Last year, the College Board, the nonprofit corporation that controls all the high-school Advanced Placement courses and exams, published new guidelines for the AP U.S. history test. They read like a left-wing dream. Obsession with identity, gender, class, crimes against the American Indian and the sins of capitalism suffused the proposed guidelines for teachers of AP American history....How did that happen? Read the whole column. The link above won't work for nonsubscribers, but Googling some text will work.
The earlier guidelines characterized the discovery of America as mostly the story of Europeans bringing pestilence, destructive plants and cultural obliteration to American Indians. The new guidelines put it this way: “Mutual misunderstandings between Europeans and Native Americans often defined the early years of interaction and trade as each group sought to make sense of the other. Over time, Europeans and Native Americans adopted some useful aspects of each other’s culture.”...
The previous, neo-Marxist guidelines said, “Students should be able to explain how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S. history, with special attention given to the formation of gender, class, racial, and ethnic identities.” That has been removed. The revised guidelines have plenty about “identity” but nothing worth mounting a Super PAC to battle.
Also new: “The effort for American independence was energized by colonial leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, as well as by popular movements that included the political activism of laborers, artisans, and women.” The earlier version never suggested the existence of Franklin—or Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison or anyone resembling a Founding Father. Now they’re back. Even the Federalist Papers were fished out of the memory hole.
Most incredible of all, the private enterprise system is, as they say, reimagined as a force for good: “As the price of many goods decreased, workers’ real wages increased, providing new access to a variety of goods and services.”
August 27, 2015
"Hey, Conservatives, You Won/The College Board’s about-face on U.S. history is a significant political event."
A Wall Street Journal article by Daniel Henninger.
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88 comments:
People who can't tolerate the leftist rewrite of history won't do well in college anyway.
The boys will be expelled for rape right away.
The boys are fleeing college. I've got a few of them and know several more. They're running away.
Conservatives won, but the students won more.
Money still talks.
Daniel Henninger is doing the punditry equivalent of when you order the special at a restaurant and the server says, all chipper, "Awesome choice!"
But I'm pretty sure Ben Franklin owned slaves for a time.
Perhaps I should stop going to brew pubs.
You can expect an "awesome" simply for ordering a beer.
The headline says "Conservatives won", why not "The truth won"?
I once asked a server at a brewpub: "What's the beer you think is most underappreciated? What beer do you think deserves more love?"
She was caught a little off guard, but she gave me an answer, soon enough, and when I ordered her recommendation it was like I made her day or something.
She got an awesome tip.
A positive development. But I can't shake a fatalistic unease: they never stop. Academic progressives constantly poke around for weaknesses to exploit, history to revise and traditions to dismantle.
The horde was repelled with fire this time. They realized they tried too much, too soon. But they will regroup, and never stop.
And good morning everyone!
I read that article yesterday and agree with him. My daughter got a load of leftist crap in college but resisted it and is conservative. I think the lefty SJWs are losing the battle with kids. The parents are winning.The kid with disinterested parents are still at risk.
This just makes the colleges' program of reeducation a little more difficult to implement.
Daniel Henninger is doing the punditry equivalent of when you order the special at a restaurant and the server says, all chipper, "Awesome choice!"
That always makes me wonder: Are there bad choices here?
I taught the Social Studies for years in an inner city public school setting. We would have as teaching objectives foolishness along the following lines: Geography for 10th Grade - SSG10 Objective 104.3(4): The student will be able to identify and relate trans Saharan cultural cornerstones as they delineate to south west Asian trade routes to India with special concern for ethnic minorities and gender issues as they point to income inequality in the first millennia.
I would just try ignore it and have my students learn the basic physical and cultural aspects of countries and continents and just shine the stupidity of course writers earning summer money throwing shit on a wall to see what stuck.
I'd like to know who the author(s) of the new U.S. History AP guidelines is (are).
Is the culture changing?
Is this a Gettysburg moment in the culture wars?
A "secret weapon" was used to tip the balance in the war to win hearts and minds.
