Advanced Placement

American Students Deserve Better than the AP System

Annie Abrams: "If we want to expand access to college, why aren’t we doing that by employing Ph.D.s? If we want to support high school teachers and strengthen curriculum, why aren’t we fostering collaboration? Instead, we’re outsourcing that work."

Review: AP Program Undermines Humanities, Devalues College, and Cheats Students of Learning

by David M. Perry

According to Annie Abrams's new book, the Advanced Placement program has subordinated high school students' learning to standardized testing and enabled public universities to gut humanities departments by accepting high school work for college credit. Her dive into education history explains how that happened. 

WSJ Editorial Board: Private Emails Show College Board's Intellectual Dishonesty

While the College Board acknowleged a "breakdown" of the process by which edits were to be vetted by the scholars developing the curriculum, but denied being in conversation with Florida officials about the edits. 

New Book Challenges not Just AP Course Content, but Role of Courses in the Education System

Annie Abrams argues that the prevalence of Advanced Placement courses in American high schools distorts the goals of education and shortchanges students from experiencing higher-level learning in the humanities. 

College Board to Change AP African American Studies Course, Acknowledges Changes to Suit Conservative Critics

Some leading scholars in Black studies have signed petitions calling on the College Board to revise the course, and are planning a nationwide day of protest on May 3 around “freedom to teach and to learn.” Civil rights groups and teachers’ union leaders are also set to participate.

Scholars and Activists Join Open Letter Condemning Political Intrusions on Scholarship and Teaching

An open letter by Black Studies scholars and activists asks why a right-wing political faction has been empowered to hijack the curriculum in Florida and at the College Board, concluding that, far from being "drained of meaning," purged concepts are threatening to entrenched power. 

The Bankrupt Vision of the College Board

by Annie Abrams

"We have endowed the College Board with the power to shape millions of minds with its profitable exams. In turn, it holds students hostage for college tuition, stifles teachers, and destroys space for debating difficult topics."

What Politics Kept In and Took Out of the AP Course

The excision of terms like "systemic" from the AP African American Studies curriculum suggest either an idiosyncratic review process or an attempt to avoid the specific triggering keywords of the right's complaints about liberal education. 

What the Rejection of African American History Means for Students

by Monica Washington

When a state decides to minimize African American history and thought in its curriculum, it marks that history as "other" and denies all students the opportunity to understand the national past and the prospects for realizing democratic values in the future.

New Jersey Announces Increased Adoption of AP African American Studies

Governor Phil Murphy announced that the course will appear in 26 high schools (instead of the current 1), but the move is largely symbolic because of changes made to the course and the tiny percentage of the state's schools adopting the course. 

Robin Kelley: What Florida Got Removed from AP African American Studies

The UCLA historian discusses what the changes mean for the course in the future and how they reflect the politics of the present. 

College Board Has Scrubbed Website of Previous Statements of Independence from Florida Officials

by Judd Legum

After its communications with Florida officials in 2022 were revealed, the College Board removed statements from its website that claimed the company did not have such communication before making changes to the curriculum of its African American studies course. 

Latest from Florida: DeSantis Suggests State Can "Do Without" College Board

Such a move would have serious consequences for the College Board's revenue, but also potentially hurt Florida high school students by depriving them of rigorous courses. Florida currently pays students' AP testing fees and has the fifth highest per capita rate of students taking AP tests.

College Board Defends AP Course Decisions

The Board stated that it regretted failing to make its disagreements with Florida's assessment of the course as lacking in educational value, and that it had betrayed the trust of scholars who had worked with it to develop the course. 

How the Rocky Road of AP African American Studies Passed through Florida

The College Board, seeking to explain significant changes to the course's curriculum, maintained its denial that it did not make the alterations under pressure from Florida officials who, it said, showed “ignorance and derision for the field of African American studies.”

Documents Show Extensive Contact Between Florida Officials and College Board over Past Year

The revelation, first made by the right-wing Daily Caller but confirmed by the Florida Department of Education, calls into question the College Board's claims that it was not influenced by pressure from Florida officials. Scholars question the College Board's commitment to academic integrity. 

Organization of American Historians Statement on AP African American Studies

"The OAH further rejects the characterization of these scholars and their scholarship as examples of “woke indoctrination,” and instead recognize them as central to the interdisciplinary research and teaching of African American history and culture, as well as American history more broadly."

Historians on DeSantis and the Fight Over Black History

Experts including education historians Adam Laats and Natalia Mehlman Petrzela discuss the controversy over Florida's rejection of the Advanced Placement course in African American Studies. 

Fear of a Black Studies Planet

by Roderick A. Ferguson

A scholar whose work was named in Florida's decision not to support the AP African American Studies course discusses a long history of conservative efforts to control textbooks and teaching and, failing that, to create politically useful hysteria about indoctrination. 

Dem Governors Pritzker and Newsom Challenge AP on Caving to DeSantis

"I am extremely troubled by recent news reports that claim Governor DeSantis is pressuring the College Board to change the AP African American Studies course in order to fit Florida’s racist and homophobic laws," Pritzker said.