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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29463 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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The Washington Post reports: Florida schools drop AP Psychology after state says it violates the law, a good example of the media getting as close to lying as you can get while still remaining in not-quite-lying territory.

As far as I know, this all started last Thursday, when the College Board issued a statement regarding its AP Psychology course and Florida law. In this statement, the College Board wrote: "The state has said districts are free to teach AP Psychology only if it excludes any mention of [content on sexual orientation and gender identity]."

Citation (desperately) needed! Contrary to what the College Board says, I have been unable to find any source on the internet prior to the College Board's statement corroborating their claim about what the Florida department of education requires. The Washington Post claims that the statement was based on a "conference call" between the board of education and school superintendents, but again, I have found no stories where the reporter interviews someone involved in the call in order to confirm the College Board's characterization of what was said.

On the contrary, on Friday, the day after the College Board published its statement, the director of the Florida Department of Education wrote a letter to the school superintendants, clarifying that

In fact, the Department believes that AP Psychology can be taught in its entirety in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate and the course remains listed in our course catalog

As far as I know, this letter is the only official statement from the Florida Department of Education regarding the application of the Parental Rights in Education ("Don't Say Gay") law to the teaching of AP Psychology. And yet a google search of "ap psychology Florida" returns headline after headline of major news outlets reporting the College Board's interpretation of this law as if Florida had gone out and "banned" the teaching of AP Psychology in its schools.

Without knowing anything about the conference call (because no reporter bothered to check), I have to caveat that maybe Florida did suggest that some parts of AP Psychology could not be taught, only to backtrack after being called out by the College Board. But for me, it seems like a dishonest characterization of the law intended to make Florida and DeSantis look bad.

EDIT:

Okay, having done a bit more research by going back to read the College Board's previous statements on this matter, I have to admit that my characterization was mistaken. In particular, in their June statement on the AP Psychology course, they reference correspondence from the Florida Department of Education Office of Articulation (what a name!), asking the College Board to affirm that their AP Psychology course conforms to the new Florida law. Still not a "ban," but definitely the College Board is not engaged in the unprovoked attack on Florida that I was imagining. There was definitely some provocation.

I do still think this is more about grandstanding by the College Board than a straightforward application of the law, but I was wrong in thinking that the College Board was one-sidedly attacking the Florida Department of Education.

The Washington Post reports: Florida schools drop AP Psychology after state says it violates the law

If only.

Dateline 1723: Gazette de France reports: Venerable University of Utrecht drops medical classes after state finds it violates the law against heresy.

What tragedy! Where will now Dutch students study the four humors science, where will they learn the proper methods and proper astrological signs for bloodletting and applying leeches?

Even by standards of modern sciences, psychology stands out as complete fraud.

Not all of it - there is one part of psychological science - one involving IQ and racial differences in IQ - that reliably replicates and stands to scrutiny. Something tells me that Florida psychology courses do not cover this.

One can only wish that DeSatanis got his pitchfork out for real and cleaned this nest of superstition Khmer Rouge style. One can dream.

It appears that unit 1 (10-14% of exam) AP Psych is about general research methodology. Unit 2 (8-10%) is about Biological Bases of Behavior, such as the endocrine system and the brain. Unit 3 (6-8%) is about Sensation and Perception. Unit 4 (7-9%) is re Learning, including Pavlov and Skinner, Unit 5 (13-17%) is Cognitive Psychology, including memory retrieval and storage and Biases and Errors in Thinking. Unit 6 (7-9%) is Development Psychology. That's a awful lot of baby to throw out with the bathwater.

Even in that Twitter link, Psychology replicated better than Oncology and about even with economics. I agree that psychology is mostly bullshit, but given the abysmal replication rates of other sciences, I agree with the person posting the images — we have a giant problem with replication outside of the hard sciences (and I suspect that a lot of the softer bits of hard sciences like astronomical sciences, or ecology or zoology) such that I don’t think you can simply take it at face value.

