Education Culture Wars: Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

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Toward Better Education Culture Wars

Some might lament the recent battle over AP African American Studies in Arkansas and similar conflicts throughout the nation and ask, “How can we stop waging education culture wars?” We believe this misses the mark. We must accept that education culture wars are part and parcel of a democratically controlled education system. As George Clooney recently noted, “Democracy is messy.” It is especially so when it comes to vested interests fighting over what should be taught in public school classrooms. So long as we have a public school system staffed by trained professionals, controlled locally by lay-elected boards, and regulated at the state and national levels by elected and appointed officials, we will have battles over what is taught in public schools. Accepting this reality is the first step toward improving the process.

And improvement is clearly needed. The process of determining what schools teach can be enhanced in (at least) two ways. First, we must do our best to engage with the best arguments of our opponents. We would all do well to take to heart the words of Marcus Foster, the first Black big-city school superintendent who, in Making Schools Work, wrote that “in a conflict situation, all sides usually have legitimate concerns.” You would not know this from most coverage of education culture wars. When conflicts like those over AP African American Studies occur, journalists and scholars should make good-faith efforts to focus more on verifiable facts and less on who takes what side.

In the case of AP African American Studies, few outlets sought to understand or explain the nuanced arguments for and against the course. Indeed, some thoughtful critiques of the curriculum did exist at the time, but they were often overshadowed by the loudest voices, who may have been seizing on a culture war issue for political gain. Few, if any, of the combatants or their supporters in the press understand the differences between the scholarly (and often more centrist) African American history developed by Carter G. Woodson and other professional historians and the more activist (and critical theory–dominated) African American studies approaches seen in the AP course, which reflect developments in the academy since the 1960s.

The AP course omits instances of interracial cooperation, like that of Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington.

To be clear, this is not to argue against teaching AP African American Studies. From Phillis Wheatley to the Great Migration, the new course features vital topics which, as those we interviewed pointed out, receive insufficient (or no) coverage in other courses. That said, even after recent revisions, the College Board framework reveals questionable decisions about what content to include and what to leave out. The 250-page document suffers glaring omissions that seem to be politically motivated. For example, as Stephen L. Carter pointed out in The Culture of Disbelief, African Americans are likely the most church-going demographic group in the West—yet this goes unmentioned. The framework paints churches as political safe spaces, not spiritual havens. It highlights recent trends toward secularization (“Young Black Adults Less Protestant than Their Elders”) while ignoring the significant role of the Black church in the Black American identity.

Additionally, the framework portrays the controversial Black Panthers in a favorable light while failing to mention Marcus Foster, the pathbreaking Oakland educator we quoted previously. Perhaps this is because Foster was often at odds with the Black Panthers and was assassinated by Maoists. With the exceptions of Colin Powell and Booker T. Washington, we find no centrist or conservative Black leaders in AP African American Studies, while marginal leftist actors like the Combahee River Collective get positive portrayals. These decisions contributed to a perception of slanting history as much as telling it.

The AP African American Studies course also seems bent on highlighting interracial conflict rather than cooperation. For instance, the framework leaves out partnerships between Black and white people on such matters as creating the first integrated interest group in the hemisphere, 1780s Philadelphia abolitionists. It fails to mention that Tuskegee Institute President Booker T. Washington and Sears Roebuck President Julius Rosenwald, a white man, worked together to build over 5,000 “Rosenwald Schools” to educate Black students where white-run governments refused to do so and hugely improved African American literacy rates. The partnership between Jackie Robinson and Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey in integrating Major League Baseball likewise goes missing. Such omissions contributed to a critique that the course emphasized division over cooperation.

Jackie Robinson signs a contract, seated next to Branch Rickey
Brooklyn Dodgers GM Branch Rickey and player Jackie Robinson worked to integrate Major League Baseball.

While we might forgive the absence of a baseball GM, there are in our view too many other omissions to believe the exclusions were unintentional. After all, the framework fails even to mention “the Great Emancipator,” Abraham Lincoln. In short, the College Board’s course too often portrays history as a zero-sum racial conflict, erasing intergroup cooperation and, with it, an inclusive American identity.

Pointing out the flaws and omissions in AP African American Studies is not to take sides regarding whether the course should be offered—we think it should, so long as supplemental materials are added. It instead sets up our second observation. Education culture wars are inevitable in a democratically controlled education system. AP African American Studies in Arkansas is just one example; it will not be the last.

Yet these conflicts can be managed. Through greater emphasis on local control and decision-making, which includes expanding educational options for parents and students, we can reduce tensions. State policymakers can support these aims by reducing exclusive reliance on specific curriculum providers like the College Board. Just as Florida has recognized the Classic Learning Test as an alternative to the ACT and SAT, states can open pathways for other programs that compete with the College Board’s Advanced Placement coursework.

The battle over the AP African American Studies curriculum in Arkansas is a prime example of what democracy looks like in public education. It looks like individuals with competing interests, values, and visions of America striving to influence what is taught to schoolchildren. So long as we have public education, such conflicts will persist. Our goal should not be to prevent culture wars by removing public schools from democratic control by elected officials. Instead, our goal should be to provide mechanisms that allow pluralism to prevail over winner-take-all approaches.

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