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Sun Sep 17, 2023, 10:17 AM Sep 2023

Virginia Dept. of Education approves AP African American History course after months-long review

Virginia Dept. of Education approves AP African American History course after months-long review

Ivy Lyons | ilyons@wtop.com
September 17, 2023, 9:33 AM

After more than six months of review by the state’s education department, Virginia students will now be able to take the College Board’s Advanced Placement course covering African American studies. ... The Virginia Department of Education determined that the class did not conflict with Governor Glenn Youngkin’s controversial first executive order.

In a statement to WTOP, the department said that the course will be offered in some Virginia schools this year, during the final year of the College Board’s pilot. ... “The Secretary of Education’s office completed its review of the AP African American Studies course and found it does not violate Executive Order One,” a spokesperson told WTOP.

Officials with the College Board released the framework for its long-planned African American Studies course at the start of Black History Month. The course material, created in consultation with over 300 African American Studies professors across the country, is broken into units covering the origins of the African diaspora, scholarship on freedom, enslavement and resistance, the practice of freedom, and movements and debates.

“This course is an unflinching encounter with the facts and evidence of African American history and culture,” CEO of the College Board David Coleman said in a statement on the course framework. “No one is excluded from this course: the Black artists and inventors whose achievements have come to light; the Black women and men, including gay Americans, who played pivotal roles in the civil rights movement; and people of faith from all backgrounds who contributed to the antislavery and civil rights causes.”

{snip}

WTOP’s Abigail Constantino, Scott Gelman, Dick Uliano and Ciara Wells contributed to this report.

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Ivy Lyons
Ivy Lyons is a digital journalist for WTOP.com. Since 2018, they have worked on Capitol Hill, at NBC News in Washington, and with WJLA in Washington.

ilyons@wtop.com
@IvyALyons
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