There is room for a reasoned debate on the strengths and the flaws of the College Board's 2014 “AP U.S. History Course and Exam Description.”Footnote ¹ Unfortunately, by and large, that debate has not occurred.

Instead, the document has been seized upon by some on the right claiming to counter a supposed leftist plot to undermine patriotism and demean American history. Conservative bloggers and talking heads have denounced the new curriculum framework as an unprecedented assault on all that is great and good in our past, a plot to remake America in a socialist mold. We have even been told that the AP course will leave American youth ready to join the “Islamic State” in its assault upon the modern West.Footnote ² A string of conservative state legislatures have condemned the document as dangerous “revisionism” or sought to ban the AP course outright, a battle cry endorsed even by the Republican National Committee. Some have pushed the purported link to David Coleman (now president of the College Board and previously key in shaping the Common Core State Standards), insisting that the new APUSH framework must somehow be part of a plot to impose Common Core history standards on the states. Setting aside the dubious contention that the CCSS were ever “imposed” on any state, the claim makes no sense: the new document was prepared before Coleman even joined the Board. Moreover, do enough students even take AP U.S. history for any APUSH material to define history education in American schools? Truly, critics seem to ascribe awesome power to a single AP framework.

Such claims, for all their irrational hyperbole, have swiftly risen for some to a point of partisan faith and dogma—and in the process have regrettably left most rational discussion (including the legitimate concerns of reasonable conservatives) far behind. The document has been latched onto as a convenient ideological symbol. One unfortunately gets little sense that the extreme critics have actually read the framework closely (or at all), let alone examined it in its proper educational context—that is, considering its actual role in coordinating AP curricula with the AP exam, and its actual relationship to state/local guidelines and teachers’ own curricula. Again and again, attackers assume the APUSH framework is meant to dictate a single overarching curriculum for all AP classes (or even U.S. history education generally), when it clearly and explicitly does nothing of the kind. Pundits and those seeking to score political points denounce the supposed failure to include famous names as an effort to remove great Americans from high school history classes, when, in reality, the document cannot and should not offer the details appropriate to state standards or individual curricula.

Such critics bring their own blatantly ideological baggage to the debate. They have, in some cases, flagged legitimately problematic items in the framework—but that does not mean they are seeking historical balance or neutrality. Instead, they plainly and openly wish to impose their own tendentious vision of the American past, using public education to inculcate their vision of patriotism, minimizing unwelcome realities in America's past and pushing a triumphal narrative of exceptionalist glories: an ironic mirror image of the “politically correct” mentality they assail. We have seen the results of such efforts in Texas's justly criticized 2010 social studies standards, a far more brazenly ideological document than the APUSH framework.Footnote ³

All this being said, as historians and especially as educators we should strive for an ideologically neutral tone and a sense of historical context, as free as possible from modern bias—left or right. I do in fact find too many of the framework's content items overly tendentious, seeming to press presentist moral judgment with too little regard for the very different worldviews held by peoples in the past. And there is, in places, room for substantive improvement: although it is perhaps worth nothing that some additions I have urged, placing greater emphasis on America's unique contributions to representative government, would please the more vociferous conservative critics—while others, such as further clarifying actions and policies now seen as injustices, surely would not.

Yet no criticism or debate is helpful if it fails to take into account what the document actually is, and what it is intended to do. Indeed, attacks have gone so over-the-top and been so deaf to the true nature and purpose of the framework, that I find myself—despite my own significant reservations and my own history as a critic of much of what passes for history standards in this country—more aligned with the College Board than with their more strident critics.

Lawrence Charap is understandably and justifiably frustrated with the overwrought sturm und drang that has erupted in the last year around a routine (and in many respects sound) educational document. But, as Charap knows full well, there are reasonable critics (even if too few) who are only urging changes within reasonable bounds … an aim the Board has, to its credit, embraced in establishing an annual open comment period aimed at periodic revisions (the first ended in February 2015, with revisions taken up in March). Taking advantage of the guide's web-based nature, the Board has responded to its critics by aiming to make this a living document, evolving in light of user needs and (sane) critiques.

