Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) released the following statement about the College Board’s decision to remove segments of the African American Studies AP course to placate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis:
NEWS: Rep. Bowman Statement on the College Board’s
Decision to Revise Its AP African American Studies Curriculum
NEW YORK, NY – The College Board recently revised its Advanced Placement course in African American studies eliminating some of the most important aspects of American history.
Rep. Bowman released the following statement in response:
“The College Board’s decision to surrender to the political pressure of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and water down AP African American Studies has serious national implications,” said Congressman Jamaal Bowman Ed.D (NY-16). “To remove some of the most rigorous and historically significant Black history and scholarship from millions of students across the country is a crime against education and democracy. Truthful public education is the single best investment we can make as a country to build prosperous, healthy and equitable societies however, the College Board has shown us yet again that their interest is in sustaining and increasing profits and not in providing an ethical, insightful, and comprehensive curriculum that meets the needs of all students.”
“African American studies is critical to ensuring all students feel seen in their educational experiences, and is fundamental to our ability to address ongoing injustices and improve our society for all people. Because of the College Board’s decision to acquiesce to fear, students all over the country will now not have access to African American literature from prolific authors that have shaped American life. To deliberately strip our children of the opportunity to build a better future for the next generation is a recipe for disaster for this country and the world. African American history is American history. Removing any part of African American history in any curriculum removes a critical lifeline of America.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When I saw the clip of David Coleman explaining that these changes reported for the the African American History AP had happened in December, I recalled the time a high schooler confronted him over Common Core English. Shill comes to mind…
This explains who the real David Coleman is:
DAVID COLEMAN (PRESIDENT & CEO/TRUSTEE) $1,532,201 – what he earned in 2020
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131623965
As usual, anyone that’s more wedded to wealth, is not involved in education for the children.
Being the guy responsible for the devolution of ELA and Mathematics curricula and pedagogy to accord with a moronic, puerile bullet list has turned out to be extremely lucrative.
Lloyd has it right! It’s all about money.
What do these revisions to the curriculum bar teachers from teaching?
Anything thatDeSantis doesn’t approve of. He had a list of topics. And scholars. They were all deleted.
FLERP!,
What was deleted were very marginal topics like Black Queer Theory and the glorifying of communists like Angela Davis. Don’t merely rely on this blog to form your opinion about this issue. This blog is far Left and will not fairly represent what the objections to the initial curriculum were. Do a little online research to give yourself a fuller perspective.
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3839792-here-are-the-key-changes-the-college-board-is-making-to-its-ap-african-american-studies-course/
Far left? No. Committed to teaching ALL of history? Yes. And how do you say it’s “marginal” when the actual historians who put the curriculum together felt the material is essential?
There has been quite a bit discussed in various articles about what was lost.
Far left
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! OMG. Ridiculous.
“Black conservatism: development and ideology” was added to the curriculum”
From a pew poll in 2018.
“Only 1 percent of black respondents in the poll described themselves as Republicans”
“Yet Black Lives Matter: Origins, impacts” is removed .Among others that were removed or made optional. Gotcha !!
.And on that note, they clearly Black lives don’t matter to the NYPD . This is out of 800 complaints during the George Floyd protests which three investigations called out for troubling attacks on peaceful protestors. 400- 500 other complaints could not be verified as shield numbers were covered up. The NYPD facial recognition software capable of picking out a bomber in hours must have been disabled by a Russian ransomware attack.
. 269 complaints were investigated with no consequence to the perpetrators in Blue. Bull Connor is alive and well in NYC.
But lets not talk about BLM in AP African American Studies CRT or Intersectionality.
https://www.amny.com/politics/ccrb-report-says-146-nypd-officers-recommended-for-disciplined-after-2020-floyd-protests-but-none-fired/?fbclid=IwAR1SQRWV9N9kwSbYxbcOD8rRVrA33-rfH2BpKL5V_3Hq6cM6_Iz8xo1FVTQ
The Hill is right wing. Don’t rely on it for objective info.
In the immortal words of Pee Wee Herman, “I know you are, but what am I…”
Angela Davis is an important African-American intellectual, philosopher, political activist, and author of many books, and yet all you (Ben Woodley) note is that she is a “communist.” Witch Hunt much?
College Board AP History, revised: And then black people came over from Africa because they wanted to be housed and given jobs and taught about Jesus.
400 years later they just love that free food and clothing with the nice stripes ‘
But don’t say CRT or BLM
Haaa!
But don’t say CRT or BLM or gay.
Wow, thanks, Joel. Between you and me, I think we’ve covered it!!!
And a Civil war was fought by Florida and other Confederate states to protect and defend the Constitutional rights and comfortable, educated, professional lifestyle of black American citizens, which Abraham Lincoln was forcibly trying to revoke.
Tragically, the Confloridate states lost the war, which is why to this day, African Americans are third class citizens who are still persecuted in the far left Democrat controlled states, primarily of the north.
Thanks for the explanation, SD
–Far Left Shepherd
You will recognize pictures of us on the far left side of hills on Christmas cards because, ofc, the First Noel was to certain poor Shepherds.
That’s a good one! The impoverished ancestors.
Also, it is a critical never mentioned fact that Robert E. Lee was actually raised as a poor black child in NY City, which is where he experienced firsthand the discrimination that would later inspire him to lead black people to the Promised Land (aka, Florida)
And contrary to every history book (written by FLH’s –Far Left Historians) the Underground Railroad actually ran in reverse, from North to South, helping northern slaves to escape to the Promised Land of Freedom (aka, Florida)
By the way
I am a Farleft poet who has seen the Right
Hallelujah, I’ve seen the Right!
A far left poet
Who’s seen the Right
And now I know it
The day, from night
lol
The Confloridate State
Confloridate state
Is really great
The AP track
Is naught but fact
haaaaa!
