Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Photo via DeSantis’ Facebook.
The College Board, the non-profit organization that oversees the AP Program, SAT Suite, and BigFuture programs for public and private high school students seeking to attend college, announced Aug. 3 that Florida will not allow public school students to take Advanced Placement Psychology, because the course includes lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Florida Department of Education sent a notice to the state’s Superintendent’s Association Aug. 3. It advised that AP Psychology must be scrubbed of its gender and human sexuality unit in order to continue being taught in Florida classrooms, as lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity are topics forbidden by the state’s new laws known colloquially as the “Stop Woke Act” and “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” expansion signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year.
This censorship of course content will result in students being denied AP designation and, as a result, the college credit earned for completing the course. The move also comes as the DeSantis administration doubles down on its whitewashing of African American history and peddling of lies about enslaved people “benefiting” from chattel slavery.
The Orlando Sentinel reported the state banning AP classes is taking place a week before school starts in many districts. According to the Sentinel, about 5,000 Central Florida students and about 27,000 statewide may not be able to take a class they signed up to tackle in the 2023-2024 school year.
“We are sad to have learned that today the Florida Department of Education has effectively banned AP Psychology in the state by instructing Florida superintendents that teaching foundational content on sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal under state law,” the College Board said in a statement.
Equality Florida issued the following statement:
“The DeSantis regime is at war with students and parents, censoring more AP curriculum and denying students the opportunity to earn college credit. The administration has already stated that the AP African American Studies course ‘lacks significant educational value,’ instead preferring to falsely applaud slavery as an American jobs program.
Now, the DeSantis administration wants to rewrite AP Psychology curriculum to enforce their image of America, too. Gov. DeSantis will undermine any student’s education, revoke any parent’s rights, and demolish any curriculum to remake Florida’s schools into right wing propaganda machines in service to his political ambitions. His administration continues to use families and classrooms as pawns and do catastrophic damage to this state and its reputation.”
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