I quote from Daniel Henniger's column: "Stanley Kurtz, of the Ethics and Public Center, has argued that the College Board was concerned that it's lucrative nationwide testing would be at risk if states began to replace it with their own courses."
And the weapon is the PocketBook.
Addendum - once the State of Florida started testing knowledge for that foolishness the jig was up. Curriculum Guide Nazis would show and ask about our "computer drill down" to each and every objective to monitor student achievement. Not that they were ever concerned that my class of 38 students (in a room designed for 25)had no textbooks...
Excellent news.
Not only good for accuracy, but good for making history interesting. (Could there be a way to make history more dull than to reduce it to vague movements, nebulous identities, and every interaction to oppressor/opressee?)
Real history is interesting for kids who read. When I was about 12, I read my cousin's high school world history textbook cover to cover a couple of times. It began with the Doric Invasion of Greece, went on to the Punic Wars and continued to WWI. It read like a novel. I wish I still had it for my kids.
You guys won! So... probably a good time for a nice long nap - you must be pretty tired. We won't touch anything until you get back.
Or as it's written in the paper, The revised guidelines have plenty about “identity” but nothing worth mounting a Super PAC to battle.
I think we ought to be deciding that for ourselves, thanks. Call me a cynic, but my guess is that the most obnoxious elements were removed, the most obvious elements put back in... and that the mindset of the people pushing the new program has changed not a jot.
Michael K: Yeah. I wonder where those more story-telling history books have gone.
Conservatives won?
America won.
My restaurant question to the waitstaff when I'm baffled is, "what would you eat, if you could get anything?"
Sometimes it's something on the menu I wouldn't have tried, frequently it's off-menu. A brewpub we like does a ridonculous mac & cheese for staff, which I got for $5. A waitress was raving about it when we asked and she was right, and we usually get an order. Sometimes it's a new thing the chef is fooling with. We regularly go to a VietNamese place for Pho, and one of the two VietNamese bro dudes who runs it usually recommends something the chef is working on, and it's always some crazy recipe, and always tasty. Last time it was crispy quail marinated in asian fruit juices, with a salt, pepper and lime juice dip - just drizzle the lime onto the small bowl of salt and pepper, then dip the fruit marinated, fried quail in. Crazy good, something that immediately went on the short list of "best tasting things I've ever eaten." Waiters and restauranteurs also like being treated as Not a Serving Cart but as a person with judgment, who knows something about food.
Reading about this (temporarily and partially thwarted) attempt to dumb down the AP U.S. history test with more identity politics nonsense reminds me of something. One of the reasons that has often been cited for how public schools are “underfunded” is that students were using history and social studies textbooks that were 5, 10 or 20 years old. Unless they were literally falling apart (I have hardcovers far older than that), there’s no reason why you need to buy new history books every few years unless you want to use that as an opening to revise the content in line with the prevailing political trends of the moment. If what was attempted to be put on the AP U.S. history test is indicative of what was planned to be put in the history books, maybe the kids with the older ones are more likely to be getting a better education.
Why is there a "College Board"?
Four years of college - exposure to Zinn and Chomsky et al - will fix this problem.
IOW: I'm more interested in what they believe when they LEAVE college then when they go in.
Why is there a "College Board"?
There is a perceived need for one. Because of "fairness"
I'd recommend Will Cuppy, "The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody" for high school history.
I liked it in high school. The teacher borrowed it, in fact.
CJinPA said...
The horde was repelled with fire this time. They realized they tried too much, too soon. But they will regroup, and never stop.
Unfortunately this is true not just in this area but all. In the 90s Antioch College adopted the currently faddish sexual assault policy misleadingly called "Affirmative Consent" (the true description is Accusations Prove Guilt). They repealed it after much mockery pointing out essentially all sexual encounters broke the rules.
The policy is now in effect on all California campuses and is likely to be in effect on virtually all blue state campuses within a couple of years.
I like Henninger, and thank God for the WSJ, but he oversells the victory. Leftism never sleeps, certainly not in College. This is a small victory, Yes, but emphasis on small.