Even in that Twitter link, Psychology replicated better than Oncology and about even with economics.

No one said the Khmer Rouge has to stop at psychology.

deleted

Crippling college applications to psychology programs is probably a net positive for both the students and the society. Keep the AP engineering and physics, encourage bright and ambitious kids to go there instead.

Unless colleges themselves start dropping Gen Ed requirements (which they should), AP courses of nonsense subjects are incredibly useful because they let you bypass them in college. I took AP Psychology and AP Government in highschool, they were mostly pointless, I passed the exam, and then when I went to college I had two fewer useless class eating my time and money so I could learn math and physics. (I also took AP classes for some of those too, but that just let me fastforward to more advanced ones in my major)

I certainly didn't have any psych requirement when I was in college. YMMV.

What about the ambitious but intellectually average students who excel in AP psych? What of their greatness?

I am of course sure that the answer from motteizeans is going to be ‘fuck em, don’t insist on educational opportunities you’re not smart enough to take advantage of’, but that ship sailed a long long time ago in America.

What about the ambitious but intellectually average students who excel in AP psych?

They still should not engage with political statements masquerading as science. Be more honest and take AP Poly Sci instead.

Apparently there is now AP precalculus. Just go with the flow and make everything AP.

I'm generally opposed to lowering standards but given that many colleges do offer a precalculus level course that counts for college credit this is probably a good thing

Wasn’t the whole point of AP courses to transcend the limitations of the standard high school curriculum - which should include precalculus in some form?

But if you’re good at precalculus you already don’t have to take it in college. It’s not “advanced placement”, it’s normal placement.

They'll benefit the most from being steered towards something useful instead.

I'm frequently confused by the opprobrium that gets elicited by academic psychology.

Do you think that the concept of psychology is fine, but it's just been irredeemably corrupted by political bias? Or do you think that there should be some sort of systematic study of human thought and behavior, but the methods currently employed by psychology (even in their most idealized form) are inadequate to the task? Or do you think that there should simply be no institutionalized study of human thought and behavior at all?

Have you.. met a psychology grad?

If yes, ask them if they are employed.

But the question then becomes as what? How many of them are employed in a useful job that makes use of their intellectual capacity? I think the same of humanities and liberal arts, they tend not to be employed at high level jobs.

To answer the original question, I think psychology should be replaced more or less by neurological sciences. It’s not wrong to ask why humans do what they do, but psychology lacks rigor and empirical studies that are common in other fields. In short, if it were held to the same standards as other sciences, it would probably be seen as unscientific.

Psychology because of the lack of rigor has unleashed a lot of problems. The advice they give is generally bad for relatively normal people, as it tends to cause people to overthink their feelings and turn them into facts. A person who’s depressed and goes to therapy will be told that their feelings are true and valid, and to focus on feelings. You tell them to feel better. But if you’re focused on the lies your brain is telling you, then you’ll take them at face value. And for normal people, the approach tends to create pathology as people try to be happy, and when something goes wrong, fall to pieces because they’ve been taught that they’re fragile. This leads to anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses, or to turning a fleeting into a full blown identity.

Or do you think that there should simply be no institutionalized study of human thought and behavior at all?

I might agree with that. I think we're very lucky the whole thing ended up to be sham so far, the moment they crack the mystery of the human mind, we're getting, for all intents and purposes, enslaved.

I'm frequently confused by the opprobrium that gets elicited by academic psychology.

The entire edifice is and always has been based entirely on fraud. The field as a whole has probably been the most influential branch of "science" in terms of direct social and political impact. Its theories having driven the mass-rewriting of large portions of our society, despite being unmitigated bullshit. That influence is entirely the result of systematic lying on the part of its practitioners and advocates, who have never honestly engaged with or accounted for their failures. Its history is my go-to example for why the Enlightenment is a bad idea, and why rationalist positivism of the sort endorsed by @fuckduck9000 in our ongoing debates is foolish and self-destructive: it demonstrates that motivated lying outperforms truth-seeking in Enlightened, rationalist societies hands-down and for arbitrary lengths of time.

