Florida’s Rejection of an AP African American Studies Course Is a Rejection of School Choice

Right in the middle of National School Choice Week, conservative politicians and regulators in Florida are fighting against the introduction of a black history class that would help high school students earn college credit. Florida conservatives are telling families who support school choice that they can’t even choose their kids’ classes.

The College Board is a nonprofit organization that administers college entrance exams and develops Advanced Placement (AP) courses for high school students that earn them college credits. They’ve developed a pilot program for an African American Studies class that they plan to launch in 60 schools across the U.S. over the next school year. They did intend for one Florida school to offer the class. They hope to start offering the class in all high schools by the 2024-25 school year and begin administering exams in Spring 2025. High school students who pass those exams would earn college credit for taking the class.

Florida’s Department of Education looked at the class, and flat-out rejected it, with officials saying it would indoctrinate students with “a political agenda” and lacked educational value. Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Press Secretary Ron Griffin said, “As submitted, the course is a vehicle for a political agenda and leaves large, ambiguous gaps that can be filled with additional ideological material, which we will not allow.”

Well, it is a history class, after all. Once you get past the names and dates, history studies political agendas and ideology. Certainly, that would have to be the case for a black history class in America.

Florida last year passed the Stop WOKE Act, which attempts to censor how schools and even private businesses teach about race, prohibiting the inclusion of the various ideas connected to Critical Race Theory. The law is bei