With debate, State Board lays U.S. history flap to rest

The new AP “framework” for U.S. history has become a cause celebre among some conservative critics, who claim it presents a slanted and negative view of American history.

At the request of other members, Lundeen pulled the resolution from August’s board agenda, instead setting up a debate and question-and-answer session that took 70 minutes of the board’s time Wednesday afternoon. Lundeen said the resolution wouldn’t come up in the future.Board chair Paul Lundeen, a Republican from Monument, last month proposed a resolution criticizing the AP framework and urging the College Board, which runs the AP tests, to delay the new program for a year. (See this Chalkbeat Colorado story for background.)

The debaters were critic Larry Krieger, who owns an AP and SAT test prep company in Pennsylvania, and University of Northern Colorado history professor Fritz Fischer, who supports the new course. (Krieger participated via a video hookup.)

In classic high school debate fashion, each man had 15 minutes to make his case, plus a five-minute rebuttal. (Terry Whitney, a College Board lobbyist, also squeezed in a few remarks.)

Krieger said he supports a “balanced” approach to U.S. history but was relentlessly critical of the AP framework, saying, “Throughout the framework they left out the positives” and repeatedly referring to the course’s “bias” and “disturbing omissions.”

Fischer was having none of that, saying, “The AP history framework is actually a middle-of-the-road framework” and “is not a radically revisionist document.”

“This is a baseless argument,” he said of Krieger’s claim that the framework was the product of conscious leftist bias. Fischer said critics are “the voices of a few extreme people.”

Lundeen and other Republican board members indicated their general agreement with Krieger. Marcia Neal of Grand Junction said she’d reviewed the framework and found “There is an inordinate amount of time spent on slavery and Native Americans and negative impacts.”

Democrat Elaine Gantz Berman of Denver said, “People are always going to be dissatisfied” with presentations of U.S. history. And after a bit more back and forth between Krieger and Fischer, the board moved on to the next agenda item.