Do you think that the concept of psychology is fine, but it's just been irredeemably corrupted by political bias?

What, in your view, is the "concept" of psychology? Because from where I'm sitting, the concept is and always has been "come up with a story for how the brain works and why that means society has to be changed to match your preferences, fake some evidence, smear dissenters as anti-science luddites, claim the resulting disaster proves you should be granted more power".

Or do you think that there should be some sort of systematic study of human thought and behavior, but the methods currently employed by psychology (even in their most idealized form) are inadequate to the task?

That seems accurate. People can study whatever they want, so long as they're honest about what the evidence actually shows and where its limits are. Psychology has never been able to do that.

Or do you think that there should simply be no institutionalized study of human thought and behavior at all?

If forced to choose between what we've actually gotten and no study at all, I'd happily choose no study at all. It seems obvious to me that the field as a whole has been strongly net-negative for its entire history.

I think your criticism of psychology would actually be true of most of the university endeavor. It’s no longer a place (outside of extremely hard sciences) of dispassionately going where the evidence leads. Most of the research done in soft “sciences” or humanities is much more about finding the answers you actually want, or in twisting texts and history to tell the narrative of human nature the way you need it to be to get the outcome you want.

And this, I personally believe is why so much of modern society has gone off the rails as compared to our ancestors. When issue advocates can sneak their pet ideas into the narrative by publishing them in a academic journals, teach them unopposed in college classrooms, and slowly trickled out to broader society without them having to meet even the sniff-test of replication (which is not exactly a high bar anyway, but more of a fraud and absolute bullshit detection method). When people believe untrue things, and act as if they are true, society in general declines, and unless it’s stopped, it collapses into the sea of ignorance and superstition. And on the way out, it creates absolute human misery as people do things that don’t work, create cultures that don’t achieve, and so on.

Real, rigorous study has never actually failed when applied honestly. Nations who value it tend to punch very high above their weight given their populations and natural resources. Jews without a state for thousands of years managed to punch so far above their weight that people needed to invent conspiracies to explain it. The cultures of East Asia following Confucius managed to produce great civilizations even in places like Japan where there weren’t a lot of natural resources to sell.

Do you think that the concept of psychology is fine, but it's just been irredeemably corrupted by political bias?

Yes.

the methods currently employed by psychology (even in their most idealized form) are inadequate to the task?

Yes. Most effective research into the realm is now currently banned as unethical.

In principle, I could imagine that it would be an actual scientific field. I don't have any idea how to get it there though, and I don't think anyone else does either. If people want to tinker with that on private dollars, more power to them. For what it's worth, I value non-scientific insights from psychologists that don't dress their work up with fake scientific rigor. At this time, I think subsidies for both academic and clinical psychology are a net draw on society though.

More to the point, I would strongly advise any bright, enterprising student to pick another field, either one that's more ruminative or one with more scientific rigor. Eliminating AP Psychology, hopefully, would be a step towards nudging kids in that direction.

Motte: teaching AP Psych in Florida is a liability. “Age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards” is vague as hell, and the administration remains interested in waging the culture war. This is a textbook chilling effect.

Bailey: DeSantis is coming for your kids! Worse, he’s going to cripple their college applications! Panic!!

I’m not sure if the motte is convincing. Florida has not, as far as I can tell, sanctioned any district or teacher for age-inappropriate curriculum. The strategy is instead to ban a book, or just remove material en masse, citing the law. This is the whole point of an institutional advantage: they don’t have to do any enforcement if people fall in line.

On the other hand, I am sympathetic to the fear that mentioning sexuality opens teachers up to a lawsuit. Specifically, parents may be entitled to damages. A heckler’s veto is a bad idea, especially when parents are known to have a hair-trigger. In Florida, we do already have an example of one woman going after a number of books. Good luck mentioning Freud without offending at least one parent!