If you have 17-year old boys, think about sending them to the Marines for 2 years, after high school, before College. Then, have them live at home for 2 years and attend Junior College, which you incentivize by telling them, if they get all A's, and then transfer into a major University for the last 2 years, you'll pay the whole freight.
It's a decent innoculation against Leftism in college -- and they end up with the "prestigious" degree to boot.
"Bob Ellison said...
The boys are fleeing college. I've got a few of them and know several more. They're running away.
8/27/15, 8:37 AM"
This seems like a *huge* financial opportunity, should someone be in a position to fill the need.
(Calling all conservative think tanks...)
College is over-rated, expensive, and a waste of time. If you want to make a good living, with plenty of family hours, go to a Vo-Tech. Learn a trade. Property taxes pay for most costs, and corporations pitch in.
I've yet to meet a doctor, engineer, or lawyer who likes their job after five years. They empty their bank accounts, or charge it to buy their diploma, and in the end they have a shit job pushing paper like a fucking janitor. Even if they make it to the top, the salary is not worth the cell phone to your ear 24 hours a day. A 50 year old doctor in management looks like they are 80 (dead eyes, nice suit).
Meanwhile those working on Cisco routers goes home after eight hours and bounces the kid on their knees. Eats supper with their spouse. Sure it's harder to live on $100k a year, and you won't be in a gated community, but life is tolerable. You don't have to know US History, and if you did, it wouldn't help your diploma.
Could there be a way to make history more dull than to reduce it to vague movements, nebulous identities, and every interaction to oppressor/opressee?
Having been forced to deal with Zinn as the primary textbook in high school U.S. history, it's hard for me to imagine another way to make it more dull.
The left never retreats, they simple go to ground and wait. Tiny victories are progress. But the next leap is already planned.
An important thing to remember in this "victory" is that the push for change--the challenge to the Board's direction--came from outside the academy. Most of the teachers were happy to follow those guidelines, and didn't complain about the ideological bias. That, I think, tells you most of what you need to know about whether this "win" represents any kind of real change of the type the victors want.
When my daughter was in high school, she was doing her homework on the kitchen table and I noticed it was algebra. She said it was really hard. I then asked her why anyone would need to know algebra. Shrug. She had no clue. So I asked her to ask her teacher why students need to learn algebra. I thought the exercise would give her insight, and the teacher would be impressed with her inquisitiveness.
She said the teacher told the class, it was so they could improve their thinking and solving skills. Oh crap! So, I told her that was just babble-talk, and the reason you need to learn algebra, is because you won't be able to do calculus without it. One leads to the other.
I don't want to take calculus! Bzzzt, yes you do. Why?? Because it is the minimum math to get through any higher degree, and life. If you don't know calculus, you don't know shit. If you don't know shit, you can't figure out economics, digital signal processing, or how to get to Yellowstone Park before sunset. You'll be like an African in Baltimore looking for their next meal.
Though I was happy to see the revised standards, I'm not sure that all is well in AP land. The grading has been dumbed down in recent years. My alma mater has stopped giving general education credits for 4's or 5's on certain AP exams and is only giving elective credit. To me, that means they don't trust the kids actually learned anything.
My kids are still young, but I'm leaning toward not having my kids take the AP tests. They're probably better off with a duel enrollment at a community college.
CJinPA said...
The horde was repelled with fire this time. They realized they tried too much, too soon. But they will regroup, and never stop.
As we should all know by now when dealing with zombies, only a head-shot will do.
We shouldn't blame the Indians for the introduction of tobacco into our culture. In the Indian culture very few people lived long enough to get emphysema or long cancer. It is the white man's excessive life span that is most responsible for these diseases.
The left never retreats
Just so. Dealing with the left is like cleaning dog shit off the sole of your boot, you never get it all. There is no reason we should have to keep fighting this fight, the federal government should get out of education and stay out. All Washington DC has managed to do is lower standards, screw up the universities, and promote ignorance.
Sounds like they got off drugs and sex orgies....
Or a whole new team was brought in.
"O'Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child.
'There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,' he said. 'Repeat it, if you please.'
