CNN
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The administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is obstructing a recent Advanced Placement course for top school students on African American studies.
In a January 12 letter to the College Board, the nonprofit organization that oversees AP coursework, the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Articulation said the course is “inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.”
“In the longer term, should College Board be willing to return back to the table with lawful, historically accurate content, FDOE will all the time be willing to reopen the discussion,” the letter stated.
While the letter didn’t elaborate on what the agency found objectionable within the course content, DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin said in a press release to CNN that the course “leaves large, ambiguous gaps that could be stuffed with additional ideological material, which we won’t allow.”
“Because the Department of Education has previously stated, if the College Board amends the course to comply, provides a full course curriculum, and incorporates historically accurate content, then the Department will reconsider the course for approval,” Griffin added.
In a press release to CNN, the College Board declined to directly address the choice in Florida but said, “We stay up for bringing this wealthy and galvanizing exploration of African-American history and culture to students across the country.”
The rejection of an Advanced Placement African American Studies course follows efforts by DeSantis to overhaul Florida’s educational curriculum to limit teaching about critical race theory. In 2021, the state enacted a law that banned teaching the concept, which explores the history of systemic racism in the USA and its continued impacts. The law also banned material from The 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning project by The Latest York Times to reframe American history across the arrival of slave ships on American shores. Last 12 months, DeSantis also signed a bill restricting how schools can discuss race with students.
The College Board unveiled plans to supply an African American studies class for the primary time last 12 months. The course is being offered as a pilot in 60 schools across the country through the 2022-23 school 12 months, with the goal of constructing the course available to all schools within the 2024-25 school 12 months. The primary AP African American Studies exam can be administered within the Spring of 2025, based on the College Board website.
Griffin shared an apparent syllabus for the category with CNN but didn’t discover which portions the state found problematic. The 81-page document, labeled a “preview” from February 2022, provided a course framework covering “key topics that stretch from the medieval kingdoms of West Africa to the continued challenges and achievements of the contemporary movement.”
It was not immediately clear if Florida had any schools currently participating within the pilot program. The College Board said the Advanced Placement Program has been working with higher education institutions to develop an African American Studies program for a decade.
“Like all recent AP courses, AP African American Studies is undergoing a rigorous, multi-year pilot phase, collecting feedback from teachers, students, scholars and policymakers,” the statement said. “The technique of piloting and revising course frameworks is a regular a part of any recent AP course, and frameworks often change significantly because of this. We are going to publicly release the updated course framework when it’s accomplished and well before this class is widely available in American high schools.”
Lisa Hill, the history department chair at Hamden Hall Country Day School in Connecticut and one among the teachers piloting the brand new course, said she was “baffled” by the DeSantis administration’s criticism.
“I have to inform you, of course, we don’t have a political agenda,” Hill told CNN when reached by phone Thursday. “It just isn’t a course of indoctrination. My philosophy of education is you learn and discuss and debate so that you get a greater understanding of what’s presented to you.”
“We teach facts,” she added. “We’re not delving into theory.”
Hill, who was a co-chair on the committee that helped develop the course, said they spent a decade creating the framework and ensuring the historical accuracy of the fabric, but she noted that it’s also not a history course. It’s a multidisciplinary study of the African American diaspora that features literature, the humanities, science, politics and geography.
“I just know that we’ve taken the time to make certain we’ve been careful to be inclusive, to make certain the scholars are getting information that many didn’t learn about,” she said. “My students have embraced it, they’ve been inquisitive. It’ll be fair, because sometimes history is ugly, and I don’t consider it’s worthwhile to draw back from that.”
In a Twitter post Wednesday, Democratic state Sen. Shevrin Jones, who’s Black, noted that Florida offers other cultural AP courses.
“This political extremism and its attack of Black History and Black people, goes to create a whole generation of Black children who won’t have the opportunity to see themselves reflected in any respect inside their very own education or in their very own state,” Jones said.
DeSantis’ move comes as his standing amongst conservatives has soared nationwide following his public stances on hot-button cultural issues and against public health officials and bureaucrats through the Covid-19 pandemic. He is claimed to be weighing a possible 2024 presidential bid.
A gaggle of Republican state legislators in Michigan in search of to draft him for the 2024 contest signed on to a letter that was hand-delivered to the Florida governor last month, asking that he “seek the presidential nomination of our Republican Party.”
The letter was signed by 18 GOP members of the Michigan Senate and House, who wrote that DeSantis is “uniquely and exceptionally qualified to supply the leadership and competence that’s, unfortunately, missing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” In closing, they said they “stand ready and willing to enable you to win Michigan in 2024.”
Details of the letter were first reported by Politico.
This story has been updated with additional details.
