We, the undersigned professional historians, write to express our concern about the recent actions of the Jefferson County Board of Education and our support for the students and teachers who have mobilized to oppose these actions.

 On September 18, the Board voted 3 to 2 to enact a measure to review the U.S. History Advanced Placement standards to ensure that class materials “promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights” and “should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.” 

 The A.P. standards provide a compelling framework for the teaching of American history.  And they are just that – a framework for states, school districts, and teachers to adapt to further the education of their students.  The American Historical Association, the professional organization to which most historians teaching in colleges and universities belong, has endorsed those standards as providing a viable framework for free inquiry and discussion and has expressed its concern about the Board’s action.

 In contrast, the language of the Board’s statement suggests a polemical and partisan approach to the teaching of American history.  Should public schools in 2014 emphasize “respect for authority” when students discuss slavery?  Should they insist that their students denigrate “social strife,” even when it was associated with abolition or civil rights? Questions of authority, social division, and economic policy are subjects for debate and inquiry, not dictation and orthodoxy.  Moreover, the fact that there are already long-established mechanisms for curricular review— mechanisms that incorporate the judgment of teachers – only strengthen the impression that this resolution is an effort to steer high school history curricula to narrow ideological and partisan ends.

Further, as professional historians, we wish to point out that the actions of students and teachers follow a long American tradition. While some have characterized teacher protests as laziness and student walkouts as simply “ditching class,” we wish to note that similar actions have been at the center of many social movements throughout U.S. History, movements that many now regard as intrinsic to American liberty. These walkouts keenly reference the mass demonstrations by students of color and their allies during the civil rights movement. As did those protestors, Jefferson County students are making history by demanding an education suitable for a democratic society.

We commend the students, parents, and teachers who have protested this vote for taking seriously the study of the past, and for understanding that dissent and protest have been fundamental characteristics of American democracy, from the Boston Tea Party, through abolition, civil rights, and into the present with the Tea Party and other advocacy groups.

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Update since petition was originally posted:  On October 2, the Board met again and discussed the curriculum review (which was only introduced, not passed, in the September meeting.)  In this October meeting, the Board did approve a curriculum review process.  Some reports described this vote as a compromise or retreat  while others, including Jeffco Students for Change, represented as more consistent with the original proposal.  In any event, the protests by students and the deep sympathy for them expressed by educators across the country make it less likely that other school boards will attempt to withdraw from the Advanced Placement standards or propose the kind of sanitized and unrealistic curriculum originally proposed by the Jefferson County School Board.

(Resources:  

The Board’s resolution​

AHA support of Advanced Placement Standards​

 AHA letter to the Board )