Should Florida Have Veto Power Over the National African American Studies Curriculum?
Does the Black Lives Matter movement belong in that syllabus? Or Critical Race Theory? Is Black Conservatism an essential element, more important than the work of leading contemporary scholars in the field? Florida has views. The College Board has ears.
One has to think like a College Board android to see that the path they walked to the release of the Black Studies AP curriculum is actually pretty well-trodden, familiar, and business-as-usual for the CB, and perhaps rightly so.
The College Board, among other things oversees the entire AP testing program, and that includes the content outlines for the subject areas tested and the design and implementation of the tests themselves. They have a self-perceived mission to see to it that their tests are reliable, fair, and equitable to all constituencies that find themselves locked into angst-filled high school testing venues seeking to prove something to someone about their intellectual precocity.
John Farago
Those designing the tests believe, as an article of what amounts to their own version of faith, that one should never endorse any curriculum component that might make even one student feel unsafe or even uncomfortable. They got to this place, back as far as the 1980s or before, out of an admirable sensitivity and response to the charge that their tests and curricula were culturally biased. They were concerned that their tests could alienate students who were raised in a culture that was not consonant with the premises of the discomfiting stimulus. They didn't want to write biased tests, or tests that reinforced the existing cultural hierarchies. In order to be fair to all, they tried to avoid questions and curricula that assumed that any one set of cultural values are the "right" ones. It’s a hard choice to repudiate.
This inevitably leads, however, to a flattening and blandification of the questions on all of their standardized tests, especially the essay questions, and by extension to the relentless regression toward uncontroversial content for the subject outlines for the subject-area-driven ones. They established curricula for AP classes that scrupulously avoid putting any analytic framework forward as uniquely valid and that jettison anything that makes waves.
The College Board got into writing curricula because if you are going to test someone on something it seems essential to fairness that they know what they’ll be tested on and have an opportunity to study the content of the test (and by extension that teachers be able to teach to the test, however deadening that may be to classroom colloquy). Hiding the content ball under a mainstream cultural bushel would advantage those who are already advantaged and only perpetuate the disparities of a stratified educational system. To fight against this you design and publish the content outlines, leveling the playing field and inexorably flattening the variability, vibrance, and engagement of the subject domain.
Weirdly, a concern for fairness walks hand in hand with a commitment to drabness.
For those who can recall being excited about the emergence of African American Studies, of critical scholarship about race and of privilege, about the emerging awareness of the validity and utility of concepts like institutional racism and Critical Race Theory, the adrenaline rush came in part from their divergence, their iconoclasm, their rarefied paradigms that functioned as secret handshakes.
But that ain’t the stuff of which AP test curricula are made, and the several rounds of test and curriculum design and study and tweaking and revision each serve to bulldoze the finished product into inoffensive blah.
It's not just the College Board that engages in this mix of flattening and adaptation, but virtually all major textbook publishers who work closely with state boards and departments of education to develop textbooks that are expressly designed to serve state-specific curriculum paradigms. And this isn't just social science textbooks. Publishers produce even science textbooks in versions that differ from state to state among the very large customer-states like NY, CA, FL, and TX. Even in relatively recent years publishers have understood that it makes no sense to publish a book that won’t get bought. Check out how evolution is handled in the textbooks sold to varying state systems.
What is distinctive in the case of Florida and the CB is not a textbook or curriculum publisher whoring up to a large state’s wishes. Rather it is that the state of Florida has overtly politicized its narrow-mindedness and parochialism, sacrificing fundamental academic values by mandating right and wrong modes of analysis and acceptable and banned areas of substantive content.
To be sure, every curriculum choice is ultimately political in nature. Curriculum channels students in one direction or another. But we are witnessing the subordination of the interests of the next generation to the current power-holders’ efforts to pander to a national media audience. It is one thing for a state attorney general to run for office by wielding prosecutorial discretion with both eyes on the media. It is another for the commissioner of education — whose constituents are too young to vote — to wield their power in order to stir voters’ worst prejudices.
