ORLANDO, Fla. — Educators are speaking out as Gov. Ron DeSantis considers removing Advanced Placement courses from Florida schools.

What You Need To Know

  • Gov. Ron DeSantis considers removing AP courses from Florida schools

  • President of Florida Education Association calls it a political move

  • AP courses are administered through the College Board, which is having a back-and-forth with DeSantis over an African-American Studies course

Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, called it a political move. “It has nothing to do with my child or your child or anyone else’s children,” he said. “This has to do with the governor who has a political spat with the College Board.

At a press conference Monday, DeSantis suggested the state could stop using the College Board for AP courses, saying other vendors could potentially do it. He said the legislature is looking to reevaluate the state’s relationship with the College Board and is evaluating whether state schools should require the SAT or ACT. The SAT is administered by the College Board

“The College Board was the one, that in a Black studies course, put queer theory in,” DeSantis said. “They were the ones that put in intersectionality. They put in other types of Neo-Marxism into the proposed syllabus. And this is the proposed course, so our Department of Education looked at that and said in Florida we do education, not indoctrination.”

“I don’t understand what the purpose educationally of this action is,” said Mark Biber, a tutor with In-Home Tutors Orlando who benefited from Advanced Placement credit when he went to college. “AP was the only opportunity that I had in my high school experience to get college credit, to experience what college may be like, before committing to a whole bunch of time and money and sacrifices that you have to make to go there.”

Biber doesn’t want to see AP courses disappear without any alternative options. “I would want to understand what are the replacements for this and how are we giving students more options as opposed to limiting them.”