Did Florida ban AP Psychology? Here's what you need to know

Just days before school starts, about 30,000 Florida students could have seen schedules changed and their college plans derailed because of a battle between the Florida Board of Education and the College Board over instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Florida superintendents were advised Thursday in a conference call that schools should not teach the Advanced Placement (AP) course on psychology unless it excluded content that violates last year's new law. The education non-profit College Board, which oversees the AP program and administers the SAT, released a statement saying courses taught without that content are no longer AP courses and the state has "effectively banned" it.

"We cannot modify AP Psychology in response to regulations that would censor college-level standards for credit, placement, and career readiness," the College Board said.

But then the next day, Florida Department of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. put out a letter reversing the advice to superintendents they could include AP Psychology but were instructed to exclude topics related to gender and sexual orientation to comply with Florida law, according to a statement by The College Board.

So the course stands. Here's what you need to know about it.

What is AP Psychology?

The Advanced Placement (AP) program allows high school students the opportunity to study undergraduate university-level courses. Each course ends in a test that may count for course credit, advanced placement, or both in colleges and universities in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, giving motivated students a head start on their higher education.

The curriculums are created by a panel of experts and college-level educators in each field of study and are audited and approved by the College Board, a nonprofit organization. Founded in 1900, the College Board has run the AP program since 1955 after it developed from a post-WWII education program.

AP Psychology is one of 38 different courses offered, which also includes art history, biology, college-level mathematics and physics, several languages and cultures, history, macro- and microeconomics, U.S. government and politics, and more.

In AP Psychology, students will "explore the ideas, theories, and methods of the scientific study of behavior and mental processes," according to the course description. The course looks at notable psychologists and studies, and students will "explore and apply" different theories, concepts and phenomena associated with "biological bases of behavior, sensation and perception, learning and cognition, motivation, developmental psychology, testing and individual differences, treatments of psychological disorders, and social psychology."

Is AP Psychology hard?

All AP courses are designed to be challenging and the final exam will be difficult. The AP Psychology course is designed to be the equivalent of the Introduction to Psychology course usually taken during the first college year.

In 2022, only 58% of the 170,666 students who took the AP Psychology in the U.S. scored a passing score of 3 or higher.

The reason many colleges and universities accept AP test scores for college credit is that those students have already proven themselves to be capable to college-level work.

Why was AP Psychology targeted in Florida?

There is an ongoing struggle between the College Board and the Florida Department of Education under Diaz and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis over AP curriculum.

Last year, DeSantis, who is running to be the Republican nominee for president, signed into law a measure officially known as the Parental Rights in Education Act but nicknamed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The law outlawed instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. This spring, the law was expanded to the 12th grade.

Unit 6.7 of the AP Psychology course specifically discusses gender and sexuality and includes the definitions of gender, sexuality, gender roles and stereotypes and their socialization factors.

In June, the state asked the College Board to review all their courses for compliance with Florida's new law. The College Board refused, stating in a letter that "we will not modify our courses to accommodate restrictions teaching essential, college-level topics."

Technically, the AP course is not officially banned by the state. "The Department didn’t 'ban' the course," the state education agency's Deputy Director of Communications Cassie Palelis wrote in a statement. The class is still listed in Florida’s Course Code Directory for the 2023-2024 year and some districts still plan to offer it.

But schools were told this week not to offer the course if it includes topics on gender and sexuality, and the College Board has stated unequivocally that "any course that censors required course content cannot be labeled "AP" or "Advanced Placement" and can't be named as such in a student's transcript or used for college credit or placement.

Gender and sexual orientation have been a part of the AP Psychology curriculum for the past 30 years, according to The College Board.

The American Psychological Association agreed.

“Educators cannot teach psychology and exclude an entire group of people from the curriculum,” APA CEO Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD. said in a response.

“Florida is proposing to remove an important body of science from the AP curriculum and test, which will leave students unprepared to continue studying psychology in college."

This would have left the course, as the College Board put it, "effectively banned" in the state of Florida.

How many Florida students take AP Psychology?

27,990 students in Florida took AP Psychology last year, according to figures provided by the College Board.

The school districts with the most AP Psychology exams were public schools in Miami-Dade County (3,098), Orange County (2,856), Broward County (2,383), Hillsborough County (1,828) and Pinellas County (1,306). Non-public schools across the state accounted for 2,386 more.

This fall, about 30,000 students were enrolled to take the course statewide, the College Board said.

Can you take AP Psychology in Florida?

Apparently. The course is still listed in Florida’s Course Code Directory for the 2023-2024 year, and after the initial report that Florida schools would have to modify the course, education commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. seemingly reversed course.

"In fact, the Department believes that AP Psychology can be taught in its entirety in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate and the course remains listed in our course catalog," Diaz wrote in a letter Friday

Still, teachers in Florida may be stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to navigate between College Board requirements that may leave a student's hard work ineligible for college credit and a state administration that has shown a dislike of gender studies that violate the official state position and a willingness to come down hard on defiance.

The state previously refused to approve the College Board’s AP African American Studies class, alleging it violated state law because of topics such as Black Lives Matter, Black feminism and reparations. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, school districts with mask mandates in defiance of DeSantis' wishes were threatened with loss of funding.

Is AP Psychology banned anywhere in Florida?

Palm Beach County school district spokesperson Angela Cruz Ledford announced Friday evening that despite Diaz's clarification, Palm Beach County students would not be able to take AP Psychology this year, citing the "uncertainty surrounding the viability of the AP Psychology exam and course credit in Florida."

Academic counselors and administrators will be reaching out to students enrolled in AP Psychology for the upcoming year to find "suitable alternatives."

Can you take AP Psychology online in Florida?

There are online learning providers that offer AP courses.

But not all online AP courses are accredited by the College Board. Be sure to check each learning provider against the AP Course Ledger before signing up for classes to verify that tests taken through that site will count toward college and university credit or placement.

Ana Goñi-Lessan, Tallahassee Democrat, contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Florida reverses AP Psychology ban in schools