DeSantis is, from the perspective of anyone who values academic freedom at all, loathsome, a frog not a prince. And the College Board is now and has always been motivated by the Prime Directive of being substantively inoffensive to any major constituency that announces itself. Nothing here is really out of character for any of the participants.
So it’s not that one caved in to the other, but rather that each, by simply following their most natural tendencies, have wound up conspiring to undermine academic freedom in the pursuit of academic righteousness, each blaming the other for the result.
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33 comments:
Seems like we are entering a non science, politics will define what is true and what is not. This will be a step back for man if this tendency strengthens. The problem with charter schools is they can do this to the point that education is not based on established science. Evolution, the history of man being longer than 6 k years, and yes, slavery of Africans took place and was wrong. Doesn’t seem to me that any of that should be controversial.
Maybe I’m off topic, but Florida getting involved in what is taught in AP courses seems dangerous. What’s next?
John Farago said:
For those who can recall being excited about the emergence of African American Studies, of critical scholarship about race and of privilege, about the emerging awareness of the validity and utility of concepts like institutional racism and Critical Race Theory, the adrenaline rush came in part from their divergence, their iconoclasm, their rarefied paradigms that functioned as secret handshakes.
Those who are not excited about, and who rightfully question the validity of concepts like “systemic racism,“ those who pay for the educational establishment with their taxes, and those who hand the schooling of their children over to the educational establishment have every right to influence the contents of the curriculum.
The ideologues of wokeness have no right to a narcissistic adrenaline rush, nor to populate the curricula of the public schools with their secret handshakes.
Ron DeSantis won his recent gubernatorial election by 20%. The people of Florida like what he’s doing. They have spoken, and their voices are rightfully more powerful than the small percentage of activists who seek to impose their woke ideology on the rest of us.
I thought it useful to see what the College Board has published:
AP African American Studies Official Course Framework
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-african-american-studies-course-framework.pdf
Best to read what it actually says rather than what the media, blogs, and political leaders say what is and is not in the course materials.
Reading it mught lead to a more interesting and useful commentary.
By the way, M2inFLA is Mike M in Florida. He previously was Mike M in Oregon for almost 45 years. Before that, he was Mike M in New York.
Institutional racism began in America with slavery, followed by segregation and a reign of terror. CRT studies that and its ongoing effects, evident in the huge disparities between Blacks and Whites in health, wealth, education, incarceration, etc.
Throughout our history there has been an ongoing battle over racism, first to prevent emancipation, then de-segregation and now the reduction of these racial disparities. The fear and anger being fomented over Black Studies are simply the latest expression of White Nationalist antipathy. They can no longer lynch Blacks with impunity, so they’ve co-opted a term from the African American vernacular and throw it around like a curse word, ranting about children being brainwashed by their ‘woke’ agenda.
People like Ron DeSantis are examples of why courses like CRT are so needed. This being Black history month, I highly recommend “Waging A Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement.” It’s enlightening and inspiring.
Yeah, this isn't going to work. Smart students are going to avoid Florida and that state's graduates won't be competitive in the intellectual marketplace. Good teachers will seek asylum elsewhere. Florida is a wealthy state,(fourth-largest) but one where there isn't an equivalent to MIT or CalTech, and this will only get worse.
Disney World will ultimately shut down and move, probably to Norway.
It also occurs to me that censorship only increases interest in the banned subjects, children being the curious little scamps they are. Anyway, I've always felt that the "culture war" was one-sided anyway. Culture warriors are pathetically Quixotic and often remind me of blind drunks swinging at imagined opponents in bar fights. American culture, which to a great extent is Black culture and all things woke, has become Worldwide and that isn't going to change because of a few redneck politicians.
Ron De Santis is an heir to George Wallace, and just like him will likely be a footnote in our history, along with all the other opportunistic demagogues who pander to racists for personal gain.
That era is past, get over it.
This is a huge subject. National educational standards will always be problematic because of politics, place and financial influence.
My comment is about so-called controversial books in school libraries. It seems to me that the solution is to keep the books separate and require parental permission. The students who can't get permission can make friends with the kids who can get permission. Or they can try to get access online or from another source. As we all know, youngsters can be very resourceful when they want something.
