National Republican Committee Resolution Demanding Implementation Delay, and Rewrite, of AP U.S. History Framework/Common Core

Filed in Common Core State Standards by Shane Vander Hart on August 12, 2014

The Republican National Committee passed a resolution concerning education during their summer meeting.  The first deals with the rewrite of the AP U.S. History framework.  This was sponsored by Tamara Scott, National Committeewoman from Iowa, and was written with the help of Jane Robbins from American Principles Project.  It had six co-sponsors and it passed the committee unanimously.

Resolution Demanding Implementation Delay, and Rewrite, of AP U.S. History Framework

WHEREAS, almost 500,000 U. S. students take the College Board’s Advanced Placement U. S. History (APUSH) course each year; and

WHEREAS, the APUSH course has traditionally been designed to present a balanced view of American history and to prepare students for college-level history courses; and

WHEREAS, the College Board (a private organization unaccountable to the public) has recently released a new Framework for the APUSH course; and

WHEREAS, the new APUSH Framework reflects a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects; and

WHEREAS, the Framework includes little or no discussion of the Founding Fathers, the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the religious influences on our nation’s history, and many other critical topics that have always been part of the APUSH course; and

WHEREAS, the Framework excludes discussion of the U. S. military (no battles, commanders, or heroes) and omits many other individuals and events that greatly shaped our nation’s history (for example, Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, George Washington Carver, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Tuskegee Airmen, the Holocaust); and

WHEREAS, the Framework presents a biased and inaccurate view of many important events in American history, including the motivations and actions of 17^th-19^th-century settlers, American involvement in World War II, and the development of and victory in the Cold War; and

WHEREAS, the Framework describes its detailed requirements as “required knowledge” for APUSH students, and the College Board admits that the APUSH examination will not test information outside this “required knowledge”; and

WHEREAS, because the Framework differs radically from almost all state history standards, so that APUSH teachers will have to ignore their state standards to prepare students for the AP examination, the Framework will essentially usurp almost all state history standards for the best and brightest history students; and

WHEREAS, the College Board is not making its sample examination available for public review, thus maintaining secrecy about what U. S. students are actually being tested on;

RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee strongly recommends that the College Board delay the implementation of the new APUSH Framework for at least a year, and that during that time a committee be convened to draft an APUSH Framework that is consistent both with the APUSH course’s traditional mission, with state history standards, and with the desires of U. S. parents and other citizens for their students to learn the true history of their country; and be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee requests that state legislatures and the U. S. Congress investigate this matter; and be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee request that Congress withhold any federal funding to the College Board (a private non-governmental organization) until the APUSH course and examination have been rewritten in a transparent manner to accurately reflect U. S. history without a political bias and to respect the sovereignty of state standards, and until sample examinations are made available to educators, state and local officials, and the public, as has long been the established practice; and be it

FINALLY RESOLVED, that upon the approval of this resolution the Republican National Committee shall promptly deliver a copy of this resolution to every Republican member of Congress, all Republican candidates for Congress, and to each Republican state and territorial party office.

Respectfully submitted by:

Tamara R. Scott

National Committeewoman for Iowa