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The Washington Post reports: Florida schools drop AP Psychology after state says it violates the law, a good example of the media getting as close to lying as you can get while still remaining in not-quite-lying territory.
As far as I know, this all started last Thursday, when the College Board issued a statement regarding its AP Psychology course and Florida law. In this statement, the College Board wrote: "The state has said districts are free to teach AP Psychology only if it excludes any mention of [content on sexual orientation and gender identity]."
Citation (desperately) needed! Contrary to what the College Board says, I have been unable to find any source on the internet prior to the College Board's statement corroborating their claim about what the Florida department of education requires. The Washington Post claims that the statement was based on a "conference call" between the board of education and school superintendents, but again, I have found no stories where the reporter interviews someone involved in the call in order to confirm the College Board's characterization of what was said.
On the contrary, on Friday, the day after the College Board published its statement, the director of the Florida Department of Education wrote a letter to the school superintendants, clarifying that
As far as I know, this letter is the only official statement from the Florida Department of Education regarding the application of the Parental Rights in Education ("Don't Say Gay") law to the teaching of AP Psychology. And yet a google search of "ap psychology Florida" returns headline after headline of major news outlets reporting the College Board's interpretation of this law as if Florida had gone out and "banned" the teaching of AP Psychology in its schools.
Without knowing anything about the conference call (because no reporter bothered to check), I have to caveat that maybe Florida did suggest that some parts of AP Psychology could not be taught, only to backtrack after being called out by the College Board. But for me, it seems like a dishonest characterization of the law intended to make Florida and DeSantis look bad.
EDIT:
Okay, having done a bit more research by going back to read the College Board's previous statements on this matter, I have to admit that my characterization was mistaken. In particular, in their June statement on the AP Psychology course, they reference correspondence from the Florida Department of Education Office of Articulation (what a name!), asking the College Board to affirm that their AP Psychology course conforms to the new Florida law. Still not a "ban," but definitely the College Board is not engaged in the unprovoked attack on Florida that I was imagining. There was definitely some provocation.
I do still think this is more about grandstanding by the College Board than a straightforward application of the law, but I was wrong in thinking that the College Board was one-sidedly attacking the Florida Department of Education.
It seems pretty clear to me what happened. The Florida Department of Education of thinks it’s perfectly fine to teach AP Psychology without the gender identity and sexual orientation stuff, and the college board thinks those topics are integral to the course and cannot be omitted.
Of course, a media worth a shit would actually get into the weeds of the curriculum to find out what the gender and sexuality topics really are and how inseparable they are from the rest of the course. Unfortunately you’re going to have to do your own research.
To be fair to the College Board here, I have no clue what counts as “age appropriate” content for 11th and 12th graders either.
This is clearly not what happened. The FDE statement doesn't say the gender identity and sexual orientation stuff must be omitted; the relevant law is quite clear that such instruction may be offered in grades 9-12. The College Board appears to be claiming that its material is not age-appropriate for high schoolers, or at least that the Florida Law is likely to deem it so. But there is no apparent basis for the College Board to believe this. The statute is arguably vague, but if they weren't just playing culture war politics the College Board should be arguing that its material is age appropriate, not that the law forbids its inclusion.
I suspect this is a hold the line thing. The intent of the college board has little to do with the content being legally taught or age appropriate. The intent is to warn off any other states that might think about trying this with a strong message of “you better teach exactly what we tell you to teach or we won’t accept the credits.” The point is to create a PMC Karen backlash where PMC tiger mothers demand the law be changed.
TBH I think it would be entirely reasonable to say if your kids cannot pass the test with the inclusion of LGBT content they don’t get the credits.” This would allow the option of supplemental material studied outside of class at parents’ discretion.
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Although I suspect that you are probably correct that the College Board is being disengenuous when it says that the course cannot be offered without the gender/sexuality stuff (it is a small part of the course; in my experience, albeit re AP World rather than AP Psych, teachers are not expected to have time to cover literally anything; hence, I suspect but do not know that the AP Course Audit has in the past approved individual teachers' syllabi that do not include coverage of gender/sexuality), the FDE's May 19 letter to the College Board says the following:
Since AP Psychology is neither required by state academic standards nor a reproductive health course, that certainly sounds like they were saying at that time that including those subjects in an AP Psych class is unlawful, or at least that an AP Psych teacher who taught that material would be subject to discipline.
Rule 6A-10.081 seems to be going beyond the law. The restriction to required or reproductive health courses in the law is not about classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity but on instructional materials which "depict or describe sexual conduct". Could be administrative error in creating the rule, could be malicious compliance.
I think perhaps you are looking at a different law (HB 1069).
HB 1557 indeed applies to instruction:
I agree that the State Board of Education has indeed interpreted the latter part broadly (though perhaps not incorrectly).
HB 1069 (2023) in part amends HB 1557 (2022). It does have the "age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate" language, but neither bill applies "unless such instruction is either expressly required by state academic standards as adopted in Rule 6A-1.09401, F.A.C., or is part of a reproductive health course or health lesson for which a student's parent has the option to have his or her student not attend" to instruction on sexual orientation; that is only applied to depictions and descriptions of sexual acts.
There is separate language in 1069 re instruction on sexual orientation:
See page 7 of enrolled version of bill.
That's the same language, amended. You may note that if you remove the italicized sections and restore the struck-out sections, you have the HB 1557 version. HB 1069 basically just extended the prohibition from K through 3 to pre-K through 8. For high school (grades 9-12), the requirement is the same: "age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards"
In neither bill does the "unless such instruction is either expressly required..." appear in that section; that's from a totally different part of the law.
