The College Board announced that it will revise its Advanced Placement African American Studies course after activists and scholars accused the organization of kowtowing to pressure from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
In a statement on Monday, the organization seemingly acknowledged that it had diluted certain subjects after taking feedback from conservatives in Florida.
“In embarking on this effort, access was our driving principle—both access to a discipline that has not been widely available to high school students, and access for as many of those students as possible,” they wrote. “Regrettably, along the way those dual access goals have come into conflict.”
The organization explained that a development committee composed of subject matter experts will decide how to change the course framework over the next few months.
The announcement comes nearly three months after the College Board released the curriculum for the course, which was revised after the organization solicited feedback from public schools in 60 cities as part of its pilot program. An early version of the course that was leaked back in September included the study of modern issues like the Black Lives Matter movement, LGBTQ issues and feminism, but the syllabus released on Feb. 1 stripped much of this subject matter back.
Florida’s Department of Education (FDOE) rejected the curriculum in a Jan. 12 letter stating that it “significantly lacks educational value” and imposes a “political agenda” on students. On Feb. 7, less than a week after the curriculum was released, Florida’s education department tried to take credit for the changes the College Board made. The College Board then issued a response to correct the record.
As it turns out, the DeSantis administration’s education officials had been in communication with the College Board from January to June 2022, in which the FDOE made inquiries about the work that it would later deem “absent of substance”.
“In the discussion, they did not offer feedback but instead asked vague, uninformed questions like ‘What does the word ‘intersectionality’ mean?’ and ‘Does the course promote Black Panther thinking?’” the College Board said in its Feb. 11 response.
The College Board’s Monday statement clarified that the organization hopes to maintain the integrity of the scholarship they’re introducing to students.
“The updated framework, shaped by the development committee and subject matter experts from AP, will ensure that those students who do take this course will get the most holistic possible introduction to African American Studies,” the statement said.
What is important to always remember and state when discussing education is that Republicans are NOT attacking these courses and fields of study because, as they claim, they are advancing a “wok” agenda or liberal propaganda.
Rather, it is important to understand and always state that people like DeSantis and other Republicans ARE attacking education to include these courses and fields of study because it fails to sustain the ignorance they want to preserve.
It’s not great to see how mercurial the College Board can be, but it seems to show what a paper tiger DeSantis turned out to be. They were cowed before his perceived influence over the “conservative” party in the US, but now that he’s on the ropes, they are hedging back the other way. At least that’s how it appears.
Yes, they want to be able to offer the class in the broadest range of places, but they need to do more than just stick their finger in the wind to decide what goes in a course or not. Historical events should be examined as accurately as possible, not as comfortably as possible.
"Truth is required to act freely. Freedom requires knowledge, and in order to act freely in the world, you need to know what the world is and know what you’re doing. You only know what you’re doing if you have access to the truth. So freedom requires truth, and so to smash freedom you must smash truth."
I’m frankly disappointed there were no classes in Black Panther Thinking back when I was a high school student.
Kids these days don’t know how good they have it.
So trade people who objectively know stuff will make decisions about what constitutes “knowledge, facts, and relevent history” instead of unelected political appointees? Imagine that.