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We need to distinguish teaching what is on the test from teaching with the purpose of passing the test. Eg: When I taught AP World History, every topic that I taught was one that was in the course description and might be on the test. However, instead of covering every topic that might be on the test -- as one would do if the purpose of the class was to pass the test -- I chose to cover fewer topics in greater depth, and particularly emphasized teaching skills (such as analytical writing) over content.
Similarly, at the end of the class, and before the test date, I had students write a research paper, instead of doing weeks of test review, as would someone whose goal was to have the students pass the test.
I guess this is part of why I hated teaching. My viewpoint would have been that (ethically) maximizing the students' chances of passing the test should be heavily prioritized. Even if the fun stuff is better for their psyches, they're paying for a leg up on the competition.
So the worry is that -- if one prioritizes passing the test at all -- the bare facts being tested militate strongly towards certain ideas, and that ethical use of class time does not allow room to introduce complementary material. This is compounded by the fact that so much of the test seems to be free response, and teachers need to be convinced that these would be rubric-ed tightly enough so as to not be graded on ideological parroting. Professionally, I've only seen how the AP grades calculus, so maybe you can tell if such a thing is even possible? My own high school experience was that one wants to approximate ChatGPT's response as well as possible, which is what we'd like to avoid here.
Finally, I found the sample questions to be interesting and challenging (IANA historian). Students would presumably find the course valuable, but (IMO) Florida would be right to claim that the Black experience is better understood with every bell hooks reading replaced by Tupac Shakur.
Well, that is an unavoidable dilemma, as is the content v. skills dilemma, and breadth v depth dilemma. But, btw, I don't know that most of my students would call writing essays "fun stuff," though it is probably more fun than lots of rote memorization.
There are obviously no scored tests yet for the new course, but scoring guidelines, sample responses, rubrics, etc for old AP World tests are here, and for old AP US History classes are here
Yes, Florida is free to offer or not offer whatever course it wants (and, as noted, it does in fact offer African American studies classes). But the "culture war" aspect is why Florida rejected this particular course.
Yes. It's also the reason this particular course exists.
Except that Florida high schools offer non-AP versions of the course already.
And, the course exists for one reason: to get more African American students to take AP courses.
That sounds both very counter-productive (see Goodhart's law) and extremely condescending. Like, since they can't take AP math, so we invent AP bullshit and pretend it's the same thing. Nobody would think it's the same thing.
Goodhart's law is irrelevant. I meant that the ultimate goal was to get African-American students to do better in college. The College Board's theory is that any exposure to college-level curriculum in high school helps students do better in college. They claim, "Research consistently shows that AP students are better prepared for college than students who don’t take AP, regardless of their exam score. They’re more likely to enroll and stay in college, do well in their classes, and graduate in four years." Whether that is true or not, of course, is a different question.
I don't know what you mean by "inventing" AP bullshit, since colleges do offer AfAm Studies courses. And is it any more bullshit than AP Drawing? Or AP Art History?
Is that the goal? Because if it is, it would be very easy to achieve - just award a college degree to every African American at birth, with perfect GPA. In fact, why not PhD? It doesn't cost anything. Here, mission accomplished. If, however, the mission is to actually get them prepared for college learning, in preparation for future adult life, then AP bullshit is not going to help much (unless, of course, they'd be specializing in bullshit industry, which is a billion dollar business by now - then it'd help a lot).
That's exactly what I'd call extreme Goodharting - taking a wrong side of correlation, grabbing it and running with it. Sure, being AP student correlates with being successful. Because AP is harder, so students feeling like they can take on harder work - usually succeed more. But if you start creating bullshit APs, you aren't making the students to perform better, you are just ruining the metric. It's like saying "students getting high grades are usually successful, so if we award 100 for everyone, everyone would be maximally successful". It doesn't work this way.
Yup, and you can also get PhD in various bullshit. Not exactly news.
Sure is. Drawing at least supposed to teach you some actionable skills (I'd pay good money to somebody who would be able to teach me to draw, I am hopelessly terrible at that). Art history, done right, is a fascinating subject. Then again, AA history done right would be a fascinating subject too, but nobody would do it right any time soon, I suspect.
That is a very strange response, since I said: "I would think, for example, that the effect of taking an AP course on future college success would depend on the course in question"
You are assuming that the course will be bullshit, but as you note yourself, "AA history done right would be a fascinating subject too," so you are not claiming that there is anything inherently wrong with offering AP AA Studies, but rather that you think that this particular course will not be "do[ne] right." That might be true -- see my top post on the subject, where I express similar concerns -- but it isn't guaranteed.
Edit: Re this:
Maybe, but note that that is not something that the College Board has the power to do. Regardless, the fact of the matter is, if the College Board wanted to improve actual, real college-level skills of African American students, which they say they do; and if they believe that taking AP courses, even one, have that effect, which they say they do; then they would do exactly what they have done here: Take steps to get more African American students to take AP courses.
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