New letter reveals timeline between Florida and the College Board’s AP African American Studies communications

“That FDOE and the College Board have been communicating since January 2022 regarding the proposed course is remarkable,” the letter reads.

Kimberly Farmer. Unsplash.

A new letter has revealed details about the timeline of communication between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Department of Education (FDOE) and the College Board.

The letter, obtained by the right-wing news site The Daily Caller, was sent to the senior director of the College Board’s Florida partnership Brian Barnes from the FDOE’s Office of Articulation. In it, the FDOE is requesting additional information about the Advanced Placement course in African American studies before it can be resubmitted for approval. But the letter provides more detail about Florida and the College Board’s timeline. You can read the letter in full here.

Here’s the first page of the letter sent to Brian Barnes, senior director of The College Board’s Florida partnership. The Daily Caller.

If you’ll remember, the College Board said in a statement that the major revisions were “substantially complete” by December 22, 2022, several weeks before “Florida’s objections were shared.” But this letter claims that the nonprofit has been working with Florida since January 2022 — an entire year prior. The revelation has called into question the College Board’s claim that Florida’s Department of Education did not influence the organization’s revisions.

“That FDOE and the College Board have been communicating since January 2022 regarding the proposed course is remarkable,” the letter reads. “We do appreciate the regular, two-way verbal and written dialogue on this important topic.”

The College Board released a statement responding to the FDOE’s letter, calling the office’s claims that topics were removed at their behest “inaccurate.”

“We briefed FDOE on the content of the framework after it had been shared publicly on the morning of February 1, 2023,” the organization said in a statement. “No one in the department had seen the official framework before it was finalized and publicly shared.”

The College Board also says it asked multiple times starting in September 2022 for specific feedback from the FDOE about how the pilot course violated Florida law, but the only written feedback it received was through a tweet posted by Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Jr in January 2023.

In the letter, you can see several of the topics the FDOE objected to, including “Topic 4.14 – The Social Construct of Race,” “Topic 4.24, Option 3 – Reparations,” and “Topic 4.24, Option 4 – The Movement for Black Lives.” None appear in the new curriculum. 

RELATED: Inside the battle to preserve African American studies in Florida

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, one of the scholars whose work no longer appears in the new curriculum, spoke out Thursday about the revelation. 

“@CollegeBoard has been insisting that they made their revisions to AP African American Studies based SOLELY on feedback from teachers and not because of political pressure,” the professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University wrote. “But a new letter shows they have been in contact with Florida since January 2022 — an entire year. Liars.”

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor @KeeangaYamahtta

@CollegeBoard has been insisting that they made their revisions to AP African American Studies based SOLELY on feedback from teachers and not because of political pressure. But a new letter shows they have been in contact with Florida since January 2022–an entire year. Liars.

Sam Hoadley-Brill 🙏 READ CHARLES MILLS. RIP 🐐 @deonteleologist

BREAKING: Leaked documents from Florida’s State Board of Education reveal that @CollegeBoard has been lying about the edits to the APAAS curriculum. They have been in contact with the DeSantis administration for over a year to tailor the course to the state’s anti-CRT policies. https://t.co/bvDomAMXIw

More details can be read in Sam Hoadley-Brill and Jon Boeckenstedt’s Twitter threads, both of whom brought attention to the letter. 

Some educators have been vocal in rejecting claims that the College Board stripped down the new AP curriculum following criticism from DeSantis. Kerry L. Haynie and Teresa Reed, two professors at the center of the controversy, penned an open letter rejecting any claim that the AP curriculum had bowed to political pressure.

“From our vantage point as members of the official AP African American Studies Development Committee, we’ve been concerned to see the work of more than 300 college professors caricatured and misrepresented as a political pawn,” they wrote.