Ruining The College Board

David Coleman has been the President of the College Board since 2012. David Coleman was one of the people responsible for developing the Common Core standards. He has now brought his total misconceptions of what works in education to the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), long used as an indication of a student’s ability and possible clue to how well they would do in college.

Yesterday The New York Times posted an article that reported the following:

The College Board, the company that administers the SAT exam taken by about two million students a year, will for the first time assess students not just on their math and verbal skills, but also on their educational and socioeconomic backgrounds, entering a fraught battle over the fairness of high-stakes testing.

The company announced on Thursday that it will include a new rating, which is widely being referred to as an “adversity score,” of between 1 and 100 on students’ test results. An average score is 50, and higher numbers mean more disadvantage. The score will be calculated using 15 factors, including the relative quality of the student’s high school and the crime rate and poverty level of the student’s neighborhood.

The rating will not affect students’ test scores, and will be reported only to college admissions officials as part of a larger package of data on each test taker.

The new measurement brings the College Board squarely into the raging national debate over fairness and merit in college admissions, one fueled by enduring court clashes on affirmative action, a federal investigation into a sprawling admissions cheating ring and a booming college preparatory industry that promises results to those who can pay.

Below is a picture of what constitutes the adversity score:

The American Thinker quoted Tucker Carlson, who noted the following about the idea:

It’s kept a secret. “Trust us,” in effect, they say. There is no appeal possible. And as a black box whose inner workings are secret, it becomes an ideal vehicle for engineering the racial results admissions offices desire.

It is easily gamed – fake addresses, even possible income manipulation (by claiming a lot of depreciation, for instance, the way that Donald Trump reported negative income in the 1980s)

And it provides perverse incentives, rewarding victim status, not achievement. Parents who start out with no advantages and work hard to provide a better life for their kids will now be handicapping them if they have high incomes and live in nice neighborhoods with good schools.

Obviously if you are a middle class parent living with the father of your children in a respectable neighborhood, the answer would be to divorce your spouse and move to Detroit. That is obscene.

It might also be a good idea to consider the consequences of this new program–how will children who do not have good SAT scores but have great adversity scores do in college? What will be the drop out rate? Will they understand the classes they are taking? The way to achieve diversity in colleges is to change the culture in communities where the work ethic has been lost. There are many first-generation Chinese children living in New York City in poverty that are gaining admission to the top schools in the city because their parents have taught them to work hard in school. Rather than risk putting students in college that are academically unprepared for what they are going to face, shouldn’t we simply encourage a cultural change in poor communities that rewards hard work in school. It can make a difference–Ben Carson is a shining example of a child growing up poor with a single parent who lacked education that taught her children the value of education. Let’s lift people up instead of making excuses for them because of where they grew up.

What Did You Learn In School Today?

In North Carolina, high school students are required to complete two courses entitled American History I: Founding Principles and American History II in order to graduate. Students also have the option of substituting Advanced Placement U. S. History (APUSH) for these two courses. So what does AP U.S. History teach? Let’s looks at some of the mechanics of how this whole process works.

A student who takes AP U.S. History will be given tests by his teacher during the school year. If he receives a satisfactory grade, he passes the course and gets credit for it. However, in order to get college credit for having taking an American History course, he has to pass a national test on the subject. The national test is designed by David Coleman, now president of the College Board, formerly the architect of the Common Core Standards.

According to the Course and Exam Description put out by the College Board about the AP History Course,the goal of the course is to teach the student ‘historical thinking skills.’ How about teaching them history instead?

Here are some of the questions and concepts taking from the booklet put out by the College Board explaining the goals and concepts in the AP History course. The quotes are taken directly from the teacher’s guide:

Describing the historical period of 1607-1754, the teacher’s guide explains:

The British-American system of slavery developed out of the economic, demographic,and geographic characteristics of the British-controlled regions of the New World.

…Reinforced by a strong belief in British racial and cultural superiority, the British system enslaved black people in perpetuity, altered African general and kinship relationships in the colonies, and was one fact that led the British colonists into violent confrontations with native peoples.

Slavery was then, and still is, common in Muslim cultures. It was the Muslim slave traders who were capturing the slaves and selling them to the British and the British colonies. It was, later on, the British who ended the practice of slavery. Many Muslim cultures still practice slavery. It wasn’t and isn’t about the British and their colonies.

The AP History section on World War II is very limited. Among other things, it states:

Wartime experiences, such as the internment of Japanese Americans, challenges to civil liberties, debates over race and segregation, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb raised questions about American values.

