“A ban on a college level course is unprecedented,” Packer said. Ron DeSantis, who is also a Republican presidential candidate, banned the course in the state for allegedly defying state law. That was our attempt, and we were not successful in that attempt.”Įarlier this year, Florida Gov. At the same time, we’re trying to make it a college level course that colleges will be proud of and will be willing to give college credit. “We’re trying to decide how can we make this course a course that will not put teachers’ livelihood at risk, and that will be available to students regardless of where they live. We removed particular topics that would have made it illegal for a teacher to teach this class,” Packer said. “In preparing for the second year of the pilot, we removed some of the readings that would make the course illegal in particular states. Du Bois.īut at least 18 states have imposed bans and restrictions on instruction of race in K-12 schools. Packer said that in the creation of the course, there was an initial intent to require daily readings that aligned with texts studied in college level African American Studies courses, such as “The Souls of Black Folk” by W.E.B. Course framework edits are currently underway ahead of a second pilot year for the course in which more than 700 schools are expected to participate, up from the 60 that participated in the first pilot year. He added that the organization never “colluded” or “collaborated” with Florida but rather that College Board officials were thinking of the larger political climate of the country in their decisions over what to include in the course. And we ultimately decided to empower the committee, professors that are content experts that work on AP African American studies, to make further revisions to the framework to restore any of the topics that they would want to restore that we were criticized for cutting.” We were not especially effective at doing that. “We were caught off guard, we attempted to protest, to explain what we were doing. “So what did that look like to the public? Exactly what it looked like to the public, that the College Board had made changes to appease one governor’s agenda, and one state’s agenda at the expense of 49 other states’ priorities,” Packer said. Specifically, Packer detailed the tumultuous rollout of the framework. The College Board made national news this year when edits were made to the AP African American Studies pilot course framework.

The AP African American Studies pilot, AP Psychology, and Florida Equity and access to AP courses-which offer students the possibility of earning cost-saving college credits in high school-were a major theme throughout. Workshops and sessions covered developments in AP from transitions to digital testing, to two high profile new courses in precalculus and African American studies. Thousands of teachers and school and district leaders gathered last week for the College Board’s Advanced Placement annual conference, its first since 2019. Please view the General Questions Megathread before asking a question.In a presentation to educators on July 20, the head of the Advanced Placement program for the College Board, Trevor Packer, spoke of major decisions the College Board made since the start of the pandemic that generated controversy, including edits to its African American studies course, and provided some insight into where programs were headed. When the AP week comes, please DO NOT discuss the multiple choice section! However, in accordance with the agreements made with the College Board in regards to the release of the FRQ's, you may discuss them on this site when they are released. Everyone has their own specialties! Help with what you know and get help with what you don't is the golden rule. If you would like to share resources for this purpose, message the moderators first.ĭon't try to one-up each other with scores. College Board and many textbook publishers have and continue to send copyright notices when they are shared here.Īdvertising is not allowed without moderator approval. Positive discussion is encouraged.ĭo not ask for or share audit exams or other illegal/copyrighted materials. Please try to keep discussions on-topic about AP courses.

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