Is this any way to teach U.S. history?

For most of our history, the teaching of history (and most everything else) has been a local concern. No longer, thanks to centralizers in both major political parties. The federal Department of Education was born under President Jimmy Carter and has continued to grow, no matter the administration. No Child Left Behind was a legacy of George W. Bush (and Ted Kennedy). And now comes Common Core.

Part of Common Core is an effort to set national advanced placement (AP) standards for the teaching of American history. Three questions arise. Is this a good idea on the face of it? If so, what should those standards be? And beyond all that, should there be a national curriculum?

In many European countries that's exactly what there is. A European minister of education knows precisely what's being taught in what subject across the country. Not so in America. At least not yet.

But if those who favor national standards win the day, future secretaries of education will, like their European counterparts, know how each historical topic is supposed to be presented.

With that in mind, let's take a look at the recommended post-Civil-War American history "curriculum framework." This was the age of great business growth, including the rise of the corporation and, yes, monopolies. There is nothing wrong with pointing out any of this. Business certainly did grow; corporations did rise, and monopolies did monopolize — or at least try to.

But did these monopolies seek to "maximize the exploitation of natural resources"? Apparently so, according to the proposed curriculum. And did these enterprises "increasingly look outside" the United States to establish "control over markets and resources"? Actually, at that time the market for American manufactured goods was overwhelmingly domestic. But to the authors of the new curriculum framework, imperialism was essentially what Marxists have long claimed it to be: namely, the last stage of capitalism.

In truth, well into the 20th century, the reigning philosophy of American manufacturers was to sell to fellow Americans — and then worry about selling what was left to others.

According to this curriculum, the 1920s saw more of the same. In fact, the concentration of wealth during that decade was a major cause of the Great Depression, or so the standards tell us. Then came another world war. And maybe then, and only then, came the middle class. Of course, those were also the stultifyingly conformist 1950s, so maybe a middle class isn't such a good thing anyway.

According to this AP framework, life in America between the Civil War and World War I was problematic for many reasons. Aside from the ongoing urban inequities, farmers were also hurting. The reason: "Corporate control of agricultural markets."

Given all of this, it's a wonder that anyone would have chosen to migrate here. Were the millions who did just that during these very same decades somehow sold a bill of goods? Apparently so. After all, their presence here only made it easier for their corporate masters to depress wages.

Two other factors made life pleasant for those on top. On the ideological front, AP students will be asked to learn that this was the era of "social Darwinism," or survival of the fittest as applied to the American economy. Tied to this was the doctrine of "laissez faire," or let things be so that the fittest will flourish.

But there is another side to this coin. As of the late-19th-century America's judges, the alleged enforcers of laissez faire, were products of colleges that preached "moral realism" — a belief that moral truths existed and could be known. Such a philosophy had much more to do with religious and ethical principles than with buttressing any particular economic order. It was downright hostile to Darwinism.

One would hope that AP students would be able to handle some measure of complexity in coming to terms with this era and all of American history. But the official story line here is all too simple: bad social Darwinist business types had to be cut down to size and otherwise reined in and regulated by good-government types.

If there is complexity in this story, it is presented as hypocrisy. It turns out that advocates of laissez faire were in league with government when it came to "subsidies" from government, including land grants to railroads and tariffs for American manufacturers generally.

Once again complexity could enter the picture — except that it doesn't. AP students will learn that the progressive era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson was all about correcting the abuses of capitalism run wild. A large piece of the truth is that much progressive reform was the result of cooperation between big business and progressive proponents of bigger government, often squeezing out smaller operations.

Sound familiar? It should, because this sort of thing still goes on today. And it's all being done in the name of our ever-evolving Constitution.

At the very least there is a debate to be had here. But there is not so much as the hint of a debate in the standards for this crucial era of American history. There is also little diversity — intellectual diversity, that is. Instead, there is a simple story line of bad (private-sector) guys and good (public-spirited) guys.