In June of 2014, I participated in a meeting with Charap and other College Board representatives at the Washington offices of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a generally conservative education reform think-tank that seeks to promote substantive educational standards. There, I and members of the Fordham staff laid out our concerns with the new document. The Board's officials helpfully set out the history of the guide's redevelopment, the reasons for replacing the old framework, and their readiness to respond to substantive criticism. (It was also there that College Board officials agreed to create an open comment period.)

The Board's case for replacing the decades-old APUSH framework was beyond dispute. AP instruction must, by its very nature, aim to prepare students for the AP exam. The power that privately designed and administered tests hold in our educational system is a question for another day: the simple fact is that the College Board AP exams earn students college credit, and that AP courses must prepare students for those exams. Teachers, as Charap cogently explains in his piece above, had complained for years that the old APUSH framework was far too vague to give any real guidance on the exam's expectations—and they were entirely correct. The earlier guide was vague to the point of utter inadequacy.

As I had noted even before our DC meeting, preparing a reconceived document was bound to be an extremely tricky process—with those undertaking it deserving a good measure of understanding.Footnote ⁴ The new framework needed to offer meaningful substantive guidance, while avoiding prescriptive curricular outlining that would not only cramp teachers but conflict with state standards and local guidelines. It could not succeed if it became overly intrusive, a fifth wheel on the existing state and local apparatus (at least where such apparatus exists in any meaningful sense).

The new guide also needed to support the reconfigured and newly reconceived AP exam—moving away from rote memorization to comprehension of key concepts, an aim I very much commend. It is, of course, very challenging to construct multiple choice questions that measure broader comprehension rather than factual minutiae. I do, however, like what I've seen so far of the new system, with the multiple choice items asking students to interpret short texts and apply the historical comprehension they are meant to acquire in their AP coursework. When I took the old APUSH exam in the late 1980s, I well remember questions that were more reminiscent of “Trivial Pursuit” than of substantive historical understanding: the new model seems far more pedagogically sound, albeit more difficult to implement. Likewise, moving greater scoring weight to the free-response essay questions and away from multiple choice is praiseworthy—even if the huge task of grading such essay questions makes the retention of a multiple choice section unavoidable.

Thus, even as the new framework sought to expand upon the extreme vagueness of its outmoded predecessor, it still needed to maintain a broad focus: offering teachers real guidance on the core issues targeted by the new exam, while avoiding overly prescriptive detail or unrealistic requirements impossible to meet in a single academic year. Charap calls the old framework a “‘laundry list’ of disconnected facts”; I would go further, and call it a mere list of general subject headings. Items in the new document, by contrast, “attempt to explain the relationships between disparate historical events.” That is key: the new text seeks to explain rather than merely list, to lay out the core concepts that students should understand, and which the redesigned test seeks to examine. As an approach, this is obviously and dramatically superior.

Charap and his colleagues decided that the new framework should minimize “mention of specific individuals, small-scale events such as battles and elections, and other details of American history,” since state standards, district planners and experienced AP teachers would “flesh out the particular primary sources and historical evidence that students encounter.” In the Fordham Institute review of state standards I coauthored in 2010–11, we pressed for substantive specifics in state guidelines, since those provide key guidance to teachers in constructing their courses and in the core factual knowledge students should possess in common. But I agree with the College Board that their framework is a different kind of document designed to meet a very different need—aligning the many different AP classrooms with the single AP exam, rather than laying out core substantive requirements as state standards must seek to do.

