Oklahoma Representative Not Okay With History Advanced Placement Style

Sometimes, Advanced Placement talks about the parts of history no one is okay with, but still need to know about.

Fox News is reporting that Oklahoma state representative Dan Fisher (R; Yukon) has authored House Bill 1380, which is asking to ban funding for Advanced Placement history courses. Fisher feels that the AP classes, as they are known, do not deal with history fairly, often failing to teach students “American Exceptionalism.” Fisher states the AP classes focus on the “bad in America.”

Thin move is being seen as a first attempt to remove Advanced Placement from Oklahoma schools. Many lawmakers see Advanced Placement as similar to Common Core, a nationally standardized schooling program that allows funds to be distributed federally based on acceptance and performance within Common Core.

Oklahoma legislators voted a year ago to move away from Common Core, and then passed a law that allows the state to set and administer its own scholastic standards.

Advanced Placement courses are governed by the College Board, a private entity that also governs the year-end final exam. This allows high school students to receive college credits for college work. College admissions offices tend to favor college applications that include Advanced Placement courses on them. The College Board have labelled claims by Fisher “mythology and not true.”

Think Progress is reporting that House Bill 1380 passed the Oklahoma House Education Committee by an 11-4 vote. All 11 Republicans voted for the bill, while all four Democrats on the Committee voted against the bill.

Fisher is part of a group called the “Black Robe Regiment,” which argues “the church and God himself has been under assault, marginalized, and diminished by the progressives and secularists.” The group attacks the “false wall of separation of church and state.” The Black Robe Regiment claims that a “growing tide of special interest groups indoctrinating our youth at the exclusion of the Christian perspective.”

In August last year, the Republican National Committee blasted the Advanced Placement U.S. History test, claiming it “deliberately distorts and/or edits out important historical events.” The RNC claims a newly adopted framework the exam adopted “reflects a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.” The College Board stated that the exam’s framework has not changed since 2012.

Oklahoma is not the first state to try to alter the Advanced Placement program. Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina are all trying to either alter or eliminate the Advanced Placement program altogether.

[Image courtesy of The Lost Ogle]