No they didn’t. The internment of the Japanese was a violation of their civil liberties. It was wrong. However, it was understandable as a panicked response to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Many historians today view that internment as a serious mistake. The debates over race and segregation were needed–we were still a segregated society in many areas of the country as was most of the rest of the world. The military made great strides during this time in its acceptance of black soldiers. Not perfect strides, but definite progress in the right direction. The dropping of the atomic bomb ultimately saved American lives and the Japanese culture. Japan would have been totally destroyed by ground troops with heavy losses to American troops had we not forced their surrender with atomic bombs. The debate on these issues is a credit to American values.

There is no mention in the World War II summary of the German concentration camps and the people killed in them. There is no mention of D-Day and the risks (and reasons to take those risks) taken on that day. There is no recognition of the heroes of World War II.

There is no understanding in the AP History course of the greatness and uniqueness that is America. That greatness and uniqueness comes from the genius of our Founding Fathers and the Constitution they wrote. It seems to me that the students would be better served by spending their time studying the U.S. Constitution and the efforts and principles involved in writing it.

What We Are Teaching American High School Students

The College Board, under the leadership of David Coleman, architect of the Common Core, is introducing a new AP History course and exam this month called Advanced Placement U.S. History Curriculum Framework (APUSH). The course has no resemblance at all to the history those of us over the age of forty learned in school.

A post at American Principles in Action explains some of the problems with the course:

Here is a sampling of what our nation’s brightest high-school students can expect:

  • A relentlessly negative view of American history, which emphasizes every problem and failing of our ancestors while ignoring or minimizing their achievements.
  • Almost total silence about the Founding Fathers, including no mention of Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and Adams, and almost none of the Declaration of Independence.
  • Omission of military history, battles, commanders, and heroes.
  • A biased and inaccurate view of many important facets of American history, including the motivations and actions of 17th-19th-century settlers, American involvement in World War II, and the conduct of and victory in the Cold War.

I have a copy of the course standards for the course. One of the more interesting goals in the course is “Competency Goal 10: The emergence of the United States in World Affairs (1865-1930) The learner will analyze cause and effects of the United States emergence as an imperial power and world influence.” Now think about that for a minute. The entire course paints the United States as an imperial power. I would like to note at this point that if we are an imperial power, we are not very good at it. We did invade France during World War II. We took enough land to bury our dead. We did invade North Korea in the 1950’s. We set up a border for South Korea and left them to run their country. We did invade Japan during World War II. We kept some land for military bases, and promised to protect them since they were prohibited from acquiring nuclear weapons to defend themselves. I love my country, but I have to say that as imperialists we have failed miserably. We didn’t even take the oil from Iraq!

There is nothing wrong with teaching our children to be patriotic. America is unique in the world, and in order to stay unique, we need educated leaders. This AP History course will create leaders who do not love their country and may not be willing to defend our way of life. This is another attempt by the political left to undermine the future of America by teaching future leaders inaccurate history. Like Common Core, this curriculum needs to be scrapped.

It’s Not Your Father’s History

On July 10, Stanley Kurtz posted an article at National Review about the changes being made to advanced placement (AP) U.S. History under the Common Core program.

The article reports:

The new AP U.S. History Exam has been issued under the authority of David Coleman, president of the College Board and, not coincidentally, architect of the Common Core.  We are witnessing a coordinated, two-pronged effort to effectively federalize all of American K-12 education, while shifting its content sharply to the left.

So what is different about the content? Because the questions on the exam are being kept secret, we really don’t know.

The article reports:

While the College Board has publicly released a lengthy “framework” for the new AP U.S. History Exam, that framework contains only a few sample questions.  Sources tell me, however, that a complete sample exam has be released, although only to certified AP U.S. History teachers.  Those teachers have been warned, under penalty of law and the stripping of their AP teaching privileges, not to disclose the content of the new sample AP U.S. History Exam to anyone.

This is clearly an effort to silence public debate over these heavily politicized and illegitimately nationalized standards.  If the complete sample test was available, the political nature of the new test would become evident. Public scrutiny of the sample test would also expose potential conflicts between the new exam and existing state standards.  This is why the College Board has kept the test secret and threatened officially certified AP U.S. History teachers with severe penalties for revealing the test.

American history is now a matter of secrecy?

The article compares the roll-out of the new A.P. History exam to the roll-out of Common Core:

The public should also insist that the College Board release its heretofore secret sample AP U.S. History test for public scrutiny and debate.  There is no excuse for withholding this test from the public.

Just as the Common Core became an established fact before most American parents, lawmakers, and school districts even knew it existed, the new AP U.S. History Exam is about to entrench a controversial and highly politicized national school curriculum without proper notice or debate.  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and a full understanding of our founding principles are on the way out.  Race, gender, class, and ethnicity are coming in, all in secrecy and in clear violation of the Constitution’s guarantee that education remain in control of the states.

The time to oppose the new AP U.S. History Exam is now.

If our children are not taught the good things about America and what it stands for, they will not preserve the republic. It’s time for all parents and grandparents to get involved.