Central Florida school districts respond to AP Psychology guidelines This article sought comment from ten different school districts in central Florida. Three have not yet responded, but the other...
This article sought comment from ten different school districts in central Florida. Three have not yet responded, but the other seven identified that they are no longer offering AP Psychology.
That quote in there from Senator Randy Fine is so incredibly painful to read. I almost hurt myself from how hard it made me facepalm. But it's hardly the first time I've heard a Republican blame...
That quote in there from Senator Randy Fine is so incredibly painful to read. I almost hurt myself from how hard it made me facepalm. But it's hardly the first time I've heard a Republican blame reality for being too "woke" when they hurt themselves with their own policy.
This is funny and a bit ironic, because I took AP Psychology and it taught me a lot of stuff I see and apply in the real world: conformation bias, cognitive dissonance, projection, personality...
This is funny and a bit ironic, because I took AP Psychology and it taught me a lot of stuff I see and apply in the real world: conformation bias, cognitive dissonance, projection, personality disorders, flow state, even some mindfulness and therapy. Definitely one of the most useful classes I took in high school. This is despite the fact that [psychology is apparently junk science according to Google](https://google.gprivate.com/search.php?search?q=is psychology junk science%3F) (I agree it’s mostly just recognizing patterns in human behavior, but these patterns tend to hold, and most aren’t intended to be seen as definite or quantitative but just things to look out for)
I agree, I love that this class is offered in high schools and I'm sad for Florida's kids. I wouldn't call psychology junk science, just very soft. It deserves the criticism it gets, after all it...
I agree, I love that this class is offered in high schools and I'm sad for Florida's kids.
I wouldn't call psychology junk science, just very soft. It deserves the criticism it gets, after all it headlined the reproducibility crises.
But that doesn't mean it's not useful, especially when combined with hard science like neurobiology. There has been a lot of great science done in psychology over the years, even if the larger part of it has been questionable. It was bound to be, we're insanely complex systems we don't fully understand.
Maybe I don't understand--why wouldn't an AP Psychology course be allowed to discuss the issues mentioned in the article? By any reading of the law, it seems totally above board.
Maybe I don't understand--why wouldn't an AP Psychology course be allowed to discuss the issues mentioned in the article? By any reading of the law, it seems totally above board.
No, "certain grade levels" is referring to K-3, and after that it must be age- and standards-appropriate. Read the actual text of the bill, section 3:
No, "certain grade levels" is referring to K-3, and after that it must be age- and standards-appropriate. Read the actual text of the bill, section 3:
Classroom instruction by school personnel or third
parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur
in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-
appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in
accordance with state standards.
That says it was expanded to K-8. Once again, reading the text you linked:
That says it was expanded to K-8. Once again, reading the text you linked:
Classroom instruction by school personnel or third
parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur
in prekindergarten kindergarten through grade 8, except when
required by ss. 1003.42(2)(n)3. and 1003.46. If such instruction
is provided in grades 9 through 12, the instruction must be 3 or
in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally
appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
This subparagraph applies to charter schools.
Let me highlight the important bit of what you quoted: We should take a look at what the state standards are, as defined in the bill. These state standards conflict with the content of the AP...
Let me highlight the important bit of what you quoted:
If such instruction is provided in grades 9 through 12, the instruction must be 3 or
in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally
appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
We should take a look at what the state standards are, as defined in the bill.
It shall be the policy of every public K-12 educational institution that is provided or authorized by the Constitution and laws of Florida that a person's sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person's sex.
"Sex" means the classification of a person as either female or male based on the organization of the body of such person for a specific reproductive role, as indicated by the person's sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and internal and external genitalia present at birth.
Classify males and females as provided in s. 1000.21(9) and teach that biological males impregnate biological females by fertilizing the female egg with male sperm; that the female then gestates the offspring; and that these reproductive roles are binary, stable, and unchangeable.
These state standards conflict with the content of the AP Psychology course which is why College Board is pulling the class from Florida.
Setting aside the bit about pronouns (that seems like obviously stupid governmental overreach), everything else you've quoted is... true? Literally every statement you quote about sex is factual....
