Florida’s Republican governor condemned the College Board in recent weeks over a new AP African American Studies course, calling it indoctrination and lacking in educational value.
The attack against the AP course is part of a larger agenda against school curriculums that include subjects that conservatives call critical race theory and even more broadly, an attempt to fight against “woke politics”.
This week Ron DeSantis went even further, suggesting the state could find an alternative to the College Board, the nonprofit entity that administers the AP program as well as other crucial components in the college admissions process, including the SAT and PSAT exams.
“Nobody elected [the College Board] to anything,” DeSantis said during an appearance to talk about “woke” banking practices. “They’re just … providing services, and so you can either utilize those services or not. They have provided these AP courses for a long time, but … there are probably some other vendors who may be able to do that job as good or maybe even a lot better.”
The dispute with the College Board is one of many fights that De Santis has picked. It joins Walt Disney World in the ranks of companies the governor has wrangled with for not adopting conservative stances on education matters. And indeed, just a few days ago, De Santis gained control of the board that oversees development at Walt Disney World, a move that restricts the autonomy of Disney over its theme-park complex.
The College Board administers both the AP courses and the SAT exam. While the AP courses may help students complete graduation testing requirements, earn entry into universities and become eligible for Bright Futures scholarships, the PSAT and SAT Exams play a crucial role in a student’s application process. Indeed, there are few respected colleges and universities across the U.S. that don’t make entrance exams such as the SAT’s mandatory.
Now, Gov. Ron DeSantis says he wants to reevaluate the state’s relationship with the College Board, the private company that administers those courses and the SAT exam. And that has some high school students worried.
“I don’t see how I could have gotten ahead without them,” said Eli Rhoads, a senior at Pasco County’s Mitchell High School, who said AP courses helped him get a full scholarship to the University of Alabama. “You almost have to have these courses to stand out.”
“I think that would really put the students of Florida at a disadvantage,” Tucker said. Officials should “look more closely at what AP classes are doing for the students of the state of Florida and get their perspective. They’re the ones who would really be affected by all this.”
DeSantis has not made clear exactly what he plans to change in both the high school AP courses and the college entrance exams, but his remarks come after the College Board on Saturday accused his administration of playing politics when it rejected its new Advanced Placement African-American studies course over allegations that it “lacks educational value.”
“This is about the governor trying to cancel the companies he doesn’t like,” said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando. “He’s screaming and complaining about ideology being pushed onto our schools, yet what he continues to do is push his ideology onto us.”
If the state were to move away from the College Board, though, other options exist.
Students seeking advanced courses leading to college credits have International Baccalaureate, Cambridge Programme and dual enrollment classes available. They also can take the ACT exam instead of the SAT, but this may limit the list of colleges that the student may apply to.
“Of course, our universities can or can’t accept College Board courses for credit; maybe they’ll do others. And then also just whether our universities do the SAT versus the ACT.” Showing that he may in fact not know enough about the subject, De Santis added, “I think they do both, but we are going to evaluate how the process goes”.