'"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,"' repeated Winston obediently."
To the Left, 1984 is a user's manual, to the rest of us a cautionary tale.
At least classes at community college can be transferred if you get above a B. AP makes no sense, now that schools have honors/high honors/AP.....
They're probably better off with a duel enrollment at a community college.
Well I guess we're screwed. I had elected to steer my bright kids toward AP as an alternative to the dual enrollment after attending the parents' meeting for that program and learning that in our high school/college partnership, kids from underprivileged backgrounds receive automatic admission, but kids who don't have to compete for whatever leftover spots are left after they fill the program with kids whom they have to beg and handhold to take the opportunity. I had assumed that the AP program was the same as when I was in high school (that shit was HARD and I worked for those 4s and 5s) and so it would be a reasonable alternative to dual enrollment, and I'm disappointed that that appears to no longer be the case.
"All Washington DC has managed to do is lower standards, screw up the universities, and promote ignorance."
You left out how they managed to make the universities much, much more expensive. Thereby increasing government dependency still further.
"If you want to make a good living, with plenty of family hours, go to a Vo-Tech. Learn a trade. Property taxes pay for most costs, and corporations pitch in."
My wife's oldest son (from her 1st marriage) never went to college, has a construction business in Oregon where he builds custom homes and lives in a compound of 75 acres with his in-laws. His kids have done the same. All are hard workers and are doing well. His wife's father has a Porsche parts business that supplies parts for older cars and does very well.
He was down here last week and mentioned that he has three Mexican workers of the eleven he employs because he can't find American kids to work hard. This is a real dilemma because illegals take all the menial jobs kids used to do when they were students. They grow up not knowing how to work or hold a job. I think the military is about the best way for an average kid to learn about living and work.
There are a few good colleges, you just have to avoid the Ivy league, and be more selective. About 15 years ago, my pal in his mid-30s went back to college to complete his electrical engineering degree: spent 2 years at Texas A&M. The Aggies!
He said it was like Conservative heaven. The kids were healthy, happy, clean-cut, excited, motivated. The girls were smart, polite, attractive. He said leftistm, there, was greatly marginalized -- the kids simply didn't buy it, the few leftist professors couldn't quite sell it. He found a lass 15 years his junior, got married, and did well. The Aggies!
I hope it's still like that.
Blogger Michael K said...
"If you want to make a good living, with plenty of family hours, go to a Vo-Tech. Learn a trade. Property taxes pay for most costs, and corporations pitch in."
My wife's oldest son (from her 1st marriage) never went to college, has a construction business in Oregon where he builds custom homes and lives in a compound of 75 acres with his in-laws. His kids have done the same. All are hard workers and are doing well. His wife's father has a Porsche parts business that supplies parts for older cars and does very well.
He was down here last week and mentioned that he has three Mexican workers of the eleven he employs because he can't find American kids to work hard. This is a real dilemma because illegals take all the menial jobs kids used to do when they were students. They grow up not knowing how to work or hold a job. I think the military is about the best way for an average kid to learn about living and work.
We homeschool our children and part of that is they pick an extra curricular activity to participate in. Two picked dance and two picked gymnastics.
Both require a lot of hours during the week of instruction. Gymnastics is at 16 hours a week right now, and my oldest boy is only 13.
I'm hoping this helps them to learn discipline and patience. Rather than sitting around playing video games and goofing off all day.
Bob Ellison said...
The boys are fleeing college. I've got a few of them and know several more. They're running away.
Nevertheless, they are making bad choices in doing so. College may not be a male friendly environment these days but the world is even less so if you decline to get educated.
Michael K wrote: It began with the Doric Invasion of Greece, went on to the Punic Wars and continued to WWI. It read like a novel. I wish I still had it for my kids.
Perhaps a revised version would be more helpful. The archeology of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean is one of the most interesting and intensively researched periods in prehistory. The Aegean is swarming with teams who are excavating and documenting more sites than whole discipline covered from Schliemann up to 1990. What is exciting is the evident fact that in the decades immediately following the fall of Troy (1,200 BC give or take) powerful and sophisticated states and confederations all over the region either collapsed totally (Mycenae, Pylos, Tirins, Bogazkoy, etc.) never to rise again, or were push to the brink of total collapse (Egypt and Assyria).
