John McWhorter writes this week about the changes made by the College Board to the African American Studies AP test between its original draft and the final curriculum outline:
The board claimed that the changes were responses to “the input of professors” and “longstanding A.P. principles.” I am unconvinced, to say the least, especially given the degree to which the counsel of these “professors” was mysteriously consonant with DeSantis’s.
I wrote about this a couple of days ago, but I realize that my mind was a little hazy at the time and I might not have explained myself as well as I could have. Let me give it another (brief) try.
As near as I can tell, the first time Florida officials discussed actual course content with the College Board was during a Zoom meeting in November. Jason Manoharan, vice president for AP program development, attended for the College Board:
“What became clear very quickly is that these were not content experts,” said Dr. Manoharan, who has a Ph.D. in English from Harvard.
The state officials first asked whether the Black Panther Party was taught as a historical topic, or whether the course was “trying to advance Black Panther thinking,” Dr. Manoharan recalled. He said he explained that the Black Panthers were a common part of introductory courses, and “that is not something that we can change or compromise.”
Another official, he recalled, asked, “I see this term intersectionality. What do you mean?”
....As Dr. Manoharan explained the concept, the state officials were “stone faced,” he said, and he was not sure they understood him.
“I have interacted with many DOEs — this DOE acts as a political apparatus,” he said of Florida’s Department of Education, adding, “It’s not an effort to improve education.”
He said that overall, Florida had not given useful feedback about what was wrong with the course, and he had been baffled and frustrated about how to respond.
The Florida Department of Education declined to respond to this. What's more, in their public letter of February 7 they provided no evidence about what, if anything, they had objected to in the course curriculum. Given the obviously political nature of that letter, it's barely plausible that they left out anything that would have made their case more credible.
Long story short, the College Board has produced evidence that (a) the changes to eliminate specific readings by specific authors was made long before Florida complained about anything, and (b) when Florida finally met with them they had nothing very concrete to say—and this was at a time when the final curriculum was all but finalized anyway. Florida, by contrast, has produced no evidence for anything, even in their own letter.
On this subject, there's simply no reason to believe either Ron DeSantis or Florida education officials unless they make a case—any case at all—that they had specific objections which the College Board responded to. They haven't done that.
POSTSCRIPT: This is not to say that the College Board might not have responded, either directly or indirectly, to right-wing criticisms from other people that were floating around in mid-2022. I don't know any way to judge that. This is strictly about whether DeSantis and Florida played any role in the curriculum development process.
Come on, Kevin. Are we going to let DeSantis take credit for the changes in Jo Boaler's California Math Framework too?
There are LEGIONS of people making these criticisms and people listen, even in blue California.
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Desantis is getting a lot of play from this one. Let it go.
Desantis, like Trump in 2015/16, is certainly giddy about the media and the internet promoting his molehills into mountains....but didnt we learn anything?
Is 'DeSantis is so extreme he intends to cancel AP courses' a story that will benefit or hurt him nationally?
I'm sure it would hurt if he did it but I think there's little chance of it happening.
He keeps the news cycle focused on him, away from Trump. I'd prefer the news cycle stay focused on Trump. He is, after all, incompetent and guaranteed to repel millions of voters.
Gee, where have we heard that before?
Florida played cute, saying 'the course doesn't comply with our laws'. By implication, it's not up to the Florida DoE to do the Board's work for it. It's up to the Board to familiarise itself with the law and amend the course so it complies. And if the law is a bit imprecise? Well just keep submitting modified syllabuses and we'll let you know when you get one right.
Well, you know, intersectionality is bullshit.
In her work, Crenshaw identifies three aspects of intersectionality that affect the visibility of non-white women: structural intersectionality, political intersectionality, and representational intersectionality. Structural intersectionality deals with how non-white women experience domestic violence and rape in a manner qualitatively different than that of white women. Political intersectionality examines how laws and policies intended to increase equality have paradoxically decreased the visibility of violence against non-white women. Finally, representational intersectionality delves into how pop culture portrayals of non-white women can obscure their own authentic lived experiences.
Yeah. Bullshit.
Fixed it for you:
In her work, Crenshaw identifies three aspects of bullshit that affect the visibility of non-white women: structural bullshit, political bullshit, and representational bullshit. Structural bullshit deals with how non-white women experience domestic violence and rape in a manner qualitatively different than that of white women. Political bullshit examines how laws and policies intended to increase equality have paradoxically decreased the visibility of violence against non-white women. Finally, representational bullshit delves into how pop culture portrayals of non-white women can obscure their own authentic lived experiences.
Who the F'K picks a fumble fingered word to obscure what they really mean???
Black Women Have it Tough!!!
Marxist bullshit. Designed to divide us and make whole classes of people believe that they are victims of a system that is designed never to let them succeed, and the only way is to destroy the said system and start fresh at year 0. It is dangerous bullshit, and the Universities are full of it.
Yes, lol, because Marxists are always trying to divide workers by different aspects of their identities. /s
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, etc....
Yawn. I guess It’s a little early to be looking for the next cat blog?
Oh well.
If it makes you feel better, I understood you the first time and thought you made a compelling case.
