Florida Claims AP Psychology Course Is Not Banned Under “Don’t Say Gay” Rule

On the heels of the College Board’s declare that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration had barred key subjects in an Advanced Placement Psychology class, the Florida Department of Education is saying the course may be “taught in its entirety in a fashion that’s age and developmentally applicable.”

Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz despatched a letter to Florida college district superintendents, saying that the highschool psychology class, which incorporates subjects on sexual orientation and gender, would stay within the state’s course catalogue and may be taught in full.

The transfer follows August 3 statements from the College Board — the nonprofit group that approves AP coursework — which assert that the Florida Department of Education in impact had banned the category by limiting its classes on sexual orientation and gender below the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” laws. The College Board maintained the course can be incomplete if it chopped materials so as to adjust to state guidelines.

“Any AP Psychology course taught in Florida will violate both Florida legislation or faculty necessities,” the board wrote, saying it will withhold the “AP” designation except the state allowed the complete course to be taught.

The American Psychological Association (APA), the biggest skilled group of psychologists within the U.S., stated that elimination of the sexual orientation and gender subjects from the course would render it incomplete and insufficient.

“Requiring what’s successfully censored instructional materials does an unlimited disservice to college students throughout Florida, who will obtain an incomplete image of the psychological analysis into human improvement,” APA chief govt Arthur Evans Jr. stated in a press release.

According to the College Board, greater than 28,000 Florida college students took the AP Psychology course final college yr, making it one of the crucial widespread AP programs within the state. AP courses provide highschool college students the chance to earn faculty credit and enhance their weighted grade-point common.

In a press release supplied to New Times, the Department of Education says that it by no means “banned” the course.

“We encourage the College Board to cease enjoying video games with Florida college students and proceed to supply the course and permit lecturers to function accordingly,” the assertion reads. “The different superior course suppliers (together with the International Baccalaureate program) had no situation offering the school credit score psychology course.”

The wrangling over the course standing seems to mirror confusion — or obfuscation — over the patchwork of latest Florida legal guidelines and administrative guidelines limiting classes on sexual orientation and gender id subjects in public faculties.

In May, the College Board acquired a letter from the Department of Education’s Office of Articulation, directing the board to “instantly conduct a radical evaluation” of its class supplies to make sure they adjust to the brand new laws.

Among different measures handed in 2023, Florida enacted a legislation that expanded a “Don’t Say Gay” statute in order that classroom dialogue about sexual orientation and gender id can be banned till ninth grade. The new legislation famous that the subjects might be lined by lecturers in highschool in an “age-appropriate or developmentally applicable” method — the language Commissioner Diaz cited in his August 4 message to superintendents.

Diaz’s message didn’t, nonetheless, resolve potential conflicts that the AP Psychology course may need with a separate Department of Education administrative rule, which bars educating sexual orientation and gender id subjects except they’re “expressly required by state tutorial requirements” or are taught as “a part of a reproductive well being course or well being lesson for which a pupil’s guardian has the choice to have his or her pupil not attend.”

The Florida tutorial requirements for psychology, as posted on the Department of Education web site in June, don’t comprise particular references to gender id or sexual orientation, elevating the query of whether or not the AP Psychology class is compliant with the executive rule. There are sections on “trait principle,” “humanistic theories,” and “organic and situational influences,” although it is unclear if the psychology class’s classes on sexual orientation and gender would  fall below these sections.  

The board stated this week that DeSantis’ “anti-woke” laws considerably prohibit the course, and that it “can’t modify AP Psychology in response to guidelines that will censor college-level requirements for credit score, placement, and profession readiness.”

Evans stated that the APA stands with the College Board’s choice to not alter the course.

“Educators shouldn’t be required for purely political causes to censor a curriculum and check which can be grounded within the newest, most dependable analysis,” he stated. “And psychology professors can’t and mustn’t settle for for faculty credit score a course that ignores a vital side of sexuality and a complete group of individuals from its curriculum.”

AP Psychology asks college students to “describe how intercourse and gender affect socialization and different elements of improvement,” in keeping with the College Board.

This ingredient of the curriculum has been a part of AP Psychology because the course launched 30 years in the past, the board says.

In a press release to New Times, Miami-Dade County Public Schools spokesperson Jaquelyn Calzadilla Diaz wrote that the district is “exploring all choices to supply college students who had been enrolled within the Advanced Placement Psychology course the chance to earn faculty credit score.”

The Broward County college district didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.