It’s often said that Black history is American history. If that’s so, it should be thoroughly taught in schools across the United States. But it’s not.
Most states don’t require that Black history be taught in public schools.
The College Board, a nonprofit organization that develops curricula for K-12 and higher education systems, has attempted to inject Black history into high schools throughout the country by developing the framework for an Advanced Placement African American Studies (APAAS) course.
The board rolled out the pilot course for the 2022-2023 academic year, marking the first time the organization offered an ethnic studies course in its 120-plus year history.
However, designing curricula for African-American studies to be taught in public schools has proved to be one of the most scrutinized and politically divisive subjects in education, and increasingly so in the past year.
That initial APAAS framework drew criticism from some conservative groups and elected officials who said, among other things, that the AP course sought to indoctrinate students to a political agenda. The state of Florida went so far as to ban the course.
The College Board announced a revised framework in time for the start of Black History Month last year that would become available for the 2023-2024 school year. This drew criticism from previous supporters who felt key elements of Black history and Black identity had been removed due to political pressure.
This attack on Black history began as backlash to the 1619 Project, followed by a repudiation of critical race theory (CRT) in the wake of the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, as well as the political division sowed during the 2020 presidential election.
As a result, numerous states passed laws banning the teaching of CRT in schools and banning books on Black history. Additionally, conservatives won school board seats to root out “wokeness” and CRT….
Read the full article here
