The Future of AP African American Studies Does Not Look Promising
I find myself in a rather awkward position in regard to the recent decision in Florida to ban the College Board’s AP African American Studies course, which is in pilot stage in a few classrooms around the country. On the one hand I am appalled by Gov. Ron DeSantis’s decision to use this class as another way to galvanize his political base. At the same time I have been a long-time critic of the College Board.
My issues with the College Board have been well documented over the years. I taught the AP United States history course for much of my teaching career.
Handing over the broad framework of the course to a third party never made much sense to me. The pace of the course leaves little room for deep exploration and a looming test in May sends the wrong message to students about the value and importance of studying history.
I’ve called for the end of College Board classes more than once and was instrumental in convincing one of my former employers to drop the program in history.
I am even more ambivalent about a course in African American Studies. On the one hand, it fills an important void in student education. Students from all backgrounds will profit from this close examination of history, sociology, political, and legal theory from a Black perspective.
At the same time I worry about placing such a course in the hands of the College Board. Given its own history of curricular development, can a company whose primary goal is maximizing profit be trusted to create and support such an important and now politically controversial course?
Time will tell.
Unfortunately, I think the damage done by DeSantis and his allies will not be so easily undone and it may be irreparable. The Florida governor was smart to pick out a course in African American Studies, where theory is much more explicit as opposed to a more traditional African American History course. This decision’s supporters have been able to point out (and in a sense hide behind the fact) that Black history is included in the state’s curriculum.
DeSantis has created a road map for other governors and state legislatures, who have already used history education as a political wedge issue, to follow. And they most certainly will.
I suspect that most states that have passed “divisive concepts” laws and/or restrictions on the teaching of the 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory will follow suit.
The talking points have already been neatly packaged for public consumption.
The College Board may find a spine at some point and issue some type of ultimatum to Florida and other states that choose to single out one subject in the entire AP course catalog, but I think this is unlikely.
The company has also insisted that the final curriculum approved for the course will not be influenced by this ongoing political backlash. I am willing to take them at their word, but it may not matter.
A more likely scenario, once the course is given final approval, is that it will be offered in school districts where there is minimal political opposition and suspicion of teachers. In other words, students and the communities in which they live that would benefit the most from this subject will miss this opportunity.
Some schools will choose to avoid offering the course to avoid controversy altogether.
But even in many of the schools that offer the course, educators will be cautious about how they teach the subject. They may stick even more closely to the curriculum as opposed to venturing out and adopting additional materials for the benefit of their students. Debate and discussion will suffer as a result.
The message from school administrators will be to encourage their teachers not to rock the boat.
I want to be optimistic, but I can easily envision a scenario in which DeSantis and his allies have already won, at least in the short term.
They are successfully stoking the fears of their political supporters of Black history, Black contributions to the understanding of race and white supremacy in our society and throughout our history, and Black people generally, all to maintain power.
This is exactly what they don’t want students to learn.
Your phrase, "the company," is perfect. As teachers, we need to remember that it is a company, not some benevolent organization that brings enlightenment through curriculum. To think they will not be political is absurd. You are absolutely right about APUSH. In my high school I started a course, "The American Civil War," that lasts a semester. There was doubt that kids would sign up with one colleague saying, "Well, I hope you can fill a class." We had 160 sign up in the first week and that was three years ago. My school only allows me to teach three classes of it a year, which is 96 students, because I need to teach other core history subjects, but we always have a huge waiting list. And, I bring in a great deal of African-American history. I spend more than a week on Frederick Douglass and his writings! Thank you for all your posts because it makes me a better teacher.
I think the concerns Kevin expresses about the structure of all AP courses raises a broader concern about the general teaching of American history survey courses whether at the secondary or post-secondary level. How do you adequately cover everything that should be covered in a semester (or a trimester or 6 weeks). Most of us, I think, make value judgements about what we have expertise in and try to adequately address those topics and hope that we don't forget to at least mention all the other equally important topics that we don't have expertise in.
I think this is at the core of broader concerns frequently expressed here about the understanding, or lack of understanding, of American history evidenced by much of the population. I'm not sure what to do about it but I am sure Florida has not found the answer