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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.
This is super weird. The College Board appears to be flat-out grandstanding; their interpretation of the Florida law, even assuming they are not being disingenuous for purely culture war reasons, is in absolutely no way binding on Florida residents. They're not a court, or a legislature. They are, if anything, arguably engaged in the unauthorized practice of law by giving legal advice to schoolteachers and administrators.
But then, apparently, some number of school districts have chosen to believe the College Board (or pretend to believe the College Board) over and above the advice of the Florida Department of Education. This is mind-boggling, like telling the President of the U.S. to fuck off because Google told you what the law really is. The district statement linked in the article says:
But the College Board is a private company that assigns AP credit entirely on the basis of a single exam. Eligibility to take the exam is not limited to students enrolled in "approved" AP classes! According to the registration page, "If you’re homeschooled or you go to a school that doesn’t administer AP Exams, you’ll need to arrange to take exams at a local school that does administer them." So long as some private school in Florida is approved by the College Board to administer the AP Psychology exam, there's nothing stopping students from pursuing that credit even if the College Board makes good on its threat, which it seems unlikely to do. And as I understand it, no AP class can cover all possible material anyway; the AP teachers I know are constantly working to guess what items will appear on the exam in which years, so as to better focus their lesson planning.
Basically, someone on the College Board appears to have decided to grandstand, and a whole bunch of gullible educators are now being used as props in an institutional campaign against Ron DeSantis, who doesn't even appear well-positioned to get the nomination at this point. I would be very interested in thoughts on how the College Board can be punished for this defection from the standard that educational advantages should not be denied to children based solely on the political identity of their state's governor.
EDIT:
Here is the relevant language from the letter the Florida people sent to the College Board in May:
So a government body says to a private company "hey, you're an important participant in our state's education program, but our new state law may have some influence on how that continues in the future. Can we get you to jump through some hoops so we can keep doing business with you?" And the private company responds, "[we] will not modify our courses."
It's really important to notice that wasn't the question! The letter raised the possibility of modification, but did not actually request it; what it requested was an audit ensuring compliance with state law, which is a perfectly normal request when dealing with private parties participating in public education. If I were running the College Board, my immediate response would be "Just conducted a content audit; seems to me that all the material in our course is age-appropriate for 9-12 graders. You might consider adding a permission/informed consent slip for parents to sign just in case, throw in some language about them agreeing that the material is age appropriate. Pleasure doing business!"
So yeah, this does look like it was a pretty one-sided attack from the College Board.
I’m not sure what to think about the inciting event.
There’s also a little context I’d missed. When Florida attacked AP African-American History,
This suggests that Florida has a prior history of pushing curriculum changes—and running premature victory laps—without reaching an agreement. In that light, Florida’s May letter was probably viewed as the start of another six-month squabble. The College Board could just be skipping ahead in the script.
Of course, Florida denied that. More details here claim that the College Board was being dishonest, and that FBOE was acting on leaked information.
Frustratingly, I can’t find the original February 7 letter.I would tend to agree that CB would have been better served by insisting they were already compliant. It probably wouldn’t have placated Florida. So I haven’t ruled out the possibility that this saved them some time.
Edit: letter is here.
So…they tried it. Florida said they were full of shit, various reviews were triggered, and they still had no agreement by February.
Come June, and Florida sends a similar warning about a different course. College Board decides to skip the pleasantries. And here we are.
Important to note that classes start in about 25 calendar days, so it is important to the Florida schools (the College Board's clients) to figure out whether to offer the class now, rather than in December.
This is a minor point, but a quick Google search suggests that Jacksonville and Miami schools start next week, and Tallahassee, Tampa, and Orlando schools actually start tomorrow.
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