Setting aside the bit about pronouns (that seems like obviously stupid governmental overreach), everything else you've quoted is... true? Literally every statement you quote about sex is factual. Like, Biology 101. The mushy bit everyone argues about is gender, not sex.
Read those standards again more carefully. According to the standards set in Florida law, it is "false" for a person's biological sex to differ from their gender identity (as signified by their...
The mushy bit everyone argues about is gender, not sex.
Read those standards again more carefully.
It shall be the policy of every public K-12 educational institution that is provided or authorized by the Constitution and laws of Florida that a person's sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person's sex.
According to the standards set in Florida law, it is "false" for a person's biological sex to differ from their gender identity (as signified by their pronouns). So yes, they are arguing about gender -- they're saying that non-cisgender identities do not exist.
Saying that you must use pronouns with respect to a person's sex does not mean they cannot be differently-gendered, as evidenced by the many people who identify as transgender but request the...
Saying that you must use pronouns with respect to a person's sex does not mean they cannot be differently-gendered, as evidenced by the many people who identify as transgender but request the pronouns of their sex. They absolutely are not saying that non-cisgendered people do not exist. They obviously do.
What about trans people who use pronouns that don't correspond to their biological sex? You know, the majority of them? As for DeSantis's obvious bias against trans people and distrust of...
as evidenced by the many people who identify as transgender but request the pronouns of their sex.
What about trans people who use pronouns that don't correspond to their biological sex? You know, the majority of them?
As for DeSantis's obvious bias against trans people and distrust of non-cisgender identities, don't take my word for it; take his.
Even biologically, that's not true. There are people born with indeterminate genitalia, people with rare hormone insensitivities, people with unusual sex chromosome pairings. The Florida standards...
Even biologically, that's not true. There are people born with indeterminate genitalia, people with rare hormone insensitivities, people with unusual sex chromosome pairings. The Florida standards expressly forbid acknowledgement of these people in education.
It's an attempt to eliminate nuance and indeterminacy, because such things are inimical to a conservative fundamentalist Christian worldview, and that's precisely what the Florida GOP is trying to enforce on its population.
There is this bit under section 1000.71 covering pronouns: How comprehensive this is, I'm do not know.
There is this bit under section 1000.71 covering pronouns:
This section does not apply to individuals born with a genetically or biochemically verifiable disorder of sex development, including, but not limited to, 46, XX disorder of sex development; 46, XY disorder of sex development; sex chromosome disorder of sex development; XX or XY sex reversal; and ovotesticular disorder.
Not to mention that transsexualism appears to be a form of neurological intersexism - just as innate and present at birth as any of the other DSD's. Medical intervention then changes most of the...
Not to mention that transsexualism appears to be a form of neurological intersexism - just as innate and present at birth as any of the other DSD's. Medical intervention then changes most of the rest of a person's sex characteristics, effectively changing sex in any meaningful sense. Thus, it's not immutable.
That's like saying "let's set aside the whole car and talk about the spark plugs" when the car is the bulk of the issue. Let me expand and break things down: (a) The state standard on "sexual...
Setting aside the bit about pronouns
That's like saying "let's set aside the whole car and talk about the spark plugs" when the car is the bulk of the issue. Let me expand and break things down:
(a) The state standard on "sexual orientation" education is not elaborated upon except to require:
... all materials used for specified instruction relating to reproductive health to be approved by the Department of Education; amending s. 1003.46, F.S.; providing additional requirements for certain instruction regarding human sexuality; requiring the department to approve specified instructional materials
So how K-9 through 12 is allowed to handle sexual orientation is murky at best. Sexual orientation is part of the AP Psych curriculum, and the Florida DoE, as it stands to today, is unlikely to approve of such material.
(b) The legislation defines male and female only in the context of biological sex and does not allow for the use of the gendered form of the words. This is affirmed in the bit about pronouns stating how any other use of the terms are "false". While sex and gender are often colloquially interchangeable, they are not in an academic setting. The quoted legislation above makes it clear that male and female can only be used in the biological sense defining them explicitly in the context of biological sex.