Charap's essay provides a persuasive vision of how individual teachers may illustrate the framework's concepts differently, evoking local resources and context to invoke broader points (though one would hope that teachers would look beyond their students' own localities in seeking to broaden their understandings—one would not, for instance, like to see immigration from Asia discussed only on the West Coast). At our June meeting, College Board representatives also emphasized their “audit” process, by which each AP teacher's individual curriculum is reviewed to see that it covers the necessary ground—preserving teachers' freedom and flexibility while also helping to ensure that all AP courses cover the core essentials focused on by the exam.

Illustrating the changes in coverage of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Charap justifiably focuses on the improvement from the old framework to the new (Charap, Tables 1 and 3). The point is unarguable. Although he is too polite to be so forceful, anyone who prefers the old guide to the new is not thinking clearly, or (more likely) has not actually troubled to compare them.Footnote ⁵ As Charap observes, the overall Gilded Age themes are similar in both versions of the document—but the older document's terse headings have given way to far more useful explanation, developing the concepts with a sense of cause, effect, and interrelation. In the Progressive Era, even the basic coverage is notably expanded.

Many of the framework's more vociferous critics seem not to have examined any of these questions of structure or intent. (Those who actually troubled to speak to College Board representatives seem generally to have developed a far more nuanced critique.Footnote ⁶) Failure to grasp the purpose and uses of the framework has helped fuel the disproportionate ire of many critics on the right: claims that x, y, or z has been “left out,” as if the APUSH document (or its predecessor) laid out a comprehensive curriculum, and that any omission thus represented a deliberate deletion of a given person or event from history courses. Thus much of the “debate” has been premised on false and misleading assumptions. (It doesn't help, of course, that ill-informed journalists covering the controversy frequently describe the document as if it were a national curriculum—which it explicitly is not.)

The “optional examples” have, unfortunately, not necessarily helped in clarifying such confusion. As Charap notes, such examples were added, set off in gray boxes, when focus-group teachers asked for extra detail to clarify framework headings they found too general. I have had and still have concerns about the usefulness of these examples. They are inevitably rather random, and are also visually intrusive, giving the framework the feel of an inadequately detailed set of standards. As such, they may confuse more than they clarify—not to mention that they also give fodder to less-informed critics to complain that “x is mentioned, so where is y?” I have urged and still urge that these examples be either a) expanded, while clearly remaining optional, in a separate section of the document; or b) dropped. (I would favor the first option.)

It should go without saying that a meaningful critique of the framework's substance must address what it actually is. The framework, simply put, should be judged on how well it does what it sets out to do in its particular educational role—not on how many patriotic names it includes. As I have said, complaints of an ideological slant do, in places, have validity—though I speak of a slant, and in places little more than a lean—not of some insidious campaign of ideological indoctrination. As already noted, I would also urge some purely substantive improvements: some (such as stronger discussion of the rise of representative political institutions in the British American colonies) would please conservative critics, but others—however justified historically—might only further irk them by putting greater emphasis on so-called negatives in the American past (such as the rise of Jim Crow or the vulnerabilities that arose through rural populations' growing exposure to the nineteenth-century market economy).

At our meeting, Charap and other College Board representatives explained much about the drafting process, including how some of the items that I and Fordham's representatives objected to took shape. Their explanations did not remove the problems but were nonetheless revealing. One factor was input from college-level instructors, whose own generally left-of-center priorities of tone and emphasis were inevitably reflected in an AP course designed to serve in place of an introductory college class. Indeed, items providing greater balance on some important issues were originally present in earlier drafts and were dropped because, regrettably, they were ranked as low priority in a “validation study” with U.S. history professors. Failure to adjust the items that remained therefore left an unfortunate slant, in some places, which likely had not originally been intended. While such problems do still need correction, it is important to note that this runs counter to the wild claims of conspiracy and indoctrination from some critics on the right.

***

My own greatest concerns about the APUSH document do not center on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Nonetheless, several items in those sections have drawn particular conservative fire and thus warrant discussion. Such examples provide a useful cross-section not only of legitimate concerns, but of the inappropriate excesses of the more vitriolic critics.

