AP World History gets a makeover, and high school teachers rebel

Related Link The Controversy Over Just How Much History AP World History Should Cover (The Atlantic)

High school history teachers are in revolt over the alteration of a widely taught Advanced Placement course that they say threatens to present a skewed, Eurocentric history of the world to thousands of students.

The plan is so incendiary that outraged history teachers protested against it this week at an open forum in Salt Lake City, Utah, with Trevor Packer, senior vice president of Advanced Placement and instruction at the College Board. A video of a testy exchange between Packer and the teachers has been shared hundreds of times online. The standoff touches on issues of culture, color and history with which schools — and society — have been wrangling.

Under the controversial changes, a popular AP World History course would begin in 1450 — essentially the rise of European power — effectively eliminating instruction on pre-colonial Africa, Asia, Americas and the Middle East. Earlier eras would be relegated to a pre-AP course that isn’t tested.