Dr. Robert Patterson discusses AP African American History course on TWISF

This week as Black History Month launched, so did a revised version of the AP Advanced Placement African American History course initially rejected by Florida's Department of Education. The backlash was immediate to allegations that the College Board that writes the curriculum caved to a political agenda. We take straight to the top Dr. Robert Patterson. He co-chairs the committee of educators who developed that course, the pilot and the revisions to the final. Dr. Patterson, welcome aboard.

Good morning. I'm so glad you're with us because there's one major question that we would love to hear College Board answer and that is, did the College Board add, subtract or revise that curriculum in that AP African American History course based on the objections or rejections of the Florida Department of Education? Yay or nay? Explicitly, nay. The College Board, the Development Committee did not quote cave to the political pressure of the governor of Florida. Okay, understood. I like that very specific answer because as a follow up respectfully, the timing, the perception, the optics make it look as if it did. Right. And I'm glad that you make that point.

So let me offer a little bit of clarity on all of those matters. So when the state of Florida issue its declaration on, I think it was January 12th or 13th, the state of Florida was responding to a document that was never intended to be the AP African American Studies course. This was an early collection of topics, writings, et cetera, that were based on a collection of syllabi that the College Board had gathered from professors across the nation on what they teach in their introductory level college courses. And so that document was never intended to be the course. What happened was somehow the state of Florida got a copy of that and then it released this document objecting to the course maybe two weeks before this curriculum was supposed to be released publicly. And the curriculum that was released publicly is a revision of a pilot course that's now being taught in 60 schools across the nation. And so some of the objections are number one, they were not in either not even being in the pilot course as it stands.

Number two, some of those same authors, some of those same topics are actually still in the course. They're embedded throughout the course and they are topics that students can take for their research project that they now do at the conclusion of the course that constitutes 20% of their exam grade. So that's interesting what you just said that because my next question was actually going to be about the specific curriculum because Florida has a new law that frames how racial history and sex education can be taught. And those are exactly the kind of titles that were taken out of that what we saw the draft pilot, things like black queer feminism, the Black Lives Matter movement, reparations debate all very important in the context of black history but suddenly no longer in the revised version. And yet if you look at the curriculum, those subjects are kind of woven throughout. So now does this revised version stand a chance to be accepted in Florida? So one of the topics, I'm glad that you make this point, I had the opportunity to look at some of the language of the Woke Act for example. And it would be impossible to teach African American studies quite frankly, impossible to teach American history without talking explicitly about race and how racism has advantaged some groups and disadvantaged other groups.

And so the law itself would actually just make teaching these topics and related topics difficult if not impossible. I have no idea whether or not the state of Florida is going to accept the curriculum that was released on February 1st because as you've said, if you take a deep dive into the curriculum, these topics are woven throughout. The students still have access to write about some of the other topics that were in the contemporary period that are now part of the research project, the opportunity. And more importantly, in the AP classroom, which is where the resources of secondary readings are collected, some of the very authors that the state of Florida has taken exception to will still be a part of the AP classroom. Students and teachers will still have access to it and it will still be a part of the curriculum. And so I am not sure if that's the case. I think what is important to understand and important for people watching, listening to, recognize is that the governor of Florida stated what he meant, which is that the African American studies course lacks education value.

It is my sincere estimation based on the lack of specificity and sometimes erroneous claims made about those topics that you've named in the document that the state of Florida sent that those were just sort of justifications for foregone conclusion and that the governor has made it very clear through some of the comments that he made this past week about getting rid of DEI programs across the state universities that this assault on African-American studies is part of a broader framework to not have conversations about race and other intersecting categories of identity and how they matter historically and contemporary in the contemporary moment as well. And I think just in the short time we have together, I think the governor had also questioned the balance and now there is a black conservatism curriculum in this course. Was that, is that coincidental? So a couple of days, let me be very clear about this. The course was- Do it in 30 seconds if you can. The revisions for this course were done in December, right? And so there's not a response to what the governor put forth, the responses of the experts and the teachers who came together to make this course a reality. And that's who the responses have been to and the feedback that we've given and they've given. Dr.

Robert Patterson from College Board, it is great to hear from you firsthand and we thank you for giving up a piece of your Sunday for us. Thank you.

news