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College Board Strips Down Its A.P. Curriculum for African American Studies


OverSword

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After heavy criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis, the College Board released on Wednesday an official curriculum for its new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies — stripped of much of the subject matter that had angered the governor and other conservatives.

The College Board purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism. It ushered out some politically fraught topics, like Black Lives Matter, from the formal curriculum.

And it added something new: “Black conservatism” is now offered as an idea for a research project.

 

Link

I would like to encourage everyone to click the link and read the article.

Edited by OverSword
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23 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Link

I would like to encourage everyone to click the link and read the article.

So now we have uneducated idiots dictating what school curriculum should be in college!   There is a reason there are so many news stories that have the headline "Florida Man..."  

 https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-man-bites-pet-python-snakes-head-domestic-dispute-police

https://floridaman.com/top-10/

 

Edited by Desertrat56
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The Times paywalls your link. I got in free via Google with the search string new advanced placement black studies course, where the Times story tops the result list.

OK, I've read it. Was there something in particular in the article you wanted to discuss?

As you may know, the College Board is a conspicuously "profitable" non-profit organization. This course is a new product. Beta testing showed the Board that they should move some stuff from one rubric (main curriculum) to another (possible research topics) to increase potential customer uptake. For non-US readers: tax-supported high schools in the US are pretty much run by the states and Florida is a reasonably big state.

No doubt the powers that be at the College Board and the powers that be in Tallahassee are politically at odds. Nevertheless, one thing we Americans can all agree on, even in the current polarized political environment: Money talks.

Which works sometimes. The left now has its course, the right has its nod to Thomas Sowell in that course. Everybody won.

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21 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

So now we have uneducated idiots dictating what school curriculum should be in college!   There is a reason there are so many news stories that have the headline "Florida Man..."  

 https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-man-bites-pet-python-snakes-head-domestic-dispute-police

https://floridaman.com/top-10/

 

Your comment is why I encouraged people to read the article.  Discover what the people that made the changes say about it.

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1 minute ago, OverSword said:

Your comment is why I encouraged people to read the article.  Discover what the people that made the changes say about it.

Yeah, the headline works as a trigger and I got triggered.   

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3 minutes ago, eight bits said:

OK, I've read it. Was there something in particular in the article you wanted to discuss?

 

Not really.  It's more an FYI post for me.  Although I would say teaching facts is better than teaching ideology.

Edited by OverSword
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I did read about DeSantis/Florida and this AP class a short while back. It seemed to me that DeSantis brought up some genuine points. The curriculum needed some fine tuning. I do hope it goes into general population for classwork, with the worse of the bias/anger removed. 

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/college-board-upends-ap-african-american-studies-course-after-attack-by-ron-desantis/ar-AA1709Hl

The new curriculum no longer names several Black writers, scholars and leaders associated with Black feminism, LGBTQ issues and critical race theory. Some of those people include Columbia University law professor Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Yale University professor Roderick Ferguson, author Ta-Nehisi Coates and writer bell hooks.

The curriculum also no longer features the Black Lives Matter movement as a topic, though it does now include “Black conservatism” as a research project idea.

The College Board is a nonprofit that oversees college entrance exams. It provided the pilot African American Studies course to 60 schools across the country and plans to make it more accessible in 2024.

 

https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/ap-african-american-studies-course-read-the-college-boards-new-course-framework-and-topics

ORLANDO, Fla. - The College Board released its new framework on Wednesday for its AP African American Studies course, which came under scrutiny after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration blocked parts of the coursework claiming it violated state law and was historically inaccurate.

"This course is an unflinching encounter with the facts and evidence of African American history and culture," said David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, in a statement. "No one is excluded from this course: the Black artists and inventors whose achievements have come to light; the Black women and men, including gay Americans, who played pivotal roles in the civil rights movement; and people of faith from all backgrounds who contributed to the antislavery and civil rights causes. Everyone is seen."

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2 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Not really.  It's more an FYI post for me.  Although I would say teaching facts is better than teaching ideology.

Apparently one of the course design issues was a tension between emphasizing primary sources (which are the ground facts of history, and history seems to be a big part of this discipline of which I have no training or academic experience, full stop) and an apparent expectation that a college-level course would include student engagement with secondary sources (which would predictably include scholars' theories about the facts).

