Education is valued in most cultures and societies around the world and although every subject is important for a well-rounded education, history is particularly important as both a deterrent against making bad choices and a benefit of knowing what is successful. Republicans are opposed to an educated populace as a means of sustaining their ignorant electoral base and one particular subject has evoked outrage among conservatives because it is impossible to deny.
Just about one year ago, an educated Republican candidate for president, pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson, lashed out at one high school curriculum subject and stated categorically that “most people who take the course would be ready to sign up for ISIS.” On first blush one would imagine some Islamic extremists had infiltrated a public school district and changed it into a Muslim madrassa specializing in terrorism to annihilate America and wipe any memory of the nation off the face of the Earth; but that would be false.
In fact, it is Carson and Republicans who want to wipe out any memory, or knowledge, of the nation’s history that does not advance the Koch, evangelical, and Republican vision of and for America. Sadly, conservatives were very successful in pressuring the non-profit, non-partisan College Board to revise American history standards to fit Republican and social conservatives’ version of this country’s history. The College Board’s acquiescence to social conservatives will serve the Republicans’ purpose of keeping yet another generation of Americans uninformed and indoctrinated in the social conservative version of American history no matter how obscenely false and incomplete it is.
Last year when the College Board released its guidelines for AP (advanced placement) history courses for high school students, conservatives were apoplectic that the standards did not include high praise and endorsement of Republican standards; what they concluded was that AP history classes were despicably unpatriotic. That is why Ben Carson claimed that most high school AP students would be “ready to sign up for ISIS” after the horror of learning about America’s history as it really happened. Since, like most organizations in America, the College Board is terrified of standing up to social conservatives, the new AP standards, which are effective immediately, will more frequently use and heavily promote that religious conservative phrase, “American exceptionalism;” Republicans consider those two words more important than anything Jesus Christ, god almighty, or the Founding Fathers ever said. The conservatives also pressured the College Board to place much more emphasis on the phrase “founding fathers;” a subject the College Board said it “assumed wasn’t something it needed to spell out as part of what would be taught in an American history course.”
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Conservatives leveled mountains of criticism at the College Board’s AP guidelines including; there was not nearly enough emphasis on, or repetition of, the term founding fathers; there was too much emphasis on slavery; there was too accurate an accounting of violence against Native Americans, and there was not nearly enough focus on the blessing of social conservative’s influence in creating and sustaining “exceptionalism of America.” The conservatives also had a serious problem that there was insufficient time spent on the four-year period of World War II, so the College Board caved and set new standards that focus on, and devote more time to, America’s greatest military victories.
The new standards will hardly mention the nation’s history of slavery because even though the issue nearly tore the nation in two, it pales in comparison to the important role social conservatism had in establishing “American exceptionalism.” Conservatives reserved extra criticism for the AP history standards that included any mention of, or contributions by, women, African-Americans and immigrants; American exceptionalism is borne of its white male European roots.
One area that conservatives took particular issue with was the framework’s description of the term “manifest destiny.” The concept of Manifest Destiny historically asserts that the United States military power in the Western hemisphere justified its imperialism and expansion, and was based on a belief in white racial superiority. That still existing sense of American cultural superiority that shaped the era’s political debates and warmongering policy still drives the conservative movement’s foreign policy around the world and subjection of minorities domestically.
The issue of revising American history according to conservatives’ imagination began when a retired history teacher (seriously), Larry Krieger, took issue with everything in the AP history standards that did not adhere to social conservatives’ revisionist take on American history. The Republican National Committee were alerted to Krieger’s opposition to factual American history and began applying heavy pressure on Congress to abolish the College Board. Republicans were livid because the College Board’s AP history standards held fast to actual historical events that Republicans still claim “omitted America’s positive aspects” and did not portray America as exceptional. Republicans demanded eliminating any mention of slavery, Jim Crow laws, slaughter of Native Americans, Japanese internment camps, segregation, and the struggle for Civil Rights that contradict the social conservative claim that America is and always has been exceptional among nations.
Once the RNC was officially invested in revising American history as a platform and major conservative goal, the College Board and AP classes became a prime target of “Republican patriots” in state legislatures. For example, in Oklahoma a legislative committee voted to ban AP history classes and Oklahoma Representative Dan Fisher (R) introduced legislation that “prohibited the expenditure of funds on the Advanced Placement United States History course.” The Jefferson City County school board In Colorado created a “special committee” to review and revise the AP history course until student protests against conservative revisionism garnered national media attention that pressured the school board to cancel the review and revision of the standards.
Part of the reason conservatives have been on a tear to abolish AP history classes besides they teach America’s history, good and bad alike, is because the head of the College Board setting the AP standards had a hand in developing the Common Core standards. Remember, Common Core was an effort to “standardize” curriculum across the nation so red state students would not be mentally handicapped and frankly, stupid compared to their counterparts in states devoted to educating their children. In Republican states across the South, there is a concerted effort to use the Christian bible as science curriculum; social conservatives already claim the bible was the model the Framers used to write the Constitution; including crucial input from biblical Moses. In fact, Texas just changed its academic guidelines for history to focus on the experiences of successful white, landowning, religious men and omit any mention of Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, or suppression of people of color because Republicans actively repeating that abominable era have to appear groundbreaking and not repetitive.
There is a famous quote from George Santayana in The Life of Reason that says, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It explains exactly why Republicans, and particularly social conservatives, want high school students to remain ignorant of the nation’s history that Republicans are intent on perpetuating, not repeating regardless the detriment to the nation or its people. The events of the past four years should be evidence enough for most Americans to comprehend that Republicans deliberately repeat past failures and to make matters worse, it is not because they “cannot remember their past” debacles or how devastating to the nation and the people their actions were, they just do not care. What Republicans care most about is having a new generation ignorant of the nation’s past mistakes so they can repeat them; it is what makes America exceptional.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
