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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.
This is an overly charitable take. The key to judging AP courses of this sort is to just skip to the recommended readings section. In this outline it starts on 70 with recommended textbooks. The first one listed, by Maulana Karenga clearly would be in violation of the FL statute if used. It is an openly race critical text that contains all forms of intersectional conspiracy theories. Its hard to imagine the majority of those textbooks (which are not mandatory, but in practice are more or less mandatory) are all that different. The other literature section contains a hodgepodge of works, I am not familiar with all of them, but at least 5 on the first page contain conspiratorial rants about whiteness, white supremacy, or some similar concept.
Where does it say that the course requires a textbook at all? After all, it says that only 61% of college courses surveyed use a textbook.
It is impossible for a textbook to violate the FL statute, because the FL law does not reference textbooks. It references courses, and permits the study of the concepts listed therein as long as it is done so objectively. It does not require that every resource be objective. Many teachers ask students to critique textbooks, and there is nothing to stop Florida teachers from doing so, if for some reason the State adopts one of the textbooks you find problematic.
Speaking of textbook adoption, state funds can not generally be used to purchase textbooks that have not been adopted by the State or by the district, including AP textbooks. See, eg, this district's list of adopted books, including those for AP classes. hence, if those books are as problematic as you say, Florida will not permit districts to use state money to buy them, just as they did not permit districts to use state money to buy math textbooks which they found problematic.
Edit: Also, 4) The fact that the FL DOE did not take issue with the textbook list indicates that it is not as problematic as you suppose.
HS teachers rarely do this. I had very few HS courses without a textbook, and those were all ones with reading lists of books. Its a question of basic competency and effort.
Obviously the text of the law is written to evade facial challenges and forum shopping to find a particularly left wing federal judge from striking it down on whatever spurious grounds she thinks up. In practicality, the DOE must holistically review a proposed course to see whether, in a large number of instances it will violate the law.
There are likely ways for teachers to obtain them for free. They also can use the alternative readings list as a basis, which also would result in a course that is in violation of the law in nearly every iteration.
DOE official statements need to be as measured as possible so as to survive hostile lawsuits.
You basically seem to be making this up. There is no way to make a facial challenge to the law regardless of that provision. The Court's govt speech cases in general, and their education cases in particular, make it very clear that govt can use schools to inculcate any values they want. And, the law says what it says, and in fact the very fact that it explicitly permits objective discussion renders the criticism of the law invalid.
Nope.
You obviously haven't read the statements that have been made.
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