Traditionally the Dorians have been seen as illiterate Greek-speaking invaders who descended from the Balkans into the Argive and the Peloponnese, replacing the Achaeans and their literate palace culture. Current research strongly suggests that the reverse case is more likely.
Instead of invading Greece the Dorians (speakers of the Doric dialect) were living in the midst of the palace-states when those cultures were at their height. Later, during the pre-literate Iron Age the Dorians colonizers pushed north into Macedonia and Thrace. Instead of causing the fall of the House of Atreus the Dorians may have simply cleared the rubble.
Revision of history is always in the cards because there is never a last word in honest scholarship. However, what the College Board was doing wasn't revision; it was pollution.
The left never retreats
Conservatives tend to have more children than liberals. The left knows the best way to grow their numbers is to convert other people's children. That's why they have a stranglehold on education at all levels plus the media.
David said...
Bob Ellison said...
The boys are fleeing college. I've got a few of them and know several more. They're running away.
Nevertheless, they are making bad choices in doing so. College may not be a male friendly environment these days but the world is even less so if you decline to get educated.
Few people graduate high school any more with the ability to get a good paying job. However, there are alternatives to spending years and paying tens of thousands of dollars to get a college degree. If you look at the standard distribution of IQs, not everyone is capable of doing college level work unless you continue to water down the standards. There are many technical jobs that a person can learn in less than two years that can pay a respectable salary. One of my coworkers was telling me about one of his son's high school classmates. Instead of going to college, he went through an 8-month welding program and was hired right away making $40 an hour. Not had money for someone 19 years old with no debt. I've also read of people getting specialized welding training who make a lot more than that. There are other vocational and technical trades such as electrician, diesel engine mechanic, aircraft mechanic, etc. that can pay very good salaries with two years or less of training. There are millions of those jobs out there that are going unfilled while we have college grads working at Starbucks because they don't have much in the way of marketable job skills.
Some interesting reading at Mike Rowe Works.
My daughter went to Lusher, the best magnet middle school in New Orleans. One day she wanted help typing a paper. The gravamen of the paper was that the United States was employing a fiendishly clever program involving sales of cigarettes and ruinous interest rates to starve children in the Third World.
I blandly asked her about her source material and to my surprise she produced one. It was a pamphlet which stated exactly what her paper did: the U.S. was selling cigarettes to China, tc. on credit and then demanding such high interest payments that families didn't have enough money left to buy food for the children.
I asked her where she got it. She said her teacher gave it to her.
College is not necessary if you've got drive, personality, and a good work ethic. It certainly helps grease the skids, but it is not needed.
I never finished my degree because I lost my scholarship after changing my major and didn't qualify for financial aid. Student loans, thousands of dollars of debt, were too much risk to contemplate for 20-year old Kyzernick. So I buckled down.
Now, at 30, I'm making well more than most of my friends who did graduate, and well more than pretty much anyone I know with less than a Masters. I work from home 4-5 days a week, have a lovely wife (no kids, yet), two newer vehicles of my own (wifey has one too), a medium sized house (too big for 2 people, which is why we have pets), a second condo that we rent out, and a garage full of nice tools (half of which, admittedly, were either gifts or I got online from eBay or Craigslist). Our wedding was paid for entirely by us, and it wasn't cheap. We have a timeshare in Florida, another in Missouri (that we'll never use - we just use it for RCI exchanges), and we vacation at least 4 times a year (usually 2 week-long excursions, and 2 or 3 more long weekends).
However . . . I do feel bad about not finishing school, and I admire wifey for finishing hers. I know that this puts me at a slight disadvantage when competing for promotions or jobs. But it's so damn expensive, and I make too much to get financial aid. Looking hard for affordable options is something I've been putting off in favor of getting better at my job and expanding my industry knowledge. As it is, I feel that I've done well for all the trouble I've caused myself in my life. There was a time when my parents probably thought of me as a promising failure. Now, they can't stop bragging about me to friends and other family. I probably had to work harder than many of my peers to get here, and put up with more bullshit, but I think it was worth it in the end.