One content item that has raised hackles states that New Deal reformers built on Progressive ideas, “responding to economic upheavals, laissez-faire capitalism, and the Great Depression by transforming the U.S. into a limited welfare state.” (Key Concept 7.1.III) Some have declared this, as Charap puts it, “a form of cheerleading for liberalism.” Yet such accusations largely fall flat: the item lays out what New Deal reformers thought they were doing; it does not assert that such policies were wise or commendable—only that they occurred, and had much power in the period. It would likewise be merely factual to state that Reagan-era conservatives responded to perceived excesses of government and the welfare state by seeking to cut taxes, reduce regulation and roll back the welfare system … and it should not matter a whit whether or not one agrees with that perception or those policies. (In fact, the document fails to make this latter point clearly enough as regards the Reagan era; see below.)

True, I would argue that the wording here could stand improvement to leave less room for misinterpretation: most of all, I would replace the flat reference to “laissez-faire capitalism” as a spur to reform with a more nuanced reference to, say, “the perceived excesses of laissez-faire capitalism.” Yet the hard-line critics on the right would no doubt prefer an item that openly challenges New Deal policies as unwise, unconstitutional and un-American—a change that would, in reality, be far more ideologically loaded than the item as it currently stands. The aim should be a description of what the New Deal reformers saw as their mission, not an ideological statement mandating agreement or disagreement with the New Dealers' view.

Opponents have also pounced on a similar item for the Gilded Age, which states that “a number of critics challenged the dominant corporate ethic in the United States and sometimes capitalism itself, offering alternate visions of the good society through utopianism and the Social Gospel.” (6.3.II.B) This, predictably, has been denounced as an attack on capitalism, but here such claims have no weight at all. It is simply fact that “a number” of Gilded Age critics questioned the corporate ethic and even capitalism. Such views were an important part of the period; describing them in no way amounts to endorsement. A historical content outline is not the proper venue to debate the merits of nineteenth-century reformist visions. Suppressing the historical fact of such arguments, simply because modern conservatives find such views anathema, would constitute naked ideological distortion.

The College Board has also been accused of glorifying the Progressives by omitting their failings. Here, I think the critics have a partially valid point, albeit for largely the wrong reasons. Some conservatives are clearly uncomfortable with praise of the Progressives and look for any ground to tarnish their reputation.Footnote ⁷ But the true historical complexities should be acknowledged: Progressives were not infrequently racist, and a not insignificant number cooperated in denying the franchise to blacks and the poor. Yes, the current text notes that “many” Progressives sought to expand democracy, thus tacitly acknowledging that some did not. (7.1.II.B) But given the framework's (appropriate) general emphasis on the racial and social inequities of the period, the fact that a significant segment of Progressives fell into the same ways of thinking is notable, revealing that the prejudices of the time were deep and pervasive.

Including a reference to such complexities would be historically nuanced, though I have no illusions that it would satisfy all critics on the right. Some who demand that the Progressives be shown warts and all would, very likely, denounce any actual such item as pandering to politically correct identity politics!

In another spot, critics—including, this time, responsible conservative analysts such as Fordham's Chester Finn—have correctly picked up on an item that is indeed flawed. Key Concept 6.2.II notes that, as “transcontinental railroads were completed, bringing more settlers west, U.S. military actions, the destruction of the buffalo, the confinement of American Indians to reservations, and assimilationist policies reduced the number of American Indians and threatened native culture and identity.” The substance of the item is, as far as it goes, unproblematic: the dire consequences of western settlement on the native population is indisputable, and must receive due weight. (The more strident right-wing critics would disagree, but their desire for a sanitized American past is neither appropriate nor relevant to substantive history instruction.)

