Fight continues over AP Black studies course

College Board, Florida search for compromise

Florida and the College Board continued to feud this week over the controversial Advanced Placement African American studies course, with the state saying that months ago it questioned whether the course violated state law, and the board countering that Florida never provided specific information about its objections.

The Florida Department of Education rejected an earlier version of the course — an elective meant to provide high school students with an introduction to African American history and culture — and has not decided yet whether the final version, released last week, will be allowed in Florida’s public high schools when it debuts next year.

The College Board in a Thursday letter to Florida officials said it would be unfortunate if Florida, for years one of the nation’s top participators in the AP program, did not offer the African American course to its students.

“If Florida or any state chooses not to adopt this course, we would regret that decision, and we believe educators and students would as well,” the letter said.

The College Board’s letter was in response to a Tuesday letter it received from the Florida Department of Education. In that letter, the education department said it was “grateful” the College Board had removed from the final version 19 topics the state found objectionable, including lessons on “Visions of Africa in African American Art and Culture” and “Black Study and Black Struggle in the 21st Century.”

But the education department also said it needed more information about AP Classroom, a free online resource that provides instructional materials for students and teachers, and what resources would be provided on that platform for the African American studies course.

The state’s letter cited an interview that David Coleman, the College Board’s CEO, gave to NPR in which he said students would have access through AP Classroom to material on topics like “intersectionality.”

The topic, criticized by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is viewed as similar to critical race theory, suggesting that levels of discrimination and disadvantage are interconnected with race, class and gender.

The department’s letter also detailed how since July Florida officials had questioned the College Board whether the class would be permissible under Florida’s “stop woke” law, which bans the teaching of CRT, or the idea that racism is embedded in American institutions, and what DeSantis calls its “indoctrinating principles.”

“We need information from College Board that demonstrates teaching the content would not require teachers to be out of compliance with Florida law,” the state wrote to the College Board on July 1, according to the department’s letter.

The College Board, in its letter, countered that Florida had no influence on the final course framework — and said it never received from state officials any specifics on how the course would violate state law.

Its letter claimed that a tweet by Education Commissioner Manny Diaz on Jan. 20 provided the state’s only examples of what it called objectionable content. And four of the six topics Diaz tweeted about, including “Black Queer Studies,” were not in the July 2022 course framework the College Board provided the state, the letter said.

Those topics did appear in a February 2022 pilot course framework, however, according to copies of the document published online by a number of publications. The College Board publicly released only the final version, which was posted on Feb.1.

The College Board’s communication staff did not immediately respond to questions about differences between the February and July 2022 frameworks.

The College Board faced criticism from not only Florida leaders, with DeSantis saying it was “pushing an agenda on our kids,” but also from other conservatives who said the initial course framework was left-leaning and unbalanced.

But the revised framework also prompted criticism from those who feared the College Board had capitulated to Florida’s governor and removed too many topics, especially those related to current events, such as reparations and LGBTQ rights.

The College Board said it shrunk the number of topics on the advice of college faculty who helped devise the course and thought it needed to be more manageable. It also removed from its required reading list any secondary sources, though individual teachers could assign those if they wanted.

Both moves were in line with how the College Board has developed its 38 other AP courses, it said, all designed to mimic introductory college classes. Students who pass AP exams can earn college credit.

“We need to clarify that no topics were removed because they lacked educational value,” read the College Board’s letter to Florida, which it posted on its website.

The African American studies course is currently being piloted in 60 schools nationwide and at least five in Florida, according to the state’s letter. The state, however, made at least two public schools stop teaching it. It is to be taught nationwide in the 2024-25 school year.