PS - to all of you who recommended SQL and Java as a good starting point for me to dip my toe into real programming, I want to let you know I'm 2 weeks into both courses and loving it so far. I feel like gaining specific certifiable skills is the best way to continue my education, and so far it's going well. Thank you for the advice and encouragement.
Kyzernick said...
PS - to all of you who recommended SQL and Java as a good starting point for me to dip my toe into real programming, I want to let you know I'm 2 weeks into both courses and loving it so far. I feel like gaining specific certifiable skills is the best way to continue my education, and so far it's going well. Thank you for the advice and encouragement.
Having some programming skills is good but if you really want to get a good career in IT, you should look into computer security. The demand for the skills is high and growing, and only an idiot (like the people who ran the government security clearance databases) would outsource the work overseas. There are several good certification programs related to security.
I appreciate the tip. If these courses go well, which I've no reason to expect they won't, I'll be expanding my horizons afterward. I'll take a thoughtful look in that direction.
Kyzernick, that's a great report!
I'd hold off on the champagne, folks. The original revised standards pretty much just illustrated the way HS History is mostly taught; what John Derbyshire has dubbed the "black armband school of American History". The CB's mistake was admitting it and committing it to paper. (never write when you can talk, never talk when you can nod..). US History will continue to be taught by SJW types. In addition there will be more pressure to get more kids to take AP courses (this is a big push in many districts, pushed by folks who don't believe in IQ). The College Board meets, in my opinion, the criteria for an organized criminal conspiracy under the RICO laws.
@Kyzernick, I'll second what Larry J wrote above. Cybersecurity is really important, and I can't see the demand for it slackening anytime in the next 5 years or more.
If you want to see why, read all three parts of this article in a recent issue of Fortune magazine. Fortune being the magazine that it is, there is a lot of focus on corporate backstabbing, but the money quote is this:
"[The malware] erased everything stored on 3,262 of the company’s 6,797 personal computers and 837 of its 1,555 servers. To make sure nothing could be recovered, the attackers had even added a little extra poison: a special deleting algorithm that overwrote the data seven different ways. When that was done, the code zapped each computer’s startup software, rendering the machines brain-dead."
The result:
"The studio was reduced to using fax machines, communicating through posted messages, and paying its 7,000 employees with paper checks."
The Obama administration may not be all that concerned with cybersecurity -- allowing OPM's data to be hacked, exposing the SF-86 data (including my SF-86 data, those bitches and sons thereof), not securing Obamacare personal enrollment or medical data, and accepting Hillary Clinton's use of an unsecured Email server -- but most corporations and certainly the next administration will have a more enlightened attitude.
@Kyzernick -- great stuff! Bodes well for the future of this country.
I have a nephew who was bright, engaging, athletic, but just didn't take to school work, and did not go to college. But he got his real estate license, got lucky on a couple of deals, even bought into a few properties himself. Now, at age 24, he easily makes $100K/year, owns stuff, and is getting married. His peers are graduating college and hitting the barista jobs at Starbucks with $100K in debt. They totally envy him.
One advantage of a career in IT security (if you are a US national) is that in most cases it must be done on-shore and the tasks must be performed by US citizens or green card holders.
If the field gets big enough, Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos, etc., will try to soften that requirement, but you've got to make hay while the sun shines.
I had assumed that the AP program was the same as when I was in high school (that shit was HARD and I worked for those 4s and 5s)
I would assume the AP Calculus standards haven't changed as much. I don't see how they could, but there is a lot of problems right now with the AP Histories. Here's a Powerline article that contains correspondence from an AP US History grader.
When I first heard about my university dropping AP US History for general education credit, I was super mad, because I, too, worked really hard and learned a lot. I felt I earned my credit fair and square. With the subsequent controversies on the standards, it becomes more likely that Powerline's grader is probably correct on the changes happening now.
