College Board Backs Jeffco Student Protesters

DENVER (AP/CBS4) - The organization that administers high school Advanced Placement courses says it supports suburban Denver students who have been protesting a proposal aimed at promoting patriotism in AP history courses.

In a statement issued Friday, the College Board said that the social order must sometimes be disrupted for the common good, pointing to the Boston Tea Party, the American Revolution and the civil rights movement as examples.

Hundreds of students have walked out of class in recent days in Jefferson County to protest a proposal to review the new AP history course material to ensure that it promotes patriotism and doesn't promote civil unrest.

RELATED: More Jeffco Students Protest History Proposal

The College Board warned that any course that is censored won't be able to use the AP designation. Conservative board members deny the proposal amounts to censorship.

CBS4 also inquired with the National Historical Association.

It is an organization of 13 thousand historians around the country. It has taken a position in support of the new framework set by the College Board.

"I think not using this framework is doing a disservice to the teachers in the sense that this framework is an extremely useful tool to our teachers," said executive director James Grossman.

We asked Grossman if he felt the framework contained liberal bias.

"I don't see a bias here. I think that people have argued for example that it doesn't include famous people, but each of these topics cannot be discussed, each of these themes cannot be discussed without discussing these important people" He also pointed to the teaching of American history common in the early part of the last century, which he said gave in inaccurate portrayal of events and issues such as slavery and reconstruction.

"We were varnishing our history in order to make it palatable to everybody and when you varnish history, you distort it."

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