This doesn’t justify the media coverage, which is firmly outside any motte. Florida authorities really don’t seem to have taken any direct shots at AP Psych or even the College Board. Though if the latter keeps making statements like this, I won’t be surprised when Florida decides to escalate.

Edit: further evidence suggests Florida did in fact accuse CB first.

This is super weird. The College Board appears to be flat-out grandstanding; their interpretation of the Florida law, even assuming they are not being disingenuous for purely culture war reasons, is in absolutely no way binding on Florida residents. They're not a court, or a legislature. They are, if anything, arguably engaged in the unauthorized practice of law by giving legal advice to schoolteachers and administrators.

But then, apparently, some number of school districts have chosen to believe the College Board (or pretend to believe the College Board) over and above the advice of the Florida Department of Education. This is mind-boggling, like telling the President of the U.S. to fuck off because Google told you what the law really is. The district statement linked in the article says:

In essence, if we don’t teach all of the content, our students will not receive AP credit. If we do teach all of the content, our instructors will violate the law.

But the College Board is a private company that assigns AP credit entirely on the basis of a single exam. Eligibility to take the exam is not limited to students enrolled in "approved" AP classes! According to the registration page, "If you’re homeschooled or you go to a school that doesn’t administer AP Exams, you’ll need to arrange to take exams at a local school that does administer them." So long as some private school in Florida is approved by the College Board to administer the AP Psychology exam, there's nothing stopping students from pursuing that credit even if the College Board makes good on its threat, which it seems unlikely to do. And as I understand it, no AP class can cover all possible material anyway; the AP teachers I know are constantly working to guess what items will appear on the exam in which years, so as to better focus their lesson planning.

Basically, someone on the College Board appears to have decided to grandstand, and a whole bunch of gullible educators are now being used as props in an institutional campaign against Ron DeSantis, who doesn't even appear well-positioned to get the nomination at this point. I would be very interested in thoughts on how the College Board can be punished for this defection from the standard that educational advantages should not be denied to children based solely on the political identity of their state's governor.

EDIT:

I was wrong in thinking that the College Board was one-sidedly attacking the Florida Department of Education.

Here is the relevant language from the letter the Florida people sent to the College Board in May:

Based on recent changes to State Board of Education rule and Florida law, we implore you to immediately conduct a thorough review of all College Board courses ... and inform [us], by June 16, 2023, whether these courses need modification to ensure compliance. Some courses may contain content or topics prohibited by State Board of Education rule and Florida law.

So a government body says to a private company "hey, you're an important participant in our state's education program, but our new state law may have some influence on how that continues in the future. Can we get you to jump through some hoops so we can keep doing business with you?" And the private company responds, "[we] will not modify our courses."

It's really important to notice that wasn't the question! The letter raised the possibility of modification, but did not actually request it; what it requested was an audit ensuring compliance with state law, which is a perfectly normal request when dealing with private parties participating in public education. If I were running the College Board, my immediate response would be "Just conducted a content audit; seems to me that all the material in our course is age-appropriate for 9-12 graders. You might consider adding a permission/informed consent slip for parents to sign just in case, throw in some language about them agreeing that the material is age appropriate. Pleasure doing business!"

So yeah, this does look like it was a pretty one-sided attack from the College Board.

I’m not sure what to think about the inciting event.

There’s also a little context I’d missed. When Florida attacked AP African-American History,

  1. We never received written feedback from the Florida Department of Education specifying how the course violates Florida law, despite repeated requests…The first and only written feedback we have received was through a tweet from Commissioner Diaz posted on January 20, 2023.
  2. Your February 7, 2023 letter alludes to course topics that you characterize as “historically fictional,” but does not specify which topics or why.
  3. …Your letter claims that we removed 19 topics that were present in the pilot framework at the behest of FDOE. This is inaccurate.
  4. We did not provide FDOE a “preview” of the College Board’s official framework.
  5. Finally, we need to clarify that no topics were removed because they lacked educational value.