Junior or community college is a great idea for the first two years. Helps get all the mandatory classes out of the way at a fraction of the cost, and gives the kids a first inoculation for college life (aka The Real World Lite).
One advantage of a career in IT security
There's another advantage: It pays a lot.
And I'm told -- I don't have one -- that a Certified Ethical Hacker certificate is a lot of fun to get.
One of the best things about having run away from public school is missing out on the "black armband" history that's taught there, both in AP and non-AP classes. Even with this (probably minor) victory, I'm still steering my HS son away from APs in all but math and science. I trust the school we're paying a lot more than I trust the College Board to teach the more subjective classes - English, History, Economics and the like. Bonus: his school offers a number of "advanced" classes in these subjects that still get graded on a 5.0 scale, so there's no hit to his GPA by skipping the APs. I got through Colgate in 4 years with no AP credits from HS; if he only has a few, it won't kill him.
Bay Area Guy, I don't think Aggies ever change. I certainly hope they don't. A&M accepts approx. 50% of each graduating class at my son's HS; they LOVE Jesuit-educated boys from conservative homes. I don't necessarily want him to go to A&M, but that fact in itself was (to me) a recommendation for the HS.
Birches said...
I had assumed that the AP program was the same as when I was in high school (that shit was HARD and I worked for those 4s and 5s)
"I would assume the AP Calculus standards haven't changed as much."
In 1994 AP calculus that my high school cohorts took was basically equivalent to the first quarter of duel enrollment calculus at the CC my friend and I went to. I remember them getting into limits but they never got to 2nd quarter subjects like derivatives.
As far as standards changing I doubt the left really cares about the very small number of people who actually study math past geometry, trig, and 1 quarter of statistics. The last time I checked in with some math/science majors it sounded like things were pretty much the same there.
"I'd hold off on the champagne, folks. The original revised standards pretty much just illustrated the way HS History is mostly taught; what John Derbyshire has dubbed the "black armband school of American History"
Correct. The "Standards" are just the official CYA material. What really goes on in classes, readings assigned, etc. will not change.
For instance, WW2 in US History, on any level, is and has been for the time I have seen it, about only two things - Internment of Japanese and Hiroshima. Thats it.
buwaya- you forgot the Zoot Suit Riots!
"buwaya- you forgot the Zoot Suit Riots!"
Those are for extra credit.
rhhardin said...
"I'd recommend Will Cuppy, "The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody" for high school history.
I liked it in high school. The teacher borrowed it, in fact."
I inherited a copy from my grandparents. Reread it many times in high school, since it was irreverent and a bit naughty, natch.
Tari said...
"Bay Area Guy, I don't think Aggies ever change. I certainly hope they don't."
Unfortunately, my daughter's friend's experience in the honors college at A&M doesn't bear this out. Lots of PC diversity nonsense. However, it must be said that my own daughters' experiences at other State U honors colleges were similar. Honors colleges seem to attract the most liberal, weirdo professors in the university. Anyway, A&M is definitely more liberal than it used to be, but is still quite conservative taken as a whole. My own junior son is hoping to be an Ag, even though we are a heavily t-sip family.
Did Conservatives win? Or was this a victory for common sense?
This is why, btw, as a homeschooling family, we do dual credit instead of APs (except for Latin). The advent of RateMyProfessor and word of mouth makes finding a good professor at the local CC much easier. We have some very traditional professors that even use real books (gasp!) instead of only textbooks.
The dry-as-dust history textbook has killed more students' interest in history, than depressing coming-of-age novels and anthologies have killed students' love of literature. And that's saying something.
American History is easy and well known, with some spin here and there.
But Common Core is an indoctrination into an alternate Mythology written by cursed Marxist idiots. There is no American History in it at all.
Where are the adults with an once of courage in their souls to. Confront this attack .
"For instance, WW2 in US History, on any level, is and has been for the time I have seen it, about only two things - Internment of Japanese and Hiroshima. Thats it."
well, that should warn the kids off Democrats, at least.
