Once again, the Oklahoma Legislature is embarrassing the state on a national level.
CNN – Oklahoma bill would make AP U.S. History history
TPM – Oklahoma House Panel Votes To Eliminate AP US History Course
Tulsa World – Oklahoma legislative committee questions legality of Advanced Placement courses in public schools
The most recent revision of the bill bars the use of state funds to instruct students in AP United States History:
Beginning with the 2015-2016 school year, the Board shall not award any grants to school districts or make any expenditure of state funds as authorized pursuant to this section for equipment, instructional materials, course development, professional development or training, examination awards or examination scholarships for the Advanced Placement United States History course until the College Board changes the framework for the course and reverts back to the course framework and examination that were used prior to the 2014-2015 school year.
There is also language indicating what State Representatives Fisher, Bennett, Rogers, Kern and Brumbaugh would like to see taught in place of the college-level history course put together by professional educators with the relevant expertise. I’ll deal with that list of primary sources in a later post, but for now I’d like to quickly point out the blindingly obvious.
Oklahoma high-school graduates are already at a competitive disadvantage in applying to selective colleges across the nation—pulling AP courses will only make it worse.
Pick any national educational attainment metric, Oklahoma will be found in or near the bottom ten. For example, this recent report puts us in the bottom five. Personally, I don’t have much to worry about. My kids will have access to one or more of the high schools on this list, and I’d bet a chunk of my hefty property taxes that our exceptional schools will find some way to continue funding all existing AP courses. Other schools will not be so lucky, however, and therefore this bill would have the primary effect of putting schoolchildren in marginally resourced districts at an even further disadvantage than they are at present.
Conservative legislators, look, I get where you’re coming from here. You’re upset that historians in the mold of Howard Zinn are being critical rather than hagiographical, and you sincerely believe that the best way to instill patriotism is to skim over the unpleasant bits or avoid them altogether. If that is how you want to raise your own children, no one is going to stop you. Please, just stop trying to hold back the rest.
