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Notes -
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.
"The courses are not rigorous." Maybe true, but many courses in school are not indented to be rigorous in an academic sense per say, like art, music, PE, etc. If rigor is the sole criterion, then this would mean many other courses would have to be removed. This would imply that 'European History', which is also an AP course, may also be lacking in rigour.
"The courses are biased." But what if they were made more objective/impartial?
These objections seem to be be an attempt to divert from the actual motive /reason, being that people do not want courses which single out African Americans, although European History already exists. Maybe rebrand it as "African History", which does not exist as an AP subject? There are no good answers it seems. My own opinion is just lump all ethnicities/races into a single course(s), without any obvious preference/favoritism. I don't think it's that big if a deal.
Do you think that there would be similar objections to an African history course?
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