This suggests that Florida has a prior history of pushing curriculum changes—and running premature victory laps—without reaching an agreement. In that light, Florida’s May letter was probably viewed as the start of another six-month squabble. The College Board could just be skipping ahead in the script.

Of course, Florida denied that. More details here claim that the College Board was being dishonest, and that FBOE was acting on leaked information. Frustratingly, I can’t find the original February 7 letter.

I would tend to agree that CB would have been better served by insisting they were already compliant. It probably wouldn’t have placated Florida. So I haven’t ruled out the possibility that this saved them some time.

Edit: letter is here.

On 7/22/22, the College Board’s Brian Barnes responded (inaccurately) in writing how the course did not conflict with Florida law.

So…they tried it. Florida said they were full of shit, various reviews were triggered, and they still had no agreement by February.

Come June, and Florida sends a similar warning about a different course. College Board decides to skip the pleasantries. And here we are.

Frustratingly, I can’t find the original February 7 letter.

It's barely-noticeably linked at the bottom of your second link.

But the very first point in its "recap" of communications is:

From January 2022 to June 2022 the College Board exchanged emails with FDOE’s Office of Articulation seeking to add AP African American Studies to the Credit by Exam list and the Course Code Directory

So this is a discussion that had been happening, apparently, for quite some time, with many emails to go through, and which the College Board decided to "take public" as, apparently, a negotiating tactic.

I am, for a variety of personal and professional reasons, not a fan of detached administrative interference in classroom content. But I am certainly more open to the regulation of public education by politically accountable figures, than by unaccountable NGOs like the College Board. It is apparently a somewhat recurring theme with the DeSantis administration that Florida lawmakers are not going to be pushed around by corporate-sponsored social agendas. I can understand why the College Board would prefer to not have its nationwide content influenced by the vagaries of one state's lawmaking. I can understand why Florida lawmakers would prefer not to have 25% of its annual expenditures going to teaching content over which it has no control.

But all of that only applies to the African-American Studies dispute. The psychology dispute seems more like an own goal by the College Board. There was nothing stopping them from just saying "yeah this all looks age-appropriate to us, please speak up if you disagree."

The College Board could just be skipping ahead in the script.

Important to note that classes start in about 25 calendar days, so it is important to the Florida schools (the College Board's clients) to figure out whether to offer the class now, rather than in December.

Important to note that classes start in about 25 calendar days

This is a minor point, but a quick Google search suggests that Jacksonville and Miami schools start next week, and Tallahassee, Tampa, and Orlando schools actually start tomorrow.

Quite a number of these sorts of CW issues, especially in Florida recently, seem to take the form of partisans from one side intentionally taking uncharitable readings of (admittedly often vague) laws enacted by the other side's lawmakers.

Legislature bans sexual content in elementary school libraries? Better make sure we clear out the most milquetoast books fitting that description and shout about how they're banning books. They aren't necessarily wrong about how the content limits are to be enforced (doubly so since they'd be the ones to blame if the content was found objectionable), but at the same time I think most reasonable people would agree that the collected works of Hugo finalist Chuck Tingle aren't appropriate for elementary school libraries.

Unfortunately I'm not aware of a better answer than more explicitly (heh) codifying exactly what is and is not allowed. But at the same time there is a reason for the "I know it when I see it" standard: it's not clear that sharp lines can be drawn at all.

This is the good old malicious compliance technique. You want to cut our budgets? We will find the program working with most sympathetic, most photogenic and most poor orphans and start cuts there, while crying "oh why you hate orphans so much!". You want to regulate our content? We find the most innocent content and maliciously misunderstand the rules to ban it, then go and complain to the local press. You want to inspect our programs? We'll ask you to sign off on every typo fix in every booklet, and then complain you're blocking us from fixing typoes because you hate education and want the students to be illiterate. And so on. It's a war, after all, even if just a culture war.

