP courses. The College Board encourages the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP courses for students from ethnic, racial and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in the AP Program. Schools should make every effort to ensure that their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population.

High schools offering this exam must provide the exam administration resources described in the AP Coordinator’s Manual.


http://www.collegeboard.com/html/apcourseaudit/courses/us_history.html



I hope this helps you to avoid all of the confusion and fabricated controversy so that you don't wind up like Texas. -- Glenn Hefley










Recent Posts and Time in the Trenches

This AP-History issue got under my skin with very little resistance from me, pulling me into several long days of research, and debate, looking for answers and putting out a great deal of effort in finding something, anything that would help to keep Colorado from going where Texas has gone. I was asked, "why?" last night. 

I don't know how much you understand about the position we have put our K-12 teachers in. They work many hours a week without pay. Expenses for supplies often come out of their own pockets. For the college degrees they have, they earn far less than others with the same and often those with lesser education and expertise. They are constantly up against troubles between the schools, the boards and the unions. Their voices are mute, their expertise and experience ignored, and still they teach. -- well.. they use to still teach.

As the Atlantic noted in a piece on teacher resignations: “…anywhere between 40 and 50 percent of teachers will leave the classroom within their first five years (that includes the nine and a half percent that leave before the end of their first year.) Certainly, all professions have turnover, and some shuffling out the door is good for bringing in young blood and fresh faces. But, turnover in teaching is higher than other professions.Approximately 15.7 percent of teachers leave their posts every year, and 40 percent of teachers who pursue undergraduate degrees in teaching never even enter the classroom at all."

Data shows that beginning teachers, in particular, report that one of the main factors behind their decision to depart is a lack of adequate support from school administrators (Ingersoll, 2003). Induction is less than adequate, programs change, new policies are often implement mid-year, the frustration level is high in this area. 

More than three-fourths linked their quitting to low salaries. But even more of them indicated that one of four different school working conditions was behind their decision to quit: student discipline problems; lack of support from the school administration; poor student motivation; and lack of teacher influence over schoolwide and classroom decision making. (Source: National Center for Education Statistics, 1994-1995 Teacher Followup Survey.)

Nearly  9% few teachers come into the trade, this is a trend that has been going on since 2007.

Face it, we have hacked and slashed and cut so often that even those who 'feel a calling' aren't answering any more. 

On top of this, there is a growing trend among law makers and politicians which seems -- nothing empirical but the gnawing feeling is there -- that public schools and teachers themselves are targets of a war. The final goal of this war is unclear, but there are several in congress and in heads of state which publicly declare the education system is unwanted. If you think about that for a moment, men and women in positions which require votes to maintain, actively proclaiming that the Department of Education should be abolished and projects like Common Core, which not only help teachers with induction, but provide by its design a national support group -- the possible objectives are a bit scary. 

Law Maker's who mark education as an unneeded public service (by degrees)

"We must also explore new ideas, such as giving parents alternatives to underperforming public schools through experimentation with voucher programs.  Finally, parental involvement and responsibility are integral elements of a successful education". -- Richard Shelby

Michele Bachmann
Bachmann would abolish the Department of Education, and she has said she would give all the money previously invested in the department to state and localities.

Newt Gingrich
Gingrich, who called the student-loan program an "absurdity," would not abolish the Department of Education, instead saying he would make it a research and education center. He would dramatically shrink the department and remove all of its regulations. Gingrich would support forcing more students into work-study programs.

Jon Huntsman
Huntsman prefers local control on education and plans to abolish No Child Left Behind. The former Utah Gov. defied No Child Left Behind in 2005 by signing a law that gave Utah's education standards priority over federal requirements.

Gary Johnson
Johnson would abolish the Department of Education, and he is an advocate for homeschooling.

Ron Paul
Paul's "Plan to Restore America" calls for the elimination of the Department of Education, among others. Though his plan makes no mention of what would happen to them, Paul does not intend to eliminate federal student-loan programs. He believes the student-loan aspect should be taken out of the federal government and handled elsewhere.

Rick Perry
Perry would abolish the Department of Education, and he believes the federal government should get out of education altogether. He has already castrated his own school system with budget cuts, and has even hailed the bringing in of a whole new text curriculum that melds in the religious beliefs of the state education board with the social studies and history text. (very scary)

Mitt Romney
Romney was in favor of eliminating the Department of Education in the 1990s but praised the department in 2007. He has been a supporter of No Child Left Behind and President Obama's "Race to the Top" program.

Rick Santorum
Santorum said he does not have a "hit list" of departments he wants to eliminate. He would not eliminate the Department of Education, but he wants it to play a less prominent role in higher education.

Blake Whitten, a UI statistics lecturer and faculty adviser for UI Youth for Ron Paul, said he favors eliminating the Education Department because the candidates' plans are proactive in making budgetary cuts before they're forced on students.

States are Funding Schools Less Now than 2008
At least 35 states are providing less funding per student for the 2013-14 school year than they did before the recession hit.  Fourteen of these states have cut per-student funding by more than 10 percent.  

At least 15 states are providing less funding per student to local school districts in the new school year than they provided a year ago.  This is despite the fact that most states are experiencing modest increases in tax revenues.
Where funding has increased, it has generally not increased enough to make up for cuts in past years.  For example, New Mexico is increasing school funding by $72 per pupil this year.  But that is too small to offset the state’s $946 per-pupil cut over the previous five years. 