The problem lies in the lack of comparable attention to the settlers' own perspective. The transcontinental railroads represented a historic technological achievement, alongside their environmental and cultural impacts; western settlement was, for the settlers, an arduous yet hopeful pursuit of independent agrarian freeholds, the original “American dream.” Both the settlers' aims and the consequences for the Plains Indians should be given due weight. As it stands, 6.2.II is explicitly about the Indian experience, mentioning the settlers only in terms of their impact on Native Americans. Such a heading, focused on the experiences of the Indians, is not only unobjectionable but necessary—although it does not obviate the necessity of giving similar weight elsewhere to the settlers themselves. In 6.2.II.B, mention is made of “Post-Civil War migration to the American West, encouraged by economic opportunities and government policies.” But that is, again, little more than a passing aside, again brought up only as the trigger to government violations of Native American treaties in the pursuit of more land. That impact, of course, belongs—but settlement should not be invoked solely as the spur to injustices against American Indians.

Unlike the more extreme right-wing critics, I have no wish to inculcate a U.S. hagiography. But a properly historical approach should actively seek, in this item and in other similar instances, a balanced perspective by presenting both sides of the picture: the view of the settlers going west, and the view of those besieged by the process. This is not a question, as some of the right would simplistically have it, of answering the “negative” with the “positive,” for the aim of historical study should be neither celebration nor condemnation, but rather comprehension of past events on their own terms. Our goal is, or should be, to nurture in our students the ability to grasp the viewpoints of multiple historical actors as they came into conflict, quite aside from modern value judgment.

(It is important to note that the framework does get this balance right in other places: 3.3.II, discussing expansion in the early Republic, notes that Western settlement “both extended republican institutions and intensified conflicts among American Indians and Europeans in the trans-Appalachian West”—an admirably even description. In other instances, “negatives” need not be balanced where any “other side of the picture” was massively outweighed. Section 4.1.II.B, for instance, discusses the denial of citizenship to black Americans in the antebellum era: there, an “equal” focus on the very rare exceptions would not be appropriate, since denial was the overwhelming reality. The item's reference to “many state governments” denying such rights is sufficient nod to the few exceptions: indeed, it could quite fairly read “most.”)

There is also room in some Gilded Age and Progressive Era items for substantive clarification and amplification. In 6.1.II, more should be said about why so many migrated to urban areas for employment, even though urban poverty so often proved crushing: the decline of opportunity in the artisanal and agricultural economies could be discussed, along with the hope—however seldom realized—of advancement through urban labor. Sharecropping's role in trapping former slaves (and poor whites) in only marginal freedom could be more explicitly stated. In 6.3.I, when Plessy v. Ferguson receives mention, the reference to “local and national policies of discrimination and segregation” could be stronger: segregation was more than a set of policies—it was a social system, ultimately identified under the overarching name “Jim Crow.” In 7.2.II.B, anarchist and radical violence should be invoked as a factor in creating the 1919–20 Red Scare, as should the reality of foreign-led Communist agitation in the United States—however much government policy and general hysteria exaggerated the danger and targeted the innocent.

Again—some of these recommended changes would please conservative critics; others certainly would not. But all are, I think, justified in the interest of substantive strength, clearly identifying key issues in American history that the AP exam should be free to touch upon.

My own strongest objections to the APUSH framework do not, however, lie in the Gilded Age or Progressive Era. Despite some flaws, the coverage of those eras is mostly quite solid. I cannot, in the present context, provide an exhaustive catalogue of my criticisms and proposed corrections (though I am submitting such a document to the College Board, at their request, including various issues in the document's organization as well as in the details of wording). But certain key points deserve a hearing.

In the discussion of early European settlement in the Americas in the framework's Period 1, there is a problematic and often ahistorical tendency to describe Europeans as uniquely intolerant. It is perfectly reasonable to say (1.3.I.A) that the Spanish and Portuguese “poorly understood the native peoples they encountered in the Americas.” But suggesting that this stemmed from their having “little experience dealing with people who were different from them” is much more problematic, openly suggesting a particular lack of cultural sensitivity on the part of Europeans. Did the native peoples they encountered in fact have more such experience? Did they understand the Europeans better than the Europeans understood them? Even internally, the Americas were hardly a utopia of multicultural tolerance. This item, indeed, seems to frame moral choices in light of modern ideas of diversity and inclusivity that were alien to both the Native Americans and Europeans of the period.

