On Monday, Feb. 16, Oklahoma state legislators voted to cut funding for Advanced Placement U.S. History, claiming that the class emphasizes, “what is bad about America” and fails to teach “American exceptionalism,” according to Tulsa World. The AP course is usually available to students during sophomore, junior or senior year, depending on each school’s curriculum. Republican members of the legislature felt that the AP course “could be construed as an attempt to impose a national curriculum on American schools.” Texas and South Carolina have also had similar concerns about the College Board’s portrayal of the U.S. in the history course. All 11 Republicans on the committee voted for the state legislature to bar the use of state funding for AP U.S. History, while the four Democrats opposed it.

Additionally, the state legislature was worried about the history class’s similarity to the Common Core, a hotly debated standardized national curriculum. The California Department of Education describes the Common Core favorably, claiming that “[students] having the same standards helps all students get a good education, even if they change schools or move to a different state.”