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A couple of weeks ago, in the week of Jan 16 thread, there was a discussion of the kerfuffle re Florida refusing to offer the pilot of AP African American Studies. There were a couple of minor developments last week. First, the course description is available here
Second, Florida specified its objections here
Now, I am not a fan of most "studies" courses, because, in my limited experience, they tend to lack rigor and often push a political viewpoint, which is both a disservice to students and, to the extent that students are required to parrot that viewpoint, a First Amendment violation when the course is taught in public schools (and in private schools as well, in California). I have not looked closely at the course description for the AP class, so I don't know if it has those flaws. That being said, this decision by Florida seems to be more a part of the DeSantis for President campaign than a principled objection. That is because the course description is not a curriculum, and the course description, like all AP course descriptions, says:
I have attended several AP trainings in my day, and can attest that they make a big deal about individual teachers being given autonomy, as long as their syllabus addresses the content and skills set forth in the course description. So, none of the readings complained about are required, and teachers are free, as required by Florida's "Stop WOKE Act" to assign readings on all sides of the issues in question.
And, btw, the claims on the other side that Florida does not want to teach African American history is also nonsense, because teaching of African American history is mandated in FL schools
Edit: PS: There is a very odd complaint in the Florida DOE's list: It objects to a reading by one author in part because, "Kelley's first book was a study of Black communists in Alabama." Not, 'an adulatory study," but merely a "study." It is like objecting to a reading by Donald Horowitz because he wrote a study of ethnic riots.
I find the autonomy listed a bit misleading for a couple reasons. First, they know exactly what kind of teacher is going to sign up for teaching this course. But more importantly they control the fundamental curriculum with the test design. AP teachers teach to the test, they'd be failing their students their valuable college credit if they didn't. We can pretend like the teachers get to pick the curriculum all we want but if critical theory is on the test critical theory will be taught, simple as that.
But you are confusing content and curriculum. Yes, it will be taught, but as I noted, Florida law explicitly allows it to be taught, as long as it is done objectively. In fact, perhaps the best way to learn about a topic is to criticize it.
So you fully support and expect such a course to include (given it is a matter that, though not fully settled, still has much objective evidence in its favor) the influence of the quite possibly genetically limited black average IQ on their history and current state of affairs? Since after all if you're studying blacks and black history, surely any genetic specifics of their race are objectively relevant, right?
Your reasoning reminds me of the classic "Just make your own Reddit if you don't like its moderation!" line, in that it retreats into the technicalities of what is formally not impossible to pretend that it is not so blatantly improbable, unwieldy, and unreasonably/unduly burdensome for their interlocutors to be worth seriously advancing as any sort of solution to them (a fallacy I am not quite sure of the name of, but perhaps you could call it "appeal to possibility" or the "akshually fallacy").
Sure, technically based on the written word of Floridan law if this course were to be taught in Florida then it should/could/would be fully objective, merely presenting the facts and allowing students to come to their own conclusions. In practice though, anyone with an ability to make predictions about the future based on empirical observations about the past greater than that of someone with Alzheimer's knows that the context and unavoidable partisanship (given that it's already happened) of the course's formulation and dissemination will inevitably influence its content and presentation in a non-objective direction.
The amount of resources it would take to actually realize a truly objective version of such a course (such as, for example, finding the hundreds of teachers required who would be interested in teaching "African-American Studies" and are also capable of being charitable enough to a right-wing view on the matter to be objective, while also rigorously excluding/avoiding the thousands who would almost certainly engage in any deception to become among those hundreds so as to have a bully pulpit for left-wing propaganda) is not even worth the intellectual/educational value even a truly fully objective version of such a course would provide, especially given how much blacks have tended to be the objects rather than subjects of history.
We are quite literally having this discussion on a “your own Reddit”! As Scott pointed out a while ago, any argument is made better with made up numbers, so let’s make some up!
I’ll claim that at least 10% of teachers would actually meet the criteria, which I believe to be an underestimate as some students will take those classes looking for trouble. Teachers would be aware of that; a few would probably aim for martyrdom… which brings us to avoiding a discussion in the concrete as shrewd politics. Allowing for an argument over the merits of “favorite teacher”, students rallied around, after the fact would be a strong and effective nucleation site for dissent. Canceling the class is comparatively easy - the courts could reinstate it, but they can’t turn back time to before the semester.
Um, no. This is a forum formatted like Reddit. But it is still a fraction of the size and influence of Reddit. If I want to discuss 90% of the things I can discuss (albeit in an infuriatingly censored/muted fashion) on Reddit (hobby interests, etc.), this place is no alternative whatsoever. It's still better than having no alternatives at all certainly, but saying it is "your own Reddit" is like giving a 16 year old a Hot Wheels and telling them they don't need to be jealous of adults anymore because now they have their own car too.
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Yes, I support the right of a teacher to include that topic in a course on African American Studies, if it is done so in an objective and intellectually rigorous manner.
Okay but that's never going to happen. So even seriously advancing it as a possibility is naive.
LOL, why did you ask the question, if any answer is going to be wrong somehow?
You haven't heard of a rhetorical question? The point is phrased as a question to highlight the obvious absurdity of its own premises.
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