Likewise, while it is certainly true (1.3.I.B) that many Europeans “developed a belief in white superiority to justify their subjugation of Africans and American Indians,” the phrasing is extremely one-sided and fundamentally ahistorical. Such thinking was hardly a new or uniquely European phenomenon. The Aztecs and Inca had developed a theologically grounded belief in their own superiority (ethnocultural rather than racial) to justify the subjugation of their neighbors—neighbors who were often more than ready to ally with the Spanish against their local oppressors. And of course, the Europeans formed alliances with powerful African kingdoms in order to purchase slaves. They did not subjugate those rulers while they and their African allies partnered to subjugate enslaved Africans—indeed, the Europeans leased African trading ports at the sufferance of African rulers. Europeans increasingly came to think in terms of race, while Africans and many Native American groups thought in terms of tribal, ethnic, or cultural divisions—but few, if any, in that era thought in terms of tolerance and mutual respect. An item such as KC1.3.I.B should give a sense that this was a different world with different concepts of what was ethical—not a modern moral universe willfully violated by uniquely immoral Europeans.

While Period 1 seems to single out the Europeans as particularly flawed in contrast with other peoples, Period 2—on the rise of the early colonies—singles out the British as uniquely ethically suspect in contrast to other Europeans. (This, unfortunately, reflects an all-too-common pattern in education: the closer a group is to “us,” the worse it seems to be.) While it is indeed essential to point out (2.1.I) that the land-hungry British approach to colonization had dire consequences for Indians and African slaves, it is important to note that—among the British settlers themselves—the agrarian settlement pattern led to communities that were (even in the South) far more egalitarian and politically self-determining than was or had been typical in Europe. This was a fact with far-reaching consequences in the development of American political culture. The dark consequences for native peoples and slaves are, properly, dwelt upon in the framework; the historically crucial impact on British American society is problematically absent.

British racial attitudes are also repeatedly and unfavorably contrasted with those of other colonial empires (2.1.II.A; 2.3.I.C). Teachers are told, for instance, that “the emergence of racial stereotyping and the development of strict racial categories among the British colonists” should be “contrasted with Spanish and French acceptance of racial gradations.” The Spanish did accept more racial intermarriage than the British colonies: but the result was a rigid caste system of racial degrees that persisted for centuries, even after the abolition of slavery. Were the British and Spanish systems so deeply, and beyond debate, in “contrast”? Certainly, the French were far more culturally integrated in Canada, where a small number of French merchants and settlers relied heavily on Indian allies and commercial partners. But French Caribbean colonies (like all others in the region) were based on brutal slave systems. Circumstances and advantage, not superior or inferior moralities, arguably led to such regional differences. By modern standards, none of these empires come off well—yet, in line with one of the most fundamental tenets of historical thinking, all of them should be seen in the context of their own era.

Along the same lines, Spanish accommodation with “some aspects of American Indian culture” is invoked “in contrast” to British-Indian conflict (2.2.II.B). This, again, is misleading and oversimplified: the often extremely brutal Spanish empire literally worked entire native populations to extinction. Limited accommodation and alliances of mutual convenience occurred in British as well as Spanish contexts—though respectful coexistence was hardly the rule in either empire. (Traditional rivalries and warfare between Indian groups themselves are, meanwhile, only mentioned in passing (2.2.II.C), and only to invoke the destructive impact that European weapons had on such conflicts.)