Flerp, this is a History course. And, of course, whatever has happened that is of significance is history. Here, a list of cuts to appease the one Florida man Thought Police:
https://www.axios.com/2023/02/03/college-board-ap-african-american-studies
Is the fact that there was a BLM movement or a call for reparations significant recent history? I would think so.
Unless, that is, you major goal is WHITEWASHING.
DeSantis wanted to be sure there was no reference to reparations, perhaps because Florida is the only state in the nation that actually paid reparations to the handful of survivors of a white terrorist attack on the Black town of Roseville, Florida, in 1923. Many people were lynched, and the town was burned to the ground. Florida agreed to pay reparations to survivors in 1994.
Bob,
I think the subtext of FLERP!’s question seems to be that a white man demands that someone convince him of why BLM and other history that he doesn’t believe is important should be considered important?
Who better to decide what’s worth including in an African American Studies course than a white person!
And it’s important to note that the class is African American STUDIES. Not African American History. The course includes culture — not just history. Which is all the MORE reason to include those subjects that some folks here are sneering at because THEY do not care to learn it.
Desantis simply believes that his status as a culture warrior will get him in the White House. Let’s pray he is wrong.
DeSantis is turning his culture wars against public schools into the core agenda of the GOP. Trump recently came out with his education plan, which echoes DeSantis.
I thought it was a good sign that Dems could be waking up when Biden forcefully called for higher teacher salaries in his State of the Union address. Calling to bolster public education would be a big winner in 2024.
NYCPSP,
I agree. FLERP is asking a question through white eyes: who cares that BLM and the reparations movement were downgraded? They are historical facts. The better question, I think, is why should they be excluded? Why did the College Board drop Kimberlé Crenshaw? She is a legal scholar of high repute. Could it be because she writes about CRT. Why censor her?
Shame on the College Board for allowing right wing extremists to revise the curriculum by caving in to their whitewashing of history. The College Board is a for profit gate keeper that is irrelevant today.
One day, Congressman Bowman for president.
I checked into the link provided by our troll of the day and two of the things that became optional (truth be told, I don’t think anything should be dictated as mandatory or optional by any source; I think we should hire professional teachers and get the hell out their ways) are “the reparations movement” and, to paraphrase, not cite anyone who is not an approved “scholar.”
On the first point, would the circumstances that cause many to believe that some type of reparations, not necessarily cash payments to individuals, be valid to study? If, for example, it were permissible to teach about domestic, forced migration of enslaved Africans from the mid-Atlantic to the Deep South and the actual events that happened–enslaved persons in Maryland kidnapped and then forced to march on foot, yoked to 20-30 other kidnapped slaves all the way to Georgia or Alabama or Louisiana. Or if teachers are allowed to explain how plantation owners and their progeny created generational wealth while the enslaved persons and their progeny basically created it for them? And surely these standards will allow the teaching of how states like Alabama created a “legal system” that allowed them to imprison Blacks on specious charges, lengthen their sentences because they could not pay for their own imprisonment, and then “loan” them out to major industries throughout the state? And I also assume they will allow how Blacks were denied their legal rights by the very departments who openly flaunted them to ignore fair housing laws? And, of course, how he G.I. Bill did not apply to returning Black veterans. Now, imagine this. A teacher can teach all that and then be fired for asking students to consider if these facts have anything to do with why many people at least think we need to come up with some way to correct this? The average net worth of whites compared to Blacks today should be enough for us to say yes.
On the second point, does every source for every lesson created by every teacher need to be approved by some higher authority in advance of every lesson?
Imagine the number of bureaucrats needed to oversee every lesson plan and then surveillance its actual delivery.
And imagine how inconceivable it would have been in 2016 to have written a sentence like that.
About the same number it takes to replace a light bulb…
And, in her response to Biden last night, Huckabee Sanders suggested that the “woke left” is teaching children to hate. According to her world, Democrats held the rally in Charlottesville, attacked Jews in Pittsburgh, shot up the Walmart in Elpaso, and destroyed power substations. We have come unmoored.
Gov Huckabee Sanders: “It’s best to keep children dumb and docile.”
Oh, Roy
You’re just a member of the “farm left”.
Everyone can see that you are way out in left field spreading manure.
The Farm Left
The farm left folks
We shan’t endure
The farmer blokes
Who spread manure
The Farm Left
With farm left pigs
And farm left cows
And farm left rigs
Like hoes and plows
The farm left Reds
Are Commies, sure
With tractor treads
They spread manure
Excuse me, but WOKE MOBS and CRTs are coming for us all? I am a little slow (and my acronym finder never arrived) but was Huckabee referring to ”
Weird, Odd, Krazy, Experience Mobs (a large crowd of people, especially one that is disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence.
“a mob of protesters”)? So, what she is saying is that her own party is coming for you? And your children? And as far as CRTs, I know that Google CRTs (among others) are one of the best acknowledgements to have when looking to advance oneself.
Incredible that a New York-based educational organization should meekly knuckle under to Florida’s fascist “governator.”
The College Board may be based in NYC, but its customers are in every state. It can’t afford to offend red states. If DeFascist condemned that AP course, many other red states would follow his lead. That would put a big hole in the College Board’s revenues. Can’t allow that!
A hole in The College Board?
They already have one. His name is David Coleman.
A hole in The College Board
A hole that’s huge
A hole that gapes
A hole that rouge
Cannot erase
Rep Jamaal Bowman to College Board: “the College Board has shown us yet again that their interest is in sustaining and increasing profits and not in providing an ethical, insightful, and comprehensive curriculum that meets the needs of all students.”
In other words– “Mr Coleman, ‘people don’t really give a shit about what you feel or what you think’.”