AP history and the public school battle map

The Cato Institute maintains a public school battle map featuring news accounts of conflicts over curriculum, moral values, human origins, sexuality, and more.

We’re often told that public education is "the cornerstone of a democratic society," as the Oklahoma Education Association puts it. Public schooling brings together people of disparate backgrounds and helps create social harmony. In reality, however, "rather than bringing people together, public schooling often forces people of disparate backgrounds and beliefs into political combat," education scholar Neal McCluskey points out.

Oklahoma’s current dust-up over AP history is but the latest example. "To end the fighting caused by state-run schooling," McCluskey says, "we should transform our system from one in which government establishes and controls schools, to one in which individual parents are empowered to select schools that share their moral values and educational goals for their children."