Publisher of AP History Book Containing Questionable Second Amendment Summary Has Direct Ties to Common Core – and There’s More

It is vital to pay attention to what is going on in our schools. This Common Core and C-Scope crap are changing the history our children learn. My son’s school is about to have a fight as they are using C-Scope. Not good, not good.

The publisher of a controversial advanced placement history textbook, which acts as a study guide for the advanced placement U.S. history exam and seems to diminish the Second Amendment, is directly linked to Common Core standards, TheBlaze has learned. Additionally, it appears a South Carolina high school, and possibly many others, are using a different history textbook that also contains a questionable interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Common Core

The first book, “United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination,” not only contains a controversial summary of the Second Amendment, but it also compares the “American mobs” who fought in the Revolutionary War to the “guerrilla bans that fought in such countries as Cuba in the 1950s and Vietnam in 1960s and points out that the Boston Tea Party was “far too radical” for some.

Perfection Learning, which bought out the original publisher of the book, AMSCO, makes no effort to hide its connection to the controversial Common Core Standards. A quick review of its website reveals a “Common Core Solutions Center” and more.

(PerfectionLearning.com)

“Founded by two educators in 1926, Perfection Learning provides high-quality, innovative curriculum solutions to K-12 schools across the country and internationally. All of the major programs support the Common Core State Standards,” the site’s “About Us” page reads. “Innovative literature programs provide cost-effective solutions for teaching critical thinking skills and incorporating the new demands of the Common Core State Standards.”

(PerfectionLearning.com)

Listed under the publisher’s “specialties” is “Common Core trade book collections.” Multiple attempts to contact Perfection Learning have been unsuccessful.

As previously reported by TheBlaze, the history book in question defines the Second Amendment as limited to state militia. “The people have the right to keep and bear arms in a state militia,” the summary definition reads.

Readers have submitted tips TheBlaze claiming the book is also being used in several additional schools and districts. In addition to the schools and districts we’ve previously disclosed (here), the text is reportedly also being utilized at the Jefferson County School District in Clay, Ala., and at West Forsyth High School in Clemmons, N.C., according to parents who reached out to TheBlaze.

Andrew Kraft, social studies program manager at Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, told TheBlaze that the district’s official history book is “The Enduring Vision.” However, he said it appears that the history teacher at West Forsyth High recommended the AP history book as a supplemental resource, but it is not required reading.

Kraft would not discuss the district’s view on the definition of the Second Amendment found in the book.

Messages left with the Jefferson County School District in Alabama were not immediately returned.

Second book

It appears that the poor interpretation of the Second Amendment isn’t limited to one book either.

TheBlaze has also learned that a high school in Simpsonville, S.C., is supposedly using another textbook that includes a highly questionable definition of the Second Amendment.

“The Second and Third Amendments — grant citizens the right to bear arms as members of a militia of citizen-soldiers and prevent the government from housing troops in private homes in peacetime,” the book’s summary reads. In a separate box on the same page it paraphrases the amendment as “the right to bear arms,” not the right to “keep” and bear arms.

According to photos posted on Facebook, the history book is titled, “The Americans,” and is reportedly being used at Hillcrest High School.

The American Textbook Council (ATC) says “The Americans” textbook is considered to be a “widely adopted history textbook” in the United States for “general-level eleventh grade classrooms.”

(Facebook screen shot)

(Facebook screen shot)