Colorado county drops attack on AP U.S. History standards

Jefferson County student protests of their school board's planned assault on AP history guidelines drew national attention last fall.

Jefferson County student protests of their school board's planned assault on AP history guidelines drew national attention last fall.

Was it the student protests, or the feeling that "Oklahoma" is not a good look for Colorado? Whatever the reason, the school board in Jefferson County, Colorado, is backing down in its attack on Advanced Placement U.S. History standards.

"The JeffCo Board discussed reviewing the curriculum, but ended up passing revisions to current district policy that added community members and students to existing review committees and rejected board-directed review of any curriculum," Board President Ken Witt said in a statement.

Last fall, students staged walkouts and two schools were closed by teacher sick-outs to protest the school board's plan to ensure that history classes "promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights" and definitely didn't "encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law." Even when teaching, say, the American Revolution.

The JeffCo school board has recently been supplanted in the crazy-attacks-on-history-teaching department by Republicans in the Oklahoma legislature, who are pushing a bill that would replace the College Board's AP U.S. History framework with a required reading list that includes speeches by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, but no post-1960s Democratic president.