Segregating books, in the way "Anonymous" just suggested is an interesting issue. Yes, segregated books does not mean they will be unread. They will be less read, probably, but some students will seek them out, and pay more attention because they were stigmatized. I certainly felt that way about sexy books in my teen years. I enjoyed Peyton Place because it contained some sex paragraphs and it was hard to get. Also Butterfield Eight, about a call girl. It was SO hot when I was 13.
However, there is a consequence to segregating books. The special shelf issue is the voice of authority saying this is different. Controversial. Sex and Banned in Boston is pretty understandable. But if books on evolution, say, are segregated there is a profound judgement about it. Evolution might be set apart but the earth revolving around the sun is "accepted." The idea that Robert E Lee is a hero might be mormalized on the shelf of books, but segregating Uncle Tom's Cabin because it described slavery as cruelly breaking up families makes an important point. That Robert E. Lee is normal but that depicting slavery as bad is questionable.
As a thought experiment, let's say that I took Anonyous's comment and instead of just displaying it as I did, I put a comment up saying that Anonymous's comment has been judged to be deeply controversial. A board has determined that it may not meet the standards of intellectual honesty necessary to be put here. However, if readers click this link they can see it, if one sends a signed letter to the blog holding me harmless for its effect. Now some people would want to know and would click. More people would not bother. But even the people who clicked would have been pre-warned that that comment was different. They would be looking for what was in it that caused a stir.
Segregating material on library shelves is not a trivial matter.
I may do a blog on this. The Mora"l Majority in Medford in 1983 wanted "Our Bodies, Ourselves banned from the Jackson County Library, or at least put in a special section for sinful practices, and threatened me with recall when I was a commissioner. Their objection was that the book included material on self-pleasuring by women, which they said was anti-God, deeply sinful, and not practiced by good Christian women. We refused. They then said they would preach from the pulpit to oppose the library tax levies.
Peter Sage
Hard to imagine how anyone could believe that systemic racism is an 'invalid concept'! Just for drill, I highlighted those two words, in Michael's submission du jour. Then I clicked on the proffered “look up”. This took me to “ Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, education, and political representation.”
I suggest Michael has 1. Never lived or spent much time in the South, where I grew up, and lived for some 23 years before leaving in disgust, and 2. Has never heard that Oregon, where I believe he lives today has the “honor” of being the only state whose constitution banned negros from living here, and actually encouraged whipping them until they “voluntarily” decided to leave Oregon.
If this isn’t systemic racism, I don’t know what is. And I believe anyone who’s lived down south and doesn’t acknowledge systemic racism is in serious self-denial. Really, how many people, white, black brown etc. have given up regurgitate lives in an attempt to rid the world of the BRUTAL oppression minorities have experienced for hundreds of a years?
Hey, Peter, a request: assuming you are able to tell one “anonymous” from another, would it be too much trouble to add a different number after each one's “name”, so we’ll be able to tell who’s who? Thanks in advance :)
This is another on the road towards group think and facism. Remeber a few years back when the Texas School Book Authority demanded the rewrite of books on a variety of subjects? This is the next step.
Well said, Peter. I hope the library levee passed.
Malcolm said...
Hard to imagine how anyone could believe that systemic racism is an 'invalid concept'!
Since you asked:
One of the ways the concept of “systemic racism“ is applied is the assumption that anytime there is a “disparity”, that disparity is conclusive proof of racial discrimination. So, for instance, if 13% of computer programmers are not black, that “underrepresentation” is conclusive proof that racial discrimination must be the reason why. In woke ideology, there is no room for consideration of any other possible cause.
This principle is only selectively applied by the woke. No one ever complains about the “underrepresentation“ of Asians in the NFL or NBA. The zero-sum nature of this principle is never acknowledged; consistent application of it would require limiting the participation of groups who are overrepresented. Should we limit the participation of Asians in computer programming because they are so overrepresented? Would that be helpful to the advance of technology?