The framework also repeatedly suggests that slavery was a particularly British institution. One item (2.1.II.B) avers that circumstances specific to the agriculturally focused British North American colonies—abundant land, lack of indentured servants, lack of effective means of enslaving local peoples—“led to the emergence of the Atlantic slave trade,” as if that trade developed specifically to feed British colonial demand. Nowhere is it clearly explained that the Atlantic slave trade predated the British colonies and in fact became far more deeply entrenched in the Caribbean and Brazil than in British North America.

Teachers are likewise told (2.I.II.C) that slavery in the British colonies rested on “a strong belief in British racial and cultural superiority”—true enough, but again misleadingly selective. What group in the era did not believe in its own superiority, whether on racial, tribal, cultural or religious grounds? The item goes on to say that the “British system” enslaved Africans in perpetuity, broke African gender and kinship structures, and led the British into violent confrontations with native peoples. Again, such realities were hardly British inventions. There should, indeed, be direct reference to the long history of slavery in Africa itself, and the central role of African states in supplying the Atlantic trade (the latter is briefly and tangentially mentioned in Period 1, though even there the wording is evasively euphemistic—stating that African states helped “recruit” the slave laborers they in fact kidnapped, brutalized and sold to Europeans). I learned from College Board representatives at the June Fordham meeting that there was in fact such an item in an earlier draft, removed because professor-reviewers apparently thought it belonged in world history instead. Thus, here, the appearance of bias stems partly from deletion of a balancing item without subsequent adjustment, not from an overt political agenda on the College Board's part. But whatever the cause, the misleading impression still requires correction.

Despite these serious problems, much material on the colonies is solid and sophisticated: a reference to the progressive Anglicization of the British colonies in the eighteenth century was particularly welcome, since students in high school rarely encounter this important point (developed from the work of my own graduate advisor).Footnote ⁸

Yet there are still important omissions, which underserve key historical elements and may create a further impression of downplaying so-called positives. Most important, almost nothing is said of the rise of self-governing representative political institutions in the British American colonies. That story is key to the entire history of American democracy–and indeed, the Revolution makes no sense without it. The demands of some critics that “positive” material outweigh the “negative” are grossly simplistic and alarmingly prone to exceptionalist flag-waving. Yet while the American colonists' violence, oppression, and self-interest should unquestionably be given full weight, such grim realities have been commonplace throughout human history—while the emergence of self-governing institutions was far more unusual. It hardly requires “triumphalism” or a fixation on “American exceptionalism” to highlight what was in reality new and hugely influential in American (and indeed world) history—alongside the sadly ubiquitous human themes of conflict, enslavement, and brutality.

In Period 3, the framework does a reasonable job of pointing out the essential issues in the extremely complex Revolutionary process (though the imperial rivalries that helped trigger the crisis, through the revenue-draining French and Indian War, are framed too exclusively in terms of their impact on Native Americans). There is, though, a serious omission: specific discussion of the reason for objections to taxation (and ultimately, by extension, to legislation) without consent. Fear of unchecked external control—that outside authorities in which Americans had no voice could take Americans' property without consent, and could thus theoretically do absolutely anything—was the crucial idea that underlay the entire imperial crisis. That idea should be specifically addressed—particularly given the now-widespread and severely distorted notion of Revolutionary ideas propagated by today's “tea party” movement, which simplistically and misguidedly identifies taxation in general and government itself as the Americans' principal Revolutionary grievances. (British and Loyalist critics accused the Revolutionaries of just such anti-tax and anti-government attitudes, claims at which most Revolutionaries bristled. In reality, many colonists saw a high tax burden as a mark of patriotic zeal in support of government—provided such taxes were enacted by their own local legislatures; likewise, respect for governmental authority was constantly invoked and emphasized, so long as that government was answerable to the governed.Footnote ⁹)