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This is a good point, and I am inclined to agree with you. On the other hand, I would point to the boring-seeming reference to "state academic standards as adopted in Rule 6A-1.09401", which when you look it up just establishes standards under various names like "Sunshine Math" for each subject. AP Psychology is definitely not part of those standards.
Still, if I were a lawyer representing a teacher accused of professional misconduct for teaching about sexuality and gender identity, I would argue that the clear intention of that reference was to authorize teaching about sexuality and gender identity, if such teaching was integral to a course recognized as important by the Florida Board of Education. In other words, teachers shouldn't just "go rogue" and teach whatever they want to students about sexuality and gender that has nothing to do with meeting state standards, but if the sexuality and gender identity content forms an established part of the course they are teaching, then they will be okay.
Like I said, I'm inclined to agree with your interpretation, but I do think if you read past the letters and numbers of Rule 6A-1.09401 there is an argument there that the law does not impact teachers' ability to teach about sexuality and gender identity to the extent that such teaching is necessary for the AP Psychology curriculum.
Yeah, I would make the same argument, were I the lawyer for a teacher. But I wouldn't expect to win!
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But the amount of material incorporated by reference there is... daunting, I guess I want to say. Rule 6A-1.09401 leads with--
--and then bullet-points and hyperlinks fifteen more documents. In SC.912.CS-PC.2.3 (part of the science standards) we read, for instance, that the Grade 9-12 benchmarks include
In SS.912.HE.2.5 (part of the social studies standards) we read that the Grade 9-12 benchmarks include
So some understanding of both gender and sexual orientation is essential to meeting Grade 9-12 benchmarks, which were incorporated into the rules here. Either the College Board has shitty lawyers (a real possibility, I admit!) or they just didn't want to make the argument. And as @netstack suggests, maybe the College Board was just tired of making arguments after the African-American Studies thing, maybe they think it's futile and the DeSantis bureaucracy is just out to get them regardless of what they say. Maybe they're right about that! But that doesn't get the College Board off the hook, I think, for the blatant mischaracterizations they decided to trot out instead.
I don’t think that would have been much of an argument. The AP Psych course requires teaching, as part of unit on developmentalpsychology, "how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development." That is nowhere close to what your examples from state standards relate to, and an argument that a standard that requires teaching how the Nazis treated homosexuals somehow brings within its ambit "how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development" would seem to be frivolous.
Edit:
I doubt that they have it out for the College Board. But I do note that DeSantis is running for President on an anti-"woke" platform.
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Is it? I read the law and didn’t see that anywhere.
Look carefully at the language the state is using: “the Department believes that AP Psychology can be taught in its entirety in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate.” They don’t say that AP Psychology is taught in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate. They don’t say that AP psychology as the college board recommends it be taught is compliant with Florida law. They sent a letter to The College Board asking them to review their courses for compliance with state law. The clear implication is that Florida wants The College Board to change something about their courses.
On the object level, I totally believe that the modern incarnation of AP Psychology is chock full of postmodern critical theory bullshit, and that Florida is well justified keeping it out of the classroom, but on the meta level, The College Board is correct that the Florida Department of Education is trying to ban their preferred version of AP Psychology.
This very much seems to be a scissor statement within this discussion. My reading of that portion of the letter was, "Look, the College Board is freaking out because we have this law in Florida saying that course content needs to be age and developmentally appropriate, so I just want to assure you that, as I see it, AP Psychology can be taught, in it entirety, in a way that is developmentally and age appropriate. Just don't go crazy and show the kids hardcore porn in class or make them affirm that we are all born as trans homosexuals or whatever." In the Washington Post article and others, that line is taken to be an implicit threat, "Hey superintendents, you'd better make sure you keep your course content appropriate, or else [makes throat cutting motion]."
It's not a true scissor because I can understand how the other side would read it as more menacing, but that wasn't my interpretation at all.
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Er...
So it's explicitly not forbidden in grades 9 through 12, and furthermore the law anticipates that if it is taught in grades 9 through 12, it just needs to be "age-appropriate." Forgive me for wondering how you can possibly have read the law, as you claim, and missed that.
Why is that implication "clear?" You don't see points that are explicitly written in the law, but somehow you then turn around and think the implication of "please review" is "clear[ly]" "please modify?"
Maybe, but probably not. I have yet to see a document where the FDE even specifically calls out AP Psychology--the College Board appears to have done that all on their own. They could have therefore responded, "we did an audit, and we do not think AP Psychology can meet your standard for age-appropriate education, and we're not going to change it, so the ball is in your court on that one, but otherwise we're good." Instead, they decided to skip the part where they negotiate in good faith, and went straight to culture warring.
Ah, I was looking at HB 1557. Your quote seems to be from HB 1069.
The key phrase, “in a manner that is age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” still applies.
It seems that some schools are adding AP Psych back to the curriculum. I guess we’ll find out soon enough who misunderstood who (or who had a rogue staffer).
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The statute is vague on what's age appropriate because it defers to "state standards". I would assume some other part of the statutes say which agency gets to set "state standards" (almost certainly the Florida Department of Education, which already approves AP Psychology)
Yep, the DoE was required to update any relevant standards by June 30, 2023. Most of the earlier complaints and suits centered on their not having done so, yet, and thus being underspecified. I imagine they completed the standards on time, but I haven’t been able to find a copy.
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