So far as I know, the basic idea of an advanced placement course is to reproduce the experience of taking a typical (usually) college freshman course in the subject discipline for (usually) senior-year high school students. Part of the attraction is that colleges reward success in these courses with college credit (and some places if you take enough of them, entrance as a sophomore).

That would suggest that if there is some expectation that a college-level course would include some engagement with secondary sources, then there is a balance to be sought between "the facts" and "the theories," rather than one being better to teach than another. Rather, you might righteously teach both in some proper proportion, in this case, something similar to whatever balance college courses in the discipline strike. IMO, as always.

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2 hours ago, OverSword said:

Link

I would like to encourage everyone to click the link and read the article.

I tried read it but it is a pay site, here is a link everyone can access!College Board Strips Down African American Studies Course After DeSantis Loudly Rejects It (msn.com) 

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It seems like an advanced placement or college course should be teaching students to think, investigate original references on both sides, (not media stories) make conclusions and form a position based on thought not just copying sources into a paper. As such, both state positive and state negative viewpoints should be researched. 

Is it like saying an AP course in Celtic studies could not use Irish or Scottish rebellion references but only the English version?

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2 hours ago, Tatetopa said:

It seems like an advanced placement or college course should be teaching students to think, investigate original references on both sides, (not media stories) make conclusions and form a position based on thought not just copying sources into a paper. As such, both state positive and state negative viewpoints should be researched. 

Is it like saying an AP course in Celtic studies could not use Irish or Scottish rebellion references but only the English version?

It does seem interesting that this is a "College" level class, and then they're demanding it be a High School appropriate class. So then is it college level, or high school level?

I just read some of what is being asked to be removed, and it doesn't seem so very controversial. Especially considering who is probably going to be taking the class.

Regardless, hopefully the spirit of the class remains, even if some few of the details are pushed aside. 

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5 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

So now we have uneducated idiots dictating what school curriculum should be in college!   There is a reason there are so many news stories that have the headline "Florida Man..."  

“Uneducated” Florida Man graduated from Yale and Harvard……

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11 hours ago, DieChecker said:

It does seem interesting that this is a "College" level class, and then they're demanding it be a High School appropriate class. So then is it college level, or high school level?

That's a reasonable question, but it applies equally well to the entire Adavanced Placement program, not just this new course. Here's a list of available subjects (any particular high school would probably offer a selection from this universe):

https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/course-index-page

While there probably is little controversy about the math and "hard science" offerings (except maybe environmental science), there are several potentially contentious offerings under the history and social science banner. IIRC, there actually was a controversy a few years ago about the revamping of the US History course, for example.

Realistically, states will regulate what tax dollars fund, and those regulations will be more keenly felt in some disciplines than others. However, your question comes down to whether plausible regulation of high schools would result in the high schools offering courses that aren't authentically freshman college-level.

While there is a potential for conflict, there are a lot of buffers to prevent inauthentic courses. One absolute bar is that if the subject matter of a proposed course violates state law, then the course simply won't be offered in that state. That may be a problem as an infringement of "free speech," "academic freedom," or in some cases the students' right to a quality education (often enshrined in state constitutions), but it is not the problem raised by your question.

There are other buffers as well. An important feature of US higher education, more so than elsewhere in the world, are the "community colleges," which are typically (1) directly state run and (2) provide students who are interested the opportunity to take what amounts to the freshman and sophomore years of a college education for a very low cost. Moreover, every state has at least one state university, and it is typical for those institutions to accept the state's community college graduates as junior-level students in the state college-or-university's regular undergraduate programs.

The effect of all that, then, ensures that the state has a huge role in defining what a freshman-level college course is, since those courses will be the ones offered at the community colleges which the state runs, and at the state colleges and universities where the "power of the purse" gives the state a hefty voice in campus affairs. By their size and secure funding, the state university systems are then highly influential on surrounding private institutions (and vice versa since many students want to be able to transfer credits from public insitutions to private ones).

If there were some disconnect in the smooth flow of students from AP to community colleges or the state university system, or from community colleges to state university system, or back and forth among state and private colleges, then that would very likely generate political pressure to straighten out any kinks.