This chunk: Implies that that all of those factors are necessarily congruent, which is not always true, a fact which should be discussed in an educational course.
This chunk:
"Sex" means the classification of a person as either female or male based on the organization of the body of such person for a specific reproductive role, as indicated by the person's sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and internal and external genitalia present at birth.
Implies that that all of those factors are necessarily congruent, which is not always true, a fact which should be discussed in an educational course.
It comes down to how “age appropriate” and “state standards” are defined. From reporting from politico, it seems that the Florida Board of Education pressed CB to change elements of AP Psychology...
It comes down to how “age appropriate” and “state standards” are defined. From reporting from politico, it seems that the Florida Board of Education pressed CB to change elements of AP Psychology and that CB refused, leading to the Board of Education deciding to deny access to the course in the future.
In wake of this change, Florida’s Department of Education pressed the College Board in May to review its courses to determine if any “need modification to ensure compliance” with state laws and regulations, a stance that ultimately put the psychology class at risk.
The College Board — in a shift in how the nonprofit is handling Florida since the battle over Black history — responded by declining to alter the course. This move created a stalemate that is only now coming to a head as the fall semester nears, sparking new uncertainty for “tens of thousands” of Florida students set to take the course.
Florida education officials told school superintendents about the state’s decision to deny students access to the course during a Thursday conference call, according to a report from the USA Today Network.
Having taken the course, unless it’s really changed, it can only be presumed that the “standards” of the BoE exclude mention of said topics, given their brevity in AP Psych.
Precisely. The info you need isn’t in the law, it’s in the article. The Board of Education has ordered the schools it controls to stop teaching the facts required for this class. The law...
Precisely. The info you need isn’t in the law, it’s in the article. The Board of Education has ordered the schools it controls to stop teaching the facts required for this class. The law explicitly allows them to do this, but the story is what the Board is doing, not the law.
Just to add on to this point, the Florida law is intentionally vague about what it means for something to be "age appropriate" (try searching for "appropriate" in either bill and you'll discover...
Just to add on to this point, the Florida law is intentionally vague about what it means for something to be "age appropriate" (try searching for "appropriate" in either bill and you'll discover that the term has been left undefined). The entire purpose of this law is to chill speech the Florida GOP dislikes.
@stu2b50 already linked to the superseding bill Gov. DeSantis signed which expanded the coverage to K-12, but I just want to give some context of how this played out in the media: Supporters of...
@stu2b50 already linked to the superseding bill Gov. DeSantis signed which expanded the coverage to K-12, but I just want to give some context of how this played out in the media: Supporters of the bill kept harping on how the bill only would affect young students and minds where parental guidance was most valuable and wouldn't affect older students. After getting the original bill through -- they pivoted and pushed through HB 1069 to cover the higher grade levels.
The fact you were unaware of the expansion is an intended bit of subterfuge to muddy discussions around it.
I was aware of the expansion (which isn't even what people are saying it is), and I was simply responding directly to the bill that was linked, which was the prior version of the bill. I'm just...
I was aware of the expansion (which isn't even what people are saying it is), and I was simply responding directly to the bill that was linked, which was the prior version of the bill. I'm just reading what people are sending me.
There's two things going on. The first is the disallowment of any education on the topic up to eighth grade. The second is that instruction up to grade 12 must adhere to specific rules which are...
There's two things going on. The first is the disallowment of any education on the topic up to eighth grade. The second is that instruction up to grade 12 must adhere to specific rules which are incompatible with the CollegeBoard's course. Rather than strip the "offending content" the organization is deciding to pull the offering.
Maybe it's the authoritarian mental freeze effect? Make enough things very close to the thing you want to outlaw illegal and muddy the waters enough. Then the people will just mentally police...
Maybe it's the authoritarian mental freeze effect?
Make enough things very close to the thing you want to outlaw illegal and muddy the waters enough. Then the people will just mentally police themselves because they are unsure what is legal and not. Classic authoritarianism trick right there.
.. and we all know Florida Republicans love authoritarianism.
I think in this particular case DeSantis is the 100% reason for everything going down the toilet. He strong-armed Republicans in the Florida legislature to do many evil that they did not want to do.