I recently read Modern Times by Paul Johnson. 5 stars. Would read again.
Paul Johnson is good. My oldest is reading his American History book right now in 9th grade. Take a look at some vintage history books if you want some real storytelling, books like HE Marshall's This Country of Ours (although the last few chapters are a bit humorous as the author's bias really shows). (You can find it for free for Kindle.) Or Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples. My kids love love love history, but we use a homeschool curriculum that seeks out those real history books. Even the "good" modern textbooks for children, like Story of the World, seem to be imbued with the modern mindset. My second daughter is reading about WWII and after in SotW, and she's learned to notice the way the author omits important motivations.
This is one of those issues where I find myself not quite getting the left/right divide on this thing. On the one hand, there is definitely a smug anti-Americanism element to the left that I find totally obnoxious. But similarly, I find the reflexively pro-American "USA! USA! USA!" crowd pretty childish. Both sides are childish in this, I guess, just in different ways. I think most people who are minimally well traveled outside of elite Western cities can easily appreciate and respect other cultures while simultaneously recognizing how blessed they were to be born in the US.
Too little, too late, and, most important, irrelevant to the reality.
Most of these textbook publishers dance to the tune of the Texas Board of Education. When Texas rejects a book's political viewpoint, the publishers lose big time. BTW, Texas A&M's meteorology department is one of the biggest backers of AGW/Climate Change.
I used to cite Paul Johnson, too, back in the day (and I have had his works, all read by me, on physical bookshelves for many, many years, now). No point in doing that any more, I say. (Especially, as I suspect, if/when people cite a Paul Johnson quote as opposed to actually reading his entire body of work, learning from it, respecting it, valuing his life and passion, & etc.)
College is over-rated, expensive, and a waste of time. If you want to make a good living, with plenty of family hours, go to a Vo-Tech. Learn a trade. Property taxes pay for most costs, and corporations pitch in.
I've yet to meet a doctor, engineer, or lawyer who likes their job after five years. They empty their bank accounts, or charge it to buy their diploma, and in the end they have a shit job pushing paper like a fucking janitor. Even if they make it to the top, the salary is not worth the cell phone to your ear 24 hours a day. A 50 year old doctor in management looks like they are 80 (dead eyes, nice suit).
Meanwhile those working on Cisco routers goes home after eight hours and bounces the kid on their knees. Eats supper with their spouse. Sure it's harder to live on $100k a year, and you won't be in a gated community, but life is tolerable. You don't have to know US History, and if you did, it wouldn't help your diploma.
Is that what you did? Is that how that worked out?
Also, are you personally working on Cisco routers and making $100,000 per year?
Also--most important--who the hell are you to put down "fucking janitors"?
Total "tell" about you, silly you.
In so many ways.
rcommal said... blah blah blah
It's just a blog. There are no winners, there are no losers. But I can buy you a trophy if that's what you need.
There's only THEM!
Before anyone celebrates too much, note that the textbooks have already been written, and the backdown is close to superfluous. And AP European history is coming out, with apparently the same extreme leftwards spin.
If you don't know why Stalin was bad, you might not understand why a future Hillary presidency will be bad.
If you don't know why the Chinese cult of personality that still exists around Mao is obscene, you might not understand why the unprecedented executive power abuse by Obama is wrong.
If you learn the defining facts about Washington and Jefferson as their ownership of slaves and their wealth, you might not understand why they are paragons of our nation's leadership.
I remember them getting into limits but they never got to 2nd quarter subjects like derivatives.
That's crazy. I took AP calculus in 1963 as a junior for five credits, the text was "Calculus and Analytic Geometry", 3rd edition by Thomas and we got most of the way through. I note that the 9th edition, 1995, doubled in weight and expanded to 1264 pages, illustrating the degeneration of textbooks into bloated crap that characterizes the modern era. I don't usually condone book burning, but most modern introductory math texts surely deserve it. Fahrenheit 451 baby.
or how to get to Yellowstone Park before sunset.
Figuring out how to get to Yellowstone Park before sunset requires Calculus??
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