I am not denying the reasonableness of your concern, but there are many "checks and balances" within the actual real-world system to inspire confidence that that, at least, will not be an urgent problem, or not for long.

 

Edited by eight bits
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18 hours ago, OverSword said:

Although I would say teaching facts is better than teaching ideology.

I'd agree normally, except there are things like political/social science where a good chunk of the facts and material are the ideologies.  Regardless, it's a little ironic that the portions of these materials DeSantis found objectionable is itself based on his own ideology.  After all he doesn't say in the article at least that there are any lies being taught, just that he thinks it lacks educational value and that learning about things apparently somehow imposes a political agenda on students.  That sounds like he's imposing his own ideology, which is in effect also getting taught to students. 

If any of his involvement in the content of education was not ideological then it seems like we'd be hearing for example an argument how his restrictions will be doing something meaningful and basic, like improving test scores for Florida students?  I at least don't really see a connection between his educational content restrictions and making students smarter.

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/1/2023 at 9:42 PM, Desertrat56 said:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/college-board-upends-ap-african-american-studies-course-after-attack-by-ron-desantis/ar-AA1709Hl

The new curriculum no longer names several Black writers, scholars and leaders associated with Black feminism, LGBTQ issues and critical race theory. Some of those people include Columbia University law professor Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Yale University professor Roderick Ferguson, author Ta-Nehisi Coates and writer bell hooks.

The curriculum also no longer features the Black Lives Matter movement as a topic, though it does now include “Black conservatism” as a research project idea.

The College Board is a nonprofit that oversees college entrance exams. It provided the pilot African American Studies course to 60 schools across the country and plans to make it more accessible in 2024.

 

https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/ap-african-american-studies-course-read-the-college-boards-new-course-framework-and-topics

ORLANDO, Fla. - The College Board released its new framework on Wednesday for its AP African American Studies course, which came under scrutiny after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration blocked parts of the coursework claiming it violated state law and was historically inaccurate.

"This course is an unflinching encounter with the facts and evidence of African American history and culture," said David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, in a statement. "No one is excluded from this course: the Black artists and inventors whose achievements have come to light; the Black women and men, including gay Americans, who played pivotal roles in the civil rights movement; and people of faith from all backgrounds who contributed to the antislavery and civil rights causes. Everyone is seen."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Nowadays, different changes are being made in the educational sphere, and I think that not everything can be named positive changes. For example, some time ago, I read that a lot of books were banned because they can be offensive to some readers. I think it's not the right thing to do. And the same is with changing or banning new educational programs because, for someone who is in charge, some issues can be "bad" or controversial. I'm actually writing a paper connected to that issue, and there I want to describe the changes in educational space from different perspectives. It's a pretty complicated topic to write on, so I used some help from https://edusson.com/write-my-research-paper because I needed professional assistance to write my research paper faster, but it's only one part. The second part is based on the latest changes, and I'm actually thinking about what to include. I'll for sure add the info about A.P. Curriculum for African American Studies, but I want to read the info about it more careful not to miss something. And I hope that I'll manage to do it, and I hope to see that all the changes were for good and were objective.

It's okay to review and change something in educational programs, especially if they are new. It's the only way to be sure that the program is quality and will provide everything needed to the student. But if those changes are based on one's beliefs and points of view, then it's not the right thing to do. Everything should be objective.

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Just now, Isabella21 said:

It's okay to review and change something in educational programs, especially if they are new. It's the only way to be sure that the program is quality and will provide everything needed to the student. But if those changes are based on one's beliefs and points of view, then it's not the right thing to do. Everything should be objective.

Very little in the public school system is objective, and even 60 years ago when I started school it wasn't.   I was lucky and had a really good teacher for 1-3 (same teacher as it was a small village and only had two teachers).   Then in the middle of 4th grade the school got more money because of a lot of "yuppies" moving into the village so we had 4 teachers.   The new one we got for 3rd and 4th grade was crazy.   She thought she was in Mexico and made a speech about being proud to come to Mexico and teach us little Mexicans English.   We knew right away she was crazy but it took the parents 2 years to get rid of her.  Every teacher should know that the state between Texas and Arizona is still in the U.S.

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