Unfortunately I'm not aware of a better answer than more explicitly (heh) codifying exactly what is and is not allowed. But at the same time there is a reason for the "I know it when I see it" standard: it's not clear that sharp lines can be drawn at all.

This is a particularly astute comparison given that extant "obscenity" laws are only constitutional (if at all) based on a "community standards" approach. I have a vague memory of a case where someone (in Utah maybe?) was charged with obscenity and beat the charge by showing evidence that people in the community watched more porn than they cared to publicly admit. Post-Ashcroft, obscenity laws are what remain to regulate stuff like computer-generated or hand-drawn pornography that people wish was illegal, but is in many contexts protected by the First Amendment.

The alternative to explicitly codifying everything down to the letter, is to have a homogeneous community culture (or, perhaps, to have such a radically heterogeneous culture that no single group's values ever meaningfully interfere with the others). What we have in the U.S. today is, I think, increasingly just two cultures, violently competing for the upper hand. Each of these cultures is cheerfully authoritarian, with little inclination toward compromise (and, maybe, less such inclination with each passing day). Without recognizable "community standards" to govern these things, indeed with substantial numbers of people being directly contrarian about the very existence of community standards, I'm not sure that even explicit codification will suffice as a solution.

It appears the College Board and the press are conspiring to tell untruths on this. The relevant section of the law appears to say:

"Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in prekindergarten 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 in a manner that is age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."

The course would be unlawful to teach in middle school, but most of the time AP courses are taught in high school.

It seems pretty clear to me what happened. The Florida Department of Education of thinks it’s perfectly fine to teach AP Psychology without the gender identity and sexual orientation stuff, and the college board thinks those topics are integral to the course and cannot be omitted.

Of course, a media worth a shit would actually get into the weeds of the curriculum to find out what the gender and sexuality topics really are and how inseparable they are from the rest of the course. Unfortunately you’re going to have to do your own research.

To be fair to the College Board here, I have no clue what counts as “age appropriate” content for 11th and 12th graders either.

It seems pretty clear to me what happened. The Florida Department of Education of thinks it’s perfectly fine to teach AP Psychology without the gender identity and sexual orientation stuff, and the college board thinks those topics are integral to the course and cannot be omitted.

This is clearly not what happened. The FDE statement doesn't say the gender identity and sexual orientation stuff must be omitted; the relevant law is quite clear that such instruction may be offered in grades 9-12. The College Board appears to be claiming that its material is not age-appropriate for high schoolers, or at least that the Florida Law is likely to deem it so. But there is no apparent basis for the College Board to believe this. The statute is arguably vague, but if they weren't just playing culture war politics the College Board should be arguing that its material is age appropriate, not that the law forbids its inclusion.

I suspect this is a hold the line thing. The intent of the college board has little to do with the content being legally taught or age appropriate. The intent is to warn off any other states that might think about trying this with a strong message of “you better teach exactly what we tell you to teach or we won’t accept the credits.” The point is to create a PMC Karen backlash where PMC tiger mothers demand the law be changed.

TBH I think it would be entirely reasonable to say if your kids cannot pass the test with the inclusion of LGBT content they don’t get the credits.” This would allow the option of supplemental material studied outside of class at parents’ discretion.

This is clearly not what happened. The FDE statement doesn't say the gender identity and sexual orientation stuff must be omitted; the relevant law is quite clear that such instruction may be offered in grades 9-12.

Although I suspect that you are probably correct that the College Board is being disengenuous when it says that the course cannot be offered without the gender/sexuality stuff (it is a small part of the course; in my experience, albeit re AP World rather than AP Psych, teachers are not expected to have time to cover literally anything; hence, I suspect but do not know that the AP Course Audit has in the past approved individual teachers' syllabi that do not include coverage of gender/sexuality), the FDE's May 19 letter to the College Board says the following:

On April 19, 2U23, the State Board of Education amended Rule 6A-10.081, Florida Administrative Code (F.A.C.), Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession in Florida, to prohibit Florida educators from intentionally providing classroom instruction to students in grades 4 through 12 on sexual orientation or gender identity unless such instruction is either expressly required by state academic standards as adopted in Rule 6A-1.09401, F.A.C., or is part of a reproductive health course or health lesson for which a student's parent has the option to have his or her student not attend.