This is what I meant by “invalid concept”. Thanks for asking…
Michael Trigoboff you managed to completely and utterly ignore the 2 specific items that Malcolm brought up, and instead brought up your favorite talking point: the 13% computer programmers *should be black but aren't* thing and how that somehow (wishful thinking?) totally disproves all things Woke in your view. Then you proceed to your next favorite talking point about how there's no room for other considerations, I believe in the past you have defended authors who explicitly claim that blacks are genetically predisposed to be less intelligent.
It's all real typical stuff, and while your poorly disguised racism is duly noted, your attempts at persuasion fall remarkably short, and often prove pretty the exact opposite point of the one you seem to be trying to make. Basically you're a typical MAGA racist trying to hide your true feelings under the varnish of fall intellectualism. Let THAT be a lesson to you Trigoboff!
Systemic racism is deeply embedded in systems, laws, written or unwritten policies, and entrenched practices and beliefs that produce, condone, and perpetuate widespread unfair treatment and oppression of people of color. Examples include residential segregation, unfair lending practices and other barriers to home ownership and accumulating wealth, schools’ dependence on local property taxes, environmental injustice, biased policing and sentencing of men and boys of color, and voter suppression policies.
The denial that it exists is called willful ignorance. Thanks for asking.
Malcolm said:
I suggest Michael has 1. Never lived or spent much time in the South, where I grew up, and lived for some 23 years before leaving in disgust.
No, I didn’t. I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in Brooklyn, New York and had a different set of experiences.
My ~10 year old Jewish friends and I biked into a black neighborhood, and a gang of about 20 black kids tried to attack us and steal our bikes. We just barely escaped.
I watched as Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn like mine “tipped” and became black, because as blacks moved in, levels of crime and social disorder increased to levels that the Jews found intolerable, so they left for other places.
I watched in 1991 as Al Sharpton fomented an anti-Jewish pogrom in Crown Heights because a car driven by a Jew got into an accident and a black child died. Many Jews were attacked, and one rabbinical student was stabbed to death by black rioters. Dinkins, NYC’s first black mayor, stood by and did nothing to stop Sharpton’s pogrom.
I was a strong supporter of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, but my support waned after 1967 when SNCC kicked out all of its white members, and the message morphed from “black and white together, we shall not be moved” to “hate whitey”. I’m still a supporter of equal rights for all of us, but definitely not for the woke version of CRT-style “antiracism”.
I didn’t have Malcolm’s experiences and he didn’t have mine; that doesn’t make either of us wrong.
Woke is a verb. What kind of verb is it? Some of your older followers might recognize, "When I woke up this morning, you were on my mind."
The graphic version of Handmaid's Tale is banned in the Medford public schools. Hey, it's available at the public library (pass it on).
“Woke Guy” is very brave behind his shield of anonymity. He doesn’t make any coherent arguments, he just wants to call me bad names. Sticks and stones, Woke Guy. Come back when you have something of substance to say.
POSTED ON BEHALF OF JOHN F, FROM PORTLAND
I keep asking myself "Who put that chip on everybody's shoulder?"
In Freudian terms, maybe a cigar is just a cigar. How to handle a perceived insult is an art form. Like Ye we are all too eager to go Defcon 3 on someone.
In Biden's big moment he handled himself and controlled the floor, making his hecklers his reinforcers of the point he was making.
If you'll pardon a pun of the moment, now Biden is hoisting a trial balloons while staying on message. A good example for our Democrat candidates to follow and not be distracted by the woke catcalls.
JOHN F.
I think Woke Guy's first paragraph was totally substantive and the second was what he concluded from it. All in all, pretty valid.
The part of “systemic racism“ that I object to is the part that claims that every current disparity can only be the result of racial discrimination. That part is a deadly threat to the intellectual integrity of my field, and to that of every field that requires an objective standard of skill. If someone fails to reach the required level of skill for writing software, I don’t want them writing code, regardless of whether something that happened in the past has contributed to their failure.
