New Jersey has announced the expansion of Advanced Placement African American studies across its schools.
In a move counter to Florida Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s decision last month to ban African American studies from the state’s high schools, New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, announced the expansion of the class subject yesterday while visiting a Newark high school.
The decision, which comes during Black History Month, will allow for African American studies to be taught in 26 New Jersey high schools during the 2023-2024 academic year. The class is currently in its initial stages of a two-year pilot program across the country, being taught in 60 schools nationwide, one of which is in New Jersey.
Units in the course framework include origins of the African diaspora, as well as freedom, enslavement and resistance, the practice of freedom, and movements and debates.
“The expansion of AP African American studies in New Jersey will grant our students the opportunity to learn about the innumerable ways in which Black Americans have shaped and strengthened our country,” said Murphy.
“As governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis prioritize political culture wars ahead of academic success, New Jersey will proudly teach our kids that Black history is American history. While the DeSantis administration stated that AP African American studies ‘significantly lacks educational value’, New Jersey will stand on the side of teaching our full history,” he added.
New Jersey’s decision has been met with praise from experts across the country.
In a statement to the Guardian, Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association – the country’s largest labor union – said: “At a time when some are trying to whitewash American history and culture and when some decision makers are censoring books and curtailing the freedom to obtain an honest education, we applaud New Jersey for expanding AP African American Studies to more schools in the state.”
Similarly, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) – the second largest teachers’ labor union in the country – praised Murphy’s move while condemning DeSantis.
“I commend Governor Murphy for expanding, not banning, AP African American studies because our students need the freedom to learn, and teachers the freedom to teach about this country’s true history – the good and the bad – without politics getting in the way,” Randi Weingarten, AFT’s president, said.
“By contrast, threatening to rip courses away because you’re in a spat with the College Board is the behavior of a bully, not a statesman. Sadly, Ron DeSantis has chosen to put his political ambitions over the aspirations of Florida’s kids,” she added, referring to DeSantis’s feud with the College Board, in which he said that the course is “inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value”.
The New Jersey branch of the American Civil Liberties Union also lauded Murphy’s decision. In a statement to the Guardian, ACLU-NJ executive director Amol Sinha said: “What we choose to teach our children comes down to values. Are we inclusive and accurate, or are we revisionist and bigoted? We cannot claim to teach American history without including Black history.”
In a similarly progressive move three years ago amid conservative pushback against social and science studies, New Jersey in 2020 became the first state to mandate climate change education across its K-12 learning standards.