I think in this particular case DeSantis is the 100% reason for everything going down the toilet. He strong-armed Republicans in the Florida legislature to do many evil that they did not want to do.
Is there any evidence for this? I remember watching members of the state congress on TV acting with barely contained glee at putting forward bills in full coordination with the DeSantis...
He strong-armed Republicans in the Florida legislature to do many evil that they did not want to do.
Is there any evidence for this? I remember watching members of the state congress on TV acting with barely contained glee at putting forward bills in full coordination with the DeSantis administration. The series of bills to take over the Reedy Creek special district in particular springs to mind as a moment where the legislature and executive were in lockstep.
Oh god yeah. So much. This is just one simple example : https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/florida-republicans-back-standoff-desantis-congressional-map-rcna23948 I mean I will not vote...
Central Florida school districts respond to AP Psychology guidelines
This article sought comment from ten different school districts in central Florida. Three have not yet responded, but the other seven identified that they are no longer offering AP Psychology.
This is such a wholly unnecessarily degradation of education. I really hope Florida voters remember this come next election cycle.
That quote in there from Senator Randy Fine is so incredibly painful to read. I almost hurt myself from how hard it made me facepalm. But it's hardly the first time I've heard a Republican blame reality for being too "woke" when they hurt themselves with their own policy.
This is funny and a bit ironic, because I took AP Psychology and it taught me a lot of stuff I see and apply in the real world: conformation bias, cognitive dissonance, projection, personality disorders, flow state, even some mindfulness and therapy. Definitely one of the most useful classes I took in high school. This is despite the fact that [psychology is apparently junk science according to Google](https://google.gprivate.com/search.php?search?q=is psychology junk science%3F) (I agree it’s mostly just recognizing patterns in human behavior, but these patterns tend to hold, and most aren’t intended to be seen as definite or quantitative but just things to look out for)
I agree, I love that this class is offered in high schools and I'm sad for Florida's kids.
I wouldn't call psychology junk science, just very soft. It deserves the criticism it gets, after all it headlined the reproducibility crises.
But that doesn't mean it's not useful, especially when combined with hard science like neurobiology. There has been a lot of great science done in psychology over the years, even if the larger part of it has been questionable. It was bound to be, we're insanely complex systems we don't fully understand.
Fixed link for the curious.
(URLs technically aren't supposed to have spaces, so you have to replace them with "%20")
Maybe I don't understand--why wouldn't an AP Psychology course be allowed to discuss the issues mentioned in the article? By any reading of the law, it seems totally above board.
H.B. 1557
(where "certain grade levels" is K-12, e.g everything before undergrad)
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/?Tab=BillText
No, "certain grade levels" is referring to K-3, and after that it must be age- and standards-appropriate. Read the actual text of the bill, section 3:
HB 1069 expanded it to K-12
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1069/BillText/er/PDF
That says it was expanded to K-8. Once again, reading the text you linked:
Let me highlight the important bit of what you quoted:
We should take a look at what the state standards are, as defined in the bill.
These state standards conflict with the content of the AP Psychology course which is why College Board is pulling the class from Florida.
Edit:
CollegeBoard's response: https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/statement-ap-psychology-and-florida
APA's response: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2023/06/sexual-orientation-gender-identity-florida-high-school
Setting aside the bit about pronouns (that seems like obviously stupid governmental overreach), everything else you've quoted is... true? Literally every statement you quote about sex is factual. Like, Biology 101. The mushy bit everyone argues about is gender, not sex.
Read those standards again more carefully.
According to the standards set in Florida law, it is "false" for a person's biological sex to differ from their gender identity (as signified by their pronouns). So yes, they are arguing about gender -- they're saying that non-cisgender identities do not exist.
Saying that you must use pronouns with respect to a person's sex does not mean they cannot be differently-gendered, as evidenced by the many people who identify as transgender but request the pronouns of their sex. They absolutely are not saying that non-cisgendered people do not exist. They obviously do.
What about trans people who use pronouns that don't correspond to their biological sex? You know, the majority of them?
As for DeSantis's obvious bias against trans people and distrust of non-cisgender identities, don't take my word for it; take his.
