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The pinnacle of the Faculty Board defended its new Superior Placement course on African American research, weeks after Florida said it would ban the class.
The Faculty Board on Wednesday launched its official – and revised – framework for the course, and CEO David Coleman informed USA TODAY that “at the College Board, we don’t really look to the statements of political leaders.
“We glance to the file of historical past.”
The new framework, however, addresses many of the concerns Florida raised and those topics are not included, or they are included only as optional project topics.
The course, which is 10 years in the making, already is being taught in 60 high schools. Next school year, it will be taught at approximately 500 high schools nationwide before being offered at any school interested in providing the course. It emerges at the same time as a racial reckoning in the United States and the debate over the teaching of critical race theory, a college-level concept about systemic racism.
“We hope that everybody will give (the course) a recent look, a recent learn as a result of we predict that that individuals might be impressed with what they see there,” he said. “What they will discover is an unflinching encounter with the information and proof of African American historical past and tradition.”
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Why is AP African American Studies in the spotlight?
Officers in Florida rejected the new AP course, arguing that the category for highschool college students doesn’t adjust to state regulation.
Florida schooling Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. final month shared an inventory of issues about the course, starting from broad ideas to particular authors. Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mentioned the state rejected the course because it included the study of “queer theory” and actions that advocate for “abolishing prisons.”
The choice rapidly drew criticism inside and out of doors of the state.
White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre known as the transfer “incomprehensible,” responding to a question from USA TODAY “Let’s be clear. They didn’t block AP European history. They didn’t block our art history. They didn’t block our music history.”
And last week, civil rights attorney Ben Crump said if Florida officials continue to reject the course, legal action could follow.
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What’s actually being taught in this class for teenagers? What can high school students expect to learn? USA TODAY analyzed the official framework for AP African American Studies.
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What’s actually being taught in AP African American Studies
Brandi Waters, AP African American Studies’ senior director, told USA TODAY the class is “an exciting course for students because it helps them to see a fuller picture of the world around them.”
The course – which students can use to earn college credit depending on their scores on its exam and whether an institution accepts the class – is broken up into four units, each of which includes dozens of potential topics and assignments.
“So what (students are) really asking for when they asked for this class is the tools that the field of African American Studies gives them, which is this picture of how different communities are really interrelated,” Waters said, “a diversity of lived experience and feeling like they now have more lenses through which to view American life and how disparate communities in America are connected to the broader world.”
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The framework also includes a research project for students, asking them to analyze a topic or theme from the field of African American Studies. The document stresses that the project topics can “be refined by local states and districts.”
Here’s how the class is laid out for educators and students:
- Origins of the African Diaspora: This unit includes information on early African empires and kingdoms, before and during the transatlantic slave trade.
- Freedom, Enslavement and Resistance: Students may learn about the slave trade, how slavery worked to “assault the bodies, minds and spirits of enslaved Africans and their descendants,” the abolition of slavery and more. It includes sources such as maps snowing the slave trade out of Africa, Frederick Douglass’ speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” and other materials.
- The Practice of Freedom: This section includes the period known as Reconstruction in America, as well as Jim Crow laws and other political, social and cultural movements. Students might explore the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, writings from W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington or the Supreme Court’s 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, when the court ruled racial segregation was constitutional.
- Movements and Debates: Students may learn about the Civil Rights Movement, housing discrimination against Black Americans, the Black Power Movement, feminist movements and “diversity within Black communities.” The course materials for the final unit include writings from Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and other political figures, in addition to Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and others.
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Coleman famous that the method of “moving beyond the pilot materials” of the course has taken a yr and concerned consulting with about 300 professors. He additionally mentioned no state has seen the framework earlier than it was launched on Wednesday.
Follow reporter Marina Pitofsky @marina_pitofsky. Email: [email protected]
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