photo credit: Mia Harrington
In 2022, College Board announced that it was creating two new courses that would be available to some schools starting in the 2023-24 school year. Those courses were AP Pre – Calculus and AP African American Studies. At the high school, this school year was the first year that AP Pre – Calculus was available for students to take while AP African American Studies might be available to students in the upcoming school years.
Both classes open many opportunities for students to receive more credited hours towards their college education as well as learning about these topics in an in-depth way.
For instance, AP Pre- Calculus “has given students a chance to obtain college credit for a math course that previously wasn’t an option,” Math teacher Marisa Hilvert said. “Honors Pre-Calculus was a rigorous course but had no grade advantage or college credit option and it is also proving to be a good stepping stone for AP Calculus.”
At the high school, this AP course replaced Honors Pre – Calculus, meaning that there were not a lot of difficulties with adding this class to the curriculum.
However, teaching some things has “been a bit challenging because there are not as many resources out there in terms of lesson material or exam preparation” for the class, according to Hilvert.
A big part of any AP exam is not only knowing the material but also knowing how to complete the multiple choice and free response portions of the exam within the allotted time. To teach this, many classes will look at data from previous years to better understand how to take the test, and because this course is so new, educators do not have that data yet.
“We are looking forward to having one year under our belt and seeing what develops after the first administration of the exam nationwide in May,” Hilvert said.
So far, there have been no concerns with the class and the content itself. However some people do not see the point of making this an AP course.
Scott DeRuiter, a precalculus and computer science teacher, said that precalculus is typically a high school class. Even though the class is offered at the college level, DeRuiter said it is more appropriate to offer at a high school level and therefore makes him question College Boards motivation behind the course addition because it is probably going to be a big money maker, according to El Estoque, a high school newspaper out of California.
On the other hand, a couple more concerns have arisen with the AP African American Studies course. Many of those concerns were raised by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others with a similar view.
The College Board released a draft last year outlining what it had in mind for the course and from this DeSantis and others with a similar view believed that this course was indoctrinating students. However, since the draft was released they have made some changes, according to the US News.
Once the College Board released the official curriculum, a lot of the subject matter that raised concerns in Florida and with other conservatives was no longer included. The board released a statement saying it did not change these parts of the curriculum due to political backlash but because of the input of professors and long-standing AP principles, according to the New York Times.
Despite the backlash, many other people are excited about opportunities this course can give to students.
“There are so many positives to adding a class like this. For one it enriches the cultural value that the school has to offer to the student body, obviously to African Americans but it also spreads cultural awareness to all other demographics,” Librarian and Black Empowerment Club advisor Austin Nunn said.
The course has many opportunities for students to not only learn more about African history but also conduct a research project.
In addition to the four main units the course focuses on, students will spend at least 15 class hours working on a course research project. At first the College Board had their own idea for this project. However, after receiving feedback they realized that a lot of students have many ideas and interests in certain topics that they would like to learn more about, and this project is a way for them to do so, according to the US News.
One of the main reasons why some students are interested in this course is because it covers a portion of history that is typically not currently taught in high schools.
“There is an equity issue with these topics where people are taught so much of certain aspects of history and then we leave out huge chunks of others. So, I think that this provides an opportunity to fill that gap and I think that there are a lot of students who want that gap to be filled,” Nunn said.
Overall, both of these classes offer great opportunities for students to not only receive credited hours for their college education but also to be able to learn about these topics in an in-depth way that has not been done before.