Even biologically, that's not true. There are people born with indeterminate genitalia, people with rare hormone insensitivities, people with unusual sex chromosome pairings. The Florida standards expressly forbid acknowledgement of these people in education.
It's an attempt to eliminate nuance and indeterminacy, because such things are inimical to a conservative fundamentalist Christian worldview, and that's precisely what the Florida GOP is trying to enforce on its population.
There is this bit under section 1000.71 covering pronouns:
How comprehensive this is, I'm do not know.
Not to mention that transsexualism appears to be a form of neurological intersexism - just as innate and present at birth as any of the other DSD's. Medical intervention then changes most of the rest of a person's sex characteristics, effectively changing sex in any meaningful sense. Thus, it's not immutable.
That's like saying "let's set aside the whole car and talk about the spark plugs" when the car is the bulk of the issue. Let me expand and break things down:
So how K-9 through 12 is allowed to handle sexual orientation is murky at best. Sexual orientation is part of the AP Psych curriculum, and the Florida DoE, as it stands to today, is unlikely to approve of such material.
This is why the APA and CB are raising a stink.
This chunk:
Implies that that all of those factors are necessarily congruent, which is not always true, a fact which should be discussed in an educational course.
It comes down to how “age appropriate” and “state standards” are defined. From reporting from politico, it seems that the Florida Board of Education pressed CB to change elements of AP Psychology and that CB refused, leading to the Board of Education deciding to deny access to the course in the future.
Having taken the course, unless it’s really changed, it can only be presumed that the “standards” of the BoE exclude mention of said topics, given their brevity in AP Psych.
Precisely. The info you need isn’t in the law, it’s in the article. The Board of Education has ordered the schools it controls to stop teaching the facts required for this class. The law explicitly allows them to do this, but the story is what the Board is doing, not the law.
Just to add on to this point, the Florida law is intentionally vague about what it means for something to be "age appropriate" (try searching for "appropriate" in either bill and you'll discover that the term has been left undefined). The entire purpose of this law is to chill speech the Florida GOP dislikes.
@stu2b50 already linked to the superseding bill Gov. DeSantis signed which expanded the coverage to K-12, but I just want to give some context of how this played out in the media: Supporters of the bill kept harping on how the bill only would affect young students and minds where parental guidance was most valuable and wouldn't affect older students. After getting the original bill through -- they pivoted and pushed through HB 1069 to cover the higher grade levels.
The fact you were unaware of the expansion is an intended bit of subterfuge to muddy discussions around it.
I was aware of the expansion (which isn't even what people are saying it is), and I was simply responding directly to the bill that was linked, which was the prior version of the bill. I'm just reading what people are sending me.
There's two things going on. The first is the disallowment of any education on the topic up to eighth grade. The second is that instruction up to grade 12 must adhere to specific rules which are incompatible with the CollegeBoard's course. Rather than strip the "offending content" the organization is deciding to pull the offering.
Edit. To add, here's the CollegeBoard's statement directly which explains this: https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/statement-ap-psychology-and-florida
As per the article's links, this was amended two months later by 1609, whose text is here.
Thanks for the link! I responded to @stu2b50 above.
Maybe it's the authoritarian mental freeze effect?
Make enough things very close to the thing you want to outlaw illegal and muddy the waters enough. Then the people will just mentally police themselves because they are unsure what is legal and not. Classic authoritarianism trick right there.
.. and we all know Florida Republicans love authoritarianism.
Florida is foing down the shitter. Desantis is holding the flush.
I think in this particular case DeSantis is the 100% reason for everything going down the toilet. He strong-armed Republicans in the Florida legislature to do many evil that they did not want to do.
Is there any evidence for this? I remember watching members of the state congress on TV acting with barely contained glee at putting forward bills in full coordination with the DeSantis administration. The series of bills to take over the Reedy Creek special district in particular springs to mind as a moment where the legislature and executive were in lockstep.
Oh god yeah. So much.
This is just one simple example : https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/florida-republicans-back-standoff-desantis-congressional-map-rcna23948
I mean I will not vote Republican for the next 20 years. But not all of them are evil.