Let’s at least celebrate the latest mass murder. This time in Mississippi. And the murderer is a 50 something white guy!
https://heavy.com/news/richard-dale-crum/
nickname “Bubba”
Hilarious 😆
as was the shooter at msu. hilarious, that is. all mass shooters are hilarious.
I don’t know what happened with the AP tests, but I’ll repeat what I’ve said here before:
Ron Desantis is right to target DEI.
I’ve been saying this for some time in online forums or among friends, and, since I am of the Liberal persuasion, the responses I receive are usually concerned if not appalled.
But the Left, as far as I can tell, seems to have quite a blind spot to its own failings here. Paul Krugman just wrote a whole column trying to explain why faith in higher education has eroded drastically. He went on at length describing Republican efforts to stigmatize elites, but he never once mentioned incidents like the one that just happened at Hamline university where the DEI apparatus led an all-out assault on academic freedom.
For such a brilliant man to commit such an oversight is astounding. And the Left needs to do a better job of recognizing and fixing the problems on its own side. We should not try to gaslight the public, claiming there’s nothing wrong with DEI, in the face of attacks from Desantis.
Fortunately, there are some Liberal voices speaking out on behalf of values like academic freedom (as opposed to DeSantis, who is just opportunistically taking advantage of the weaknesses we refuse to address). The whole Heterodox Academy seems to be more or less all about academic freedom (as far as I can tell). But academia as a whole seems to be in denial about how badly it’s presenting itself to the public.
The left has its own issues with free speech, but the right doesn't need these to rile up its base - if there are no specific issues at hand they will invent some - pederast pizza parlors, Mr/Ms potato head, M&M's.
Trump voters (other than those who benefit from Republican economic policies) are not in reaction to any supposed free-speech transgressions on the left, they are in reaction to the loss of White Christian Supremacy. They are not willing to admit to being racist, so various real and invented transgressions on the left are the ostensible targets.
Some leftist extremists are annoying, to say the least, but suppressing them would not reconcile the right. The Republican party has specific economic objectives and ways to get votes to support those policies, that is culture wars. The real basis of the culture wars, racism and religiosity, are not going away.
“Some leftist extremists are annoying, to say the least, but suppressing them would not reconcile the right.”
Yes, I more or less agree with that statement, but I’m not necessarily concerned with placating the Right. That may very well be near impossible so long as Fox News exists.
I’m more concerned with the ways that the Left is alienating independents. In fact, the Left is proving quite successful at alienating Liberals like me. Even more amazing, I read one story this weekend about how Leftists go so far as to ostracize even their fellow anti-racist Leftists. I believe that story was on The Persuasion substack, and it was about an anti-racist professor teaching an anti-racist seminar who wound up with students protesting him because he wasn’t anti-racist enough!
As it so happens, just last spring I was in a grad class on composition taught by a fully committed anti-racist professor. The idea that anyone could find someone like that insufficiently Leftist is difficult to comprehend.
Typically (based largely on my experience and on the kind of anti racist pedagogy I have been fortunate or unfortunate enough to encounter) that type of teacher advocates for the abolishment of any kind of standard English, the elimination of grades, and an assessment system that does little more than give every student an A so long as they continue breathing up till the end of the semester. That way we’ll establish equity and no one (of any race) will in any way be set apart as any better or worse than anyone else.
So if this kind of standard anti-racist pedagogy wasn’t extreme enough for the students in that Professor’s class, what would be?
And, again speaking from my experience, these types of situations are shockingly common in modern graduate programs. I suspect the public has very little idea that students and parents are spending fortunes on a graduate pedagogy that commonly refuses to challenge, grade, or in any meaningful way assess grad students.
And as more and more of this anti-racist and DEI influence comes to light, just how badly will the Left lose pretty much everyone other than the most hardcore Leftists who wake up every morning with torches in their hands so they can burn down everything they encounter?
That’s what I’m worried about. We need to face up to that problem on our own, before a DeSantis capitalizes on the spectacularly tone deaf Left to launch himself into the White House.
It was disappointing to see the administration give in to religious fanatics at Hamline (and another nearby college).
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/opinion/censorship-iranian-artist-macalester.html
Since when did liberals suddenly become defenders of religious fanaticism?
It doesn't surprise me that the FL DoE had so little to say and were clueless about curriculum and intersectionality. Intersectionality is not a particularly hard concept, but it would probably escape them, since not a single one of them has a background in education (or any of the social sciences, for that matter). They're all business executives and lawyers, except for one with a background in radiology.
https://www.fldoe.org/policy/state-board-of-edu/members/
Well, at least the radiologist can see through it!
Your point is correct, but of course business executives and lawyers are not necessarily stupid. They have a political ax to grind.
See Skip Gates's piece in the NYT today, a good explanation of why African American Studies provides perspectives on American History that have been mostly lacking until recent decades.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/opinion/desantis-florida-african-american-studies-black-history.html
Not sure I agree with this interpretation. Reading this and the prior post it is clear that the CB was cognizant that Florida had problems with its course design about eight months ago and enacted changes afterwards. Many of the changes appear to be omissions of controversial authors which would seem to indicate they were attempting to defuse a situation.