Students, teachers call on SC education agency to add AP African American Studies to state list

Nacala McDaniels, a 2023 graduate who took AP African American Studies, speaks during a news conference at the Statehouse on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

COLUMBIA — Nacala McDaniels was excited when her high school in Richland County started offering Advanced Placement African American Studies in her senior year.

“It seemed as though the school system that was there to support all their students was taking a step in the right direction,” the 2023 graduate said during a news conference Tuesday.

In 2022-23, McDaniels’ high school, Ridge View in Columbia, was the only school in South Carolina picked by the College Board to participate in a national pilot of its new course — among 60 nationwide — ahead of the curriculum’s public release. The pilot was expanded in 2023-24 to 700 schools in 40 states, though it’s unclear how many of those were in South Carolina.

The College Board tweaked the framework in December ahead of its official launch in the coming school year, following accusations from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of a woke curriculum.

But the South Carolina Department of Education opted not to include the new course among its roster of AP classes for 2024-25.

School districts can still choose to offer it on their own as an honors-level course. And students can still take the College Board’s end-of-course AP test to potentially earn college credit. (College credit was not available in the pilot course.)

But the state only covers the cost of the test for AP classes on its list, according to College Board. That means the district or student would need to pay for the test, which costs up to $98 per student.

Deputy Superintendent Matthew Ferguson announced the decision in a June 4 memo to school officials across the state.

“In the years since this pilot began, there has been significant controversy surrounding the course concerning issues directly addressed by South Carolina’s General Assembly,” Ferguson wrote as one reason not to add it to the state list of AP courses.

He’s referring to existing state law that prohibits racist concepts from being taught in K-12 schools and pending legislation Republican leaders contend is supposed to clean up that law and clarify that they don’t want to stifle instruction on the ugly parts of history.

A panel of legislators recently reached a compromise on the chambers’ differing versions of the bill. But the compromise requires supermajority approval in the House and Senate in an upcoming special session to advance to Gov. Henry McMaster’s desk. Otherwise, the effort dies for the year.

Concepts banned from K-12 classrooms since 2021 include any race being superior to another, anyone being responsible for past atrocities because of their race, and that traits such as hard work are oppressive and racist. The bill purposefully left out a line in current law banning lessons that make a student “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his race or sex.”

Besides the ongoing debate, Ferguson said, all of South Carolina’s social studies standards are coming up for their normal review.

“As a result, the (department) has not approved any new statewide social studies courses, instead focusing efforts to ensure future course offerings are aligned both with the soon-to-be-updated standards and state law,” Ferguson wrote.

South Carolina is also not putting AP Pre-Calculus on its AP roster for 2024-25. But it was the decision on AP African American Studies that raised alarms for advocates who saw removing it as a way of erasing Black history from public schools.

“To no longer offer this course is not only insulting to the Black community but also to the students who have a passion for learning,” said McDaniels, an elementary education major at Clemson University.

Advocates say the course does not violate existing law or the pending legislation. Instead, it covers a history of African cultures, slavery, the Civil Rights movement and notable African American figures throughout history.

Deciding not to add the class “implies that the study of African Americans is politically biased and inherently a form of indoctrination,” said Clementine Jordan, a rising sophomore at the University of South Carolina who also took the course at Ridge View High.

However, Ferguson’s memo reads, “there is nothing preventing districts from continuing to offer AP African American Studies as a locally-approved honors course should they choose to do so, in addition to continuing to offer other approved African American courses as districts have already done for a number of years.”

But that’s not enough, said Jennifer Bartell Boykin, a teacher at Spring Valley High School.

Advanced Placement classes allow students to earn college credit while still in high school, if they pass the end-of-course test with a high enough score, which can save them time and money in pursuing their degree, Bartell Boykin said.

“That is unacceptable, since it degrades the class from its original purpose of offering students the college-level instruction that AP courses provide,” Bartell Boykin said.

Last year, the scores on about two-thirds of AP exams taken by students in South Carolina were high enough to earn college credit.

AP courses also help boost grade point averages for students competing for class rankings.

While honors classes are weighted more heavily than other classes in calculating a student’s GPA, AP courses are weighted on an even higher scale. High-achieving students might opt to take another AP class instead of a lower-level African American history course to maintain their GPA lead, said Biana Woodard, who teaches history at Midland Valley High School.

The education agency “maintains its unwavering commitment to teaching the factual historical experience of African Americans to our students. We will continue to proactively seek ways to highlight the innumerable contributions black South Carolinians have made to our state, our nation, and the world,” Ferguson said in the memo, which pointed to programs such as an essay contest focused on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Programs like that cannot replace what students learned in the AP African American Studies class, advocates said. The class goes deeper on topics not covered in typical U.S. History classes but are important for people of all races to know, said Rep. Jermaine Johnson.

“We must teach the truth, because if they remove this from one class, they are effectively whitewashing history,” the Hopkins Democrat said.

Editor’s Note: This article has been corrected to reflect that South Carolina students will still be able to take the College Board’s AP African American Studies end-of-course test for college credit.  

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