The College Board has been revising or modifying Advanced Placement ( AP ) courses to reflect a leftist worldview under the direction of Common Core czar David Coleman. U.S. History and Western History, two AP courses, then introduce a de facto national education for the advanced students who fill the classes. They also push a deftly left-of-center narrative that conflicts with standard scholarship.
However, some claims are beginning to question AP’s wake-ification.
The radical new AP African-American Studies ( APAAS ) course, which has just been piloted nationally and is currently in its final form, is the subject of the most recent AP controversy. However, some state education leaders are rejecting the state’s recommendation to regulate common knowledge. Perhaps the days of state sticking to what the College Board approves are over.
Florida Governor acknowledges that APAAS is in many ways more advertising than knowledge. Ron DeSantis was the first to draw the line between paying for its Florida student education with money from the citizens. Representatives from the Arkansas Department of Education followed fit. Officials in South Carolina have raised caution flags to ensure that the program will be fully funds toward graduating.  ,
The Georgia director of education late cited concerns about the APAAS course’s CRT-infused content as a justification for rejecting full approval. On August 8th, the House and Senate Education Committees of the Georgia legislature will hold a reading on the subject.
Clear and Persistent Marxist Control
State officials in these diligent states have serious and legitimate concerns about APAAS. The original course framework made little attempt to conceal its focus on Marxist, critical race theory ( CRT ) -inspired instruction. The College Board revised the foundation to eliminate the most obvious examples of advertising and conceal the remaining bias after receiving sluggish criticism from critics like Stanley Kurtz. But the deeper trouble remains.
Kurtz came to the conclusion that a large portion of the program is also infused with extreme ideology and the structure of the revised APAAS platform. The framework relies heavily on the racist, anti-capitalist, and anti-Western theories of radical historians, it emphasizes international anti-colonialism when the focus should be on America, it spotlights, almost always without criticism, the actions of Marxists such as the Black Panthers and yet largely ignores the thought of black conservatives in any realm of public life, it includes ( also without criticism ) substantial material on the CRT concepts of “intersectionality” and oppression.
As Kurtz observes, the training ends with a month of” More Explorations” of burning topics such as compensation and emancipation of prison and police. These investigations “make it abundantly clear that there is only one appropriate answer,” according to the extreme left’s policies. ” In impact”, Kurtz writes,” this last system is a prescription for communist political activism”.
Destruction of Black Conservatives
Yet the revised APAAS framework consistently lacks balance, which is a regular issue. Worse than providing one-sided treatment of various perspectives, in most cases it does n’t even acknowledge that there are various perspectives.
With the exception of one speech by Gen. Colin Powell ( inserted in response to the initial Florida backlash ), there is little to no representation of conservative, or even moderate, black thought. All dark thinkers and leaders in American history have a left-to-radical placed perspective, according to APAAS. Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, John McWhorter, and many other dark scientists who reject the extreme model are simply not worth mentioning.
In discussing society engagement on contentious problems, APAAS may include compared violent Black Panthers to civil rights activist Robert Woodson, who has fought for values-based and community-based solutions to issues the government has failed to ( or even has created ). But Woodson does n’t fit the narrative, so APAAS simply ignores him too.
In other words, like too many other” research” courses that focus on particular racial, tribal, or sexual personality groups, the obvious purpose of APAAS is to soak students in the only view approved by those who control allegedly “elite” institutions.
No Taxpayer Funding for Leftist Indoctrination
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina each have some type of an anti-CRT legislation prohibiting the teaching of dangerous “divisive ideas” in public universities. Some APAAS information could be in violation of those laws, according to governors and training officials it. That is certainly the situation, depending on the statute’s language.
But as Kurtz argues, even in the presence of such a laws, state officials are completely right—indeed, obligated—to analyze this AP program and all others issued by the College Board to make sure they provide complete, balanced protection of their subject.
Relatives and other taxpayers should be taken into account when conducting this investigation. Californians may be alarmed by condescending assurances that the College Board’s truly intelligent people know what to do, but that should n’t faze them.
It’s Not Prejudiced to Help Quality Curriculum
When rejecting APAAS, of training, state leaders meet grimly repetitive cries of prejudice. The director of a Georgian APAAS pilot district argued that “whorseholding state authorization for this AP program sends the message that African Americans ‘ contributions and experiences are not deserving of scientific study at the same level as those of other approved AP courses.”
That’s foolishness, of training. Inserting the phrases” African American” into a name should n’t shield any education from appropriate investigation. Lacks any educational value is lost advertising. State officials should be applauded for enforcing something better for students of all races because they do n’t benefit from course content that has been warped by its creators ‘ political biases.
APAAS may be improved. It might provide information on dark non-leftists who think differently. It may convert its existing “debates” about questionable issues into correct debates, with pros and cons very represented.
However, it seems that the College Board is n’t interested in reinforcing APAAS rather than creating woke propaganda. Rather, it relies on cynical state officials to accept brainwashed mediocrity rather than endured blatant problems from leftist politicians and the internet.
But in some states that are new officers in village, and they’re not scared of a fight. The tyranny of the College Board can, and has, been dismantled.
Jane Robbins is a senior fellow with the American Principles Project in Washington, DC, an lawyer. In that capacity, she created state and federal legislation to restore state and local governments ‘ legal independence in education policy and defend religious freedom and morality. She received degrees from Harvard Law School and Clemson University.