The school systems have been going through changes for a long time but its never felt like they were under attack before. Worse, it also feels like they are abandoned by every one else. The rhetoric, the propaganda, the environment is eroding the system away. AP Programs are just the next step in that erosion and no, I don't think this particular situation is purposefully helping that erosion, but it is telling that a person or people can look at a system like education, and brush it aside, disregarding any level of importance or  worth to be above his own goal -- and then to find so many bystanders who were passive about it until the controversy, who are now eager to jump on the war horses with him -- with no investment or payoff at stake for themselves.

The game is afoot...

I've been actively on this topic of the AP controversy for a couple of weeks now, and going through forums, and comment areas for news sites, and often I'm the only voice in the crowd who views the value of program as something above political issues -- its value toward future college benefits outweighs issues which can be talked over during this year, and addressed during summer when it will not interfere with education activities. The agendas are always more important, and the urgency is astounding. 

Just from my own observations and in my own opinion, I would have to say that %75 of the commentators for articles like this one, never thought about the issue at the student level at all. I'm very sure that a higher percentage of the authors of articles like the one in News Week didn't consider this level of ramification. 


Apologies if all of this sounds too 'liberal' and touchy-feely. I really don't have a party preference. I vote as I feel -- per person per office. I don't have an agenda other than what I've described. I'm a novelist, a writer, and not interested in continuing the political effort beyond this issue. But this issue is important to me, and I do want to see it settled. 

Call for Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo to Resign (Blaze of Glory optional)

“I think we need to take action against [the Islamic State] and I want to be supportive of that. It is a threat to our allies and to our own country,” Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., who serves on the Armed Services Committee, said, after leaving a classified military briefing on Obama’s Syria strategy. Sept 11, 2014

And then...Colorado Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican with support among the tea party movement, reportedly told a group of conservative voters that he is quietly working to convince Obama’s top generals to resign.

8 U.S. Code § 2388 - Activities affecting armed forces during war

(a) Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully makes or conveys false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies; or

Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully causes or attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or willfully obstructs the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, to the injury of the service or the United States, or attempts to do so—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

(b) If two or more persons conspire to violate subsection (a) of this section and one or more such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be punished as provided in said subsection (a).

(c) Whoever harbors or conceals any person who he knows, or has reasonable grounds to believe or suspect, has committed, or is about to commit, an offense under this section, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

(d) This section shall apply within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States, and on the high seas, as well as within the United States.

Sept 29, 2014  -- Jarred Rego, a spokesman for Lamborn, responding to a Military Times request for comment, sought to clarify the lawmaker’s remarks.
“In his remarks, Congressman Lamborn was referencing past policy decisions by President Obama, such as draconian defense budget cuts and changes to ‘don’t ask don’t tell,’ where generals and admirals approached members of Congress and expressed serious disagreement with these policy changes. There are no current discussions taking place and there are none that have anything whatsoever to do with criticizing our current military strategy to combat ISIS,” Rego said.

Congressman Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado, is an un-American demagogue, willing to sabotage this country for his own grandstanding narcissism. If his words are to be believed, this brigadier blowhard is thoroughly unfit for public office and instead should be rotting in jail on charges of treason. 
Or am I being too subtle?
Lamborn is the latest type of political muck America needs to scrape off the bottom of its national shoe: an officeholder so absorbed with his hatred of the opposing party that he is willing to do anything, no matter how much it damages our national security and the underpinnings of our democracy, if it will win him some applause and maybe a couple of votes.

I personally don't care if he is Republican, or Tea Party, or God's little Gift to the Myopic Narcissistic Party... he doesn't belong in Congress, his voice is not that of the United States, his actions represent no one who would be a citizen of our country. 

Lamborn seems to have trouble according President Obama elementary respect.I can understand and even accept that Lamborn, or anyone could not agree with decisions, I could go so far as to understand and apprciate a strong emotional investment in situations like that -- but Obama is the president, and no matter what, you respect the office. Well, I think most Americans respect the office.  Lamborn boycotted the State of the Union address in 2012  he refered to the president as a "tar baby." and blurted out classified information about North Korea's nuclear capabilities during an open-session broadcast on C-SPAN in 2013. 

The man is useless and the sooner he finds another career, the better off this country will be.


U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, a Republican from Aurora, tweeted a link to a story about Lamborn’s comments and said, “As a Marine and combat veteran, I know to keep my politics off the battlefield.”

And when asked about Lamborn’s statement, U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, said: “There is no room for partisan politics when it comes to our men and women in uniform.”



Words of the Day

cro·ny·ism
ˈkrōnēˌizəm/
noun
derogatory
  1. the appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority, without proper regard to their qualifications.

This is the word that comes to mind whenever I run across the name Rick Perry Governor of Texas

“There is nothing in the record of the past two years when both Houses of Congress have been controlled by the Republican Party which can lead any person to believe that those promises will be fulfilled in the future. They follow the Hitler line - no matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth.” 
― John F. Kennedy

Where the Wild Things Are...

Chess is a Wild game I've only been playing for a short time, but I've gained enough understanding to realize that the angles of ...