Even though the state Department of Education stated that it would authorize teaching the course in its entirety, eight of Florida’s eleven largest school districts have pulled AP Psychology from its course curriculum, leaving more than 28,000 students without a clear class plan days before the school year starts, the Washington Post reports.
Republican Florida Governor and the Ernst Röhm of the current conservative culture war Ron DeSantis demands Florida schools don’t teach subjects to students that make their straight, white, self-declared Christian parents feel uncomfortable, like slavery, gender studies, and literature. According to the College Board, a vital part of the AP Psychology curriculum is a study of how sex and gender influence society and personal development; without that subject address, the College Board would not certify the AP course.
More than 560 schools in Florida taught the AP Psychology class, but because of DeSantis’s authoritative dicta, schools are dropping the class, for which students can save money by getting college credits. Because of the DeSantis administration’s habit of changing policy talking points based on the political winds, school districts refuse to believe the state’s education officials about their consent to carry the course, fearful that the state’s top undersized autocrat will again change his direction in the future. Schools are switching to seminar courses on psychology or other college-level course curricula, which may not provide the opportunity to gain college credit.