College Board To Release New Edition Of Controversial AP History Course

Protesting students Adriana Gonzales, right, and Andrea Colmenero march against a Jefferson County School Board proposal to emphasize patriotism and downplay civil unrest in the teaching of U.S. history, near their s... Protesting students Adriana Gonzales, right, and Andrea Colmenero march against a Jefferson County School Board proposal to emphasize patriotism and downplay civil unrest in the teaching of U.S. history, near their school, Jefferson High, in the Denver suburb of Edgewater, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014. The Jefferson County School District says classes had to be canceled at Golden and Jefferson high schools on Monday because so many teachers called in sick. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) MORE LESS
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College Board will released a new edition of the AP U.S. History exam this summer following significant backlash from conservatives, who decried the new framework for the course as too negative and “revisionist.”

“This summer, the College Board will release a new edition of the course framework which will clarify and encourage a balanced approach to the teaching of American history, while remaining faithful to the requirements that colleges and universities set for academic credit,” Trevor Packer, College Board’s senior vice president for AP, wrote in a letter in the Wall Street Journal.

It’s not clear what College Board will change in the course framework. The company already addressed concerns about the exam in October 2013 by releasing revised instructions. The instructions made it clear to teachers that they can choose what to include in the course and can “focus in depth on such essential content such as the Founding Documents, WWII, key leaders in the civil rights movement.”

Packer announced that the College Board would release a new edition of the exam while responding to an op-ed written by Lynne Cheney criticizing the exam.

“While there has been a great deal of misinformation and misunderstanding about the current AP U.S. history course framework, there has also been principled and thoughtful feedback,” Packer wrote in his letter. “Given the substantive feedback we have received from educators and the general public representing a range of political viewpoints, we are confident that the concerns some have expressed this past year—including those of Mrs. Cheney—will be resolved by the new framework.”

College Board accepted public feedback on the exam through February, and will release the results from the public comments this summer.

College Board initially released its new framework in October 2012, prompting backlash from conservatives about changes to the course.

The Republican National Committee condemned the course’s “consistently negative view of American history” in August. Numerous states and school districts then followed suit in denouncing the exam, including Oklahoma and Georgia.

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