NY Times: “In the days since, the conflict has grown only more vitriolic. In an extraordinary back and forth last week, the state of Florida released a chronology of its communications with the College Board, seeming to take credit for alterations in the A.P. course.
The College Board, which relies on state participation to administer its tests, has fired back, saying that changes were made after hearing from teachers about what worked, and politics had nothing to do with it.
In a statement on Saturday, it said that the governor and the Florida Department of Education were posturing to stoke publicity: “We have made the mistake of treating FDOE with the courtesy we always accord to an education agency, but they have instead exploited this courtesy for their political agenda.”
And, in a statement to The Times, the College Board added that the Education Department showed “ignorance and derision for the field of African American studies.”
In today’s political climate, a dispute may have been unavoidable. African American studies has roots in the civil rights and students’ movements of the 1960s. Its left-leaning scholars often see their discipline as part of an anti-racist social justice movement.
For many conservatives, the field is an example of liberal orthodoxy run amok. They have argued the very premise of it, and called for an approach to Black history that focuses on heroic figures of the past and stays away from contemporary political debates or academic theorizing.
But the College Board also hurt its own cause among supporters, by whittling away material during the months it was engaged in discussions with the DeSantis administration, according to interviews with scholars, teachers and College Board officials, as well as a review of several drafts of the curriculum.”