After the Revolution, the pattern continues of generally strong material with occasional flaws and omissions—but some are again quite important. One particularly notable problem is the failure, in Period 4, to directly discuss the rise of universal white male suffrage in the Jacksonian era. There are references to “the world's first modern mass democracy,” and “the nation's transformation to a more participatory democracy” (4.1; 4.1.I)—but what that actually means is nowhere stated explicitly. The initial retention of property restrictions was (properly) mentioned previously in the post-revolutionary context, and the denial of political rights to blacks is (again properly) discussed. But the fall of those barriers for white male adults needs highlighting. Failure to do so not only elides a critical distinction of the era—limited though it was by later standards, universal white male suffrage was tremendously radical for its time—but offers fodder to critics, who will no doubt point to the discussion of rights denied unbalanced by direct discussion of rights gained. (In a change many conservative critics would not support, I would also urge more direct reference in this section to the growing pressure of white internal migration on Indian populations and on the active Indian removal efforts by state and federal governments.)

In section 5.2, I would strongly urge that the distinction between free-soil anti-slavery and abolitionism be made clearer. The former (with its exclusive focus on white rights) came to drive northern politics, while the latter—as is correctly noted—was always a small minority movement. Students, even at the university level, seem perennially unclear on this point, without which the roots of the Civil War can never really make full sense.

The post-Progressive Era twentieth century is mostly handled with solid even-handedness, but here too a few problems are notable. Item 7.3.III.B groups the decision to use the atomic bomb with Japanese internment, wartime challenges to civil liberties, and debates over racism and segregation. This directly posits the A-bomb decision as chiefly moral rather than military. The other issues listed would be considered injustices by most readers today, but the atomic bomb is not so neatly categorized, even in hindsight. The phrasing—that these experiences “raised questions about American values”—strikes me as tendentious, at least as it concerns the atomic bomb. (The bomb would fit better in 7.3.III.C, with its focus on the war's “technological and scientific advances.” The long debate over its use could easily be mentioned there—simply noting the dispute, without taking sides.)

A final major problem—one that has understandably upset conservatives—is the handling of the Reagan era in Period 9. Liberal policies under FDR and LBJ are handled with admirable neutrality in Period 8, factually explaining the viewpoints of proponents and their critics without seeming to take sides. Reagan conservatism should receive the same even touch, but regrettably does not. Discussion of the Reagan era (9.1.II) begins with a statement that conservatives achieved some goals, leading quickly to a but … stressing that Reagan conservatism was fundamentally not realized. Certainly, the movement's limitations and contradictions must be included. Nonetheless, there should be a lead-in first explaining the Reagan circle's views of government; the fact that this was the first time since the New Deal that strong critics of government expansion held full power in Washington; and the genuine backlash against the perceived malaise, cultural decay, and government “overreach” of the 1960s and 1970s that swept Reagan conservatives into power. It is not only fitting but proper to then explain the obstacles and realities that stymied many of their objectives (including the paradoxical growth of government under “small-government conservatives”), both in and after the 1980s. Throughout, the overall tone must be as neutrally factual as the discussion of the liberal apex under LBJ was in Period 8.

Despite these problems (and these are not the only ones!), the framework has more strengths than weaknesses. With some adjustment, it could do its job admirably, and the College Board, to its credit, intends to make regular changes. As I write, the first annual comment period is about to close. (I'm told that very few suggestions have thus far been received: many critics, it seems, are more interested in using the document's perceived failings as a weapon in a larger ideological war rather than helping to improve the document and remedy the problems to which they object.) By the time this essay appears, revisions (scheduled to begin in March 2015) will be underway, and I see reason to believe a stronger document will emerge—one that will more fully live up to its clear potential. And while such changes would hardly silence the wilder critics (who do not in fact demand neutrality, but rather a bias akin to that of the Texas standards), improvements would deny them avoidable fodder and deprive their attacks of legitimacy.

The new AP U.S. History framework is hardly an assault on all that is good and right and valued in our past, as too many critics and even public officials have branded it. It is a fundamentally sound document, with significant flaws that could easily be improved. Fortunately, it looks hopeful that they will be, in what could ultimately prove to be a major success story in our ability to transcend political ideology in the teaching of American history.