Pritzker seeks more info on AP African American Studies course
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[February 03, 2023]
By PETER HANCOCK
Capitol News Illinois
phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker this week asked the College Board for
more information about its reasoning for changing the final framework of
a new Advanced Placement course in African American studies after it had
been criticized by Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“Although we are pleased to see many core ideas remain in place, there
are still significant issues with the way the College Board has chosen
to present this curriculum,” Pritzker said in an email statement.
“Refusing to name the components of Black history that Gov. DeSantis is
most afraid of like intersectionality, feminism and queer Black life but
still including them in the curriculum can be viewed as a weak attempt
to please extremists.”
The College Board – the not-for-profit organization that administers the
SAT test as well as AP courses through which high school students can
earn college credit – first released a pilot course in August in 60 high
schools. It then spent months refining the course with feedback from
college professors and high school teachers before releasing the final
framework on Wednesday, Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month in
the United States.
But the subject immediately became embroiled in culture war politics
when conservatives attacked it for promoting “critical race theory” –
the idea that racial disparities are the result of systemic prejudices
that are woven into the fabric of institutions. DeSantis blocked it from
being offered in his state, claiming it violated a Florida law known as
the “Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act,” or the Stop WOKE
Act.
According to reports, DeSantis specifically objected to the teaching of
concepts like “intersectionality” – the overlapping of categories such
as race, class and gender and other sources of discrimination to create
unique dynamics and effects – as well as Black queer studies, the Black
Lives Matter movement and the reparations movement.
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That prompted a backlash from Democratic lawmakers in Florida as well as
Pritzker, who wrote to the College Board on Jan. 25, warning it not to
change the curriculum or cave in to pressure from conservatives like
DeSantis.
“Regardless of some leaders’ efforts, ignoring and censoring the
accurate reporting of history will not change the realities of the
country in which we live,” Pritzker wrote. “In Illinois, we will not
accept this watering down of history.”
When the final framework came out Wednesday, it was immediately
criticized in the national media, including the New York Times, for
having been “scrubbed” and “purged” of content that DeSantis and other
conservatives found objectionable, including the names of Black writers
associated with critical race theory.
The College Board, in turn, seemed to anticipate those criticisms and
rejected them in a news release announcing the final framework.
“No states or districts have seen the official framework that is
released, much less provided feedback on it,” the board said. “This
course has been shaped only by the input of experts and long-standing AP
principles and practices.”
Later in the day, it issued a second statement specifically responding
to the New York Times article bearing the headline, “How the New York
Times Got it Wrong on AP African American Studies.” That statement
called the story “a gross misrepresentation of the content of the course
and the process by which it was developed.”
A spokeswoman for Pritzker said Wednesday that any local district in
Illinois that wants to offer the course is free to do so.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news
service covering state government. It is distributed to more than 400
newspapers statewide, as well as hundreds of radio and TV stations. It
is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R.
McCormick Foundation.
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