I taught computer science for 20 years. I was very good at it. I did not, however, have any ability to compensate my students for whatever historical disadvantage they may have had. There’s only so much I can do to help a student have the lightbulb go on. If they don’t even have a lightbulb, I don’t have one I can give them, regardless of why they don’t have a lightbulb.
Was there racial discrimination in the past? Sure. Did it have effects that are still visible in the present? Sure. Given that, should we destroy the intellectual integrity of all areas of expertise in an effort to compensate for those historical effects? Should we lower the standards of expertise for people of particular races? Attempts to do that or justify it are what I am opposed to.
All the paranoia over the "deadly threat" of "wokeness" brings to mind one of its most threatening manifestations: litter boxes in grade school restrooms for children who identify as kittens. Hopefullly DeSantis will soon address this pressing issue.
Michael says, “ The part of “systemic racism“ that I object to is the part that claims that every current disparity can only be the result of racial discrimination. ” Michael, you’re stuck on your misinterpretations. While that may exist, it certainly is not systemic racism.
I give up, though. Your dogma has you stuck in some racist place you can’t seem to get straight in your mind. I hope I’m way out of line, but that seems to be the logical conclusion. Do you believe whites are superior to others, generally speaking?
¡Hasta la vista, Bebe!
Malcolm asked:
Do you believe whites are superior to others, generally speaking?
No, I do not. The fact that you ask is evidence that I probably could have expressed myself better, and maybe that you could have read what I wrote more carefully.
An experience I had that you may not have had was teaching at an institution of higher education for 20 years. During those two decades, I watched woke ideology steadily seep into every area of the college.
The principle that any disparity involving certain minorities can only be the result of racist discrimination is at the foundation of the logic of wokeness. Woke leaders like Ibram X Kendi come right out and say it.
I actually have all of this very straight in my mind. I am probably just not that good at expressing it to people who don’t want to hear it. I am from an engineering discipline, not from marketing.
Mike’s comment about cats is probably a premonition of the next woke social movement, trans-speciesism.
Children “assigned human at birth“ will be entitled to affirmation of whatever different species they decide they are actually a member of.
I fear for this country, if we start monkeying around with that.
I fear for this country that some people would actually swallow such nonsense, but it does demonstrate that you can't reason with extremists.
The best way to deal with the racist who likes to argue is to completely ignore him. We already know what he is going to write, like listening to a broken record from the past.
We are talking about minors with parents, grandparents or legal guardians. Another example is the rating system for movies. Even tv programs now have ratings.
Certain kids will find a way, no matter what, especially with the internet.
The best way to deal with cowards who hide behind the shield of anonymity is to ignore them. They are fundamentally unserious.
Michael, “ The principle that any disparity involving certain minorities can only be the result of racist discrimination is at the foundation of the logic of wokeness.”? I think it’s only at the heart of your deliberate belief in that interpretation by ultra right, cynical, racists. Whatever.
No, I have never been employed by an institution of higher education. I did get a small stipend for tutoring math for a while, and volunteered to tutor mostly Latinos in English as a second Language. And I learned a lot about the imo poor performance in the higher education arena by being married to a professor/department head at an institution of higher Ed. There was an amazing amount of bad decision making, but I honestly never saw that type of (what you call) “wokeness”. While that sort of thing may happen somewhere, I don’t think it’s very common; certainly not common enough to call it “The foundation and logic of wokeness”, especially since you refuse to acknowledge Woke's historical, and dictionary, meaning. The word has bee weaponized, and you’re using it in that fashion.
If I decide I really a vulture, can I get surgery that allows me to hang glide all day, and find my favorite food by way of nothing but good eyesight?
Imagine! No early alarm clocks, no evil bosses, no taxes, no monetary expenses whatsoever, no backaches after working so hard day in and day out!
Sure, you can identify as a vulture; you just have to be willing to eat rotting dead animals. 🤢🤮😀
Of course I’d eat carrion. All vultures do. I assume they enjoy the experience. And they’re one of the relatively few species which eats animals without killing or harming them :)
I thought Pete was not going to allow posts that address others' comments?
What concerns me is school boards/districts buying educational materials from states whose values don't align with ours.
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