Since AP Psychology is neither required by state academic standards nor a reproductive health course, that certainly sounds like they were saying at that time that including those subjects in an AP Psych class is unlawful, or at least that an AP Psych teacher who taught that material would be subject to discipline.

Rule 6A-10.081 seems to be going beyond the law. The restriction to required or reproductive health courses in the law is not about classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity but on instructional materials which "depict or describe sexual conduct". Could be administrative error in creating the rule, could be malicious compliance.

I think perhaps you are looking at a different law (HB 1069).

HB 1557 indeed applies to instruction:

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.

I agree that the State Board of Education has indeed interpreted the latter part broadly (though perhaps not incorrectly).

HB 1069 (2023) in part amends HB 1557 (2022). It does have the "age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate" language, but neither bill applies "unless such instruction is either expressly required by state academic standards as adopted in Rule 6A-1.09401, F.A.C., or is part of a reproductive health course or health lesson for which a student's parent has the option to have his or her student not attend" to instruction on sexual orientation; that is only applied to depictions and descriptions of sexual acts.

There is separate language in 1069 re instruction on sexual orientation:

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.

See page 7 of enrolled version of bill.

That's the same language, amended. You may note that if you remove the italicized sections and restore the struck-out sections, you have the HB 1557 version. HB 1069 basically just extended the prohibition from K through 3 to pre-K through 8. For high school (grades 9-12), the requirement is the same: "age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards"

In neither bill does the "unless such instruction is either expressly required..." appear in that section; that's from a totally different part of the law.

This is a good point, and I am inclined to agree with you. On the other hand, I would point to the boring-seeming reference to "state academic standards as adopted in Rule 6A-1.09401", which when you look it up just establishes standards under various names like "Sunshine Math" for each subject. AP Psychology is definitely not part of those standards.

Still, if I were a lawyer representing a teacher accused of professional misconduct for teaching about sexuality and gender identity, I would argue that the clear intention of that reference was to authorize teaching about sexuality and gender identity, if such teaching was integral to a course recognized as important by the Florida Board of Education. In other words, teachers shouldn't just "go rogue" and teach whatever they want to students about sexuality and gender that has nothing to do with meeting state standards, but if the sexuality and gender identity content forms an established part of the course they are teaching, then they will be okay.

Like I said, I'm inclined to agree with your interpretation, but I do think if you read past the letters and numbers of Rule 6A-1.09401 there is an argument there that the law does not impact teachers' ability to teach about sexuality and gender identity to the extent that such teaching is necessary for the AP Psychology curriculum.

Yeah, I would make the same argument, were I the lawyer for a teacher. But I wouldn't expect to win!

Since AP Psychology is neither required by state academic standards nor a reproductive health course, that certainly sounds like they were saying at that time that including those subjects in an AP Psych class is unlawful

But the amount of material incorporated by reference there is... daunting, I guess I want to say. Rule 6A-1.09401 leads with--

These standards, benchmarks, and access points are contained in the following publications which are hereby incorporated by reference and made a part of this rule.

--and then bullet-points and hyperlinks fifteen more documents. In SC.912.CS-PC.2.3 (part of the science standards) we read, for instance, that the Grade 9-12 benchmarks include

Discuss and analyze the impact of values and points of view that are presented in media messages (e.g., racial, gender, and political)

In SS.912.HE.2.5 (part of the social studies standards) we read that the Grade 9-12 benchmarks include

Students will explain the effects of Nazi “racial hygiene” policies on various groups including, but not limited to, ethnic (e.g., Roma-Sinti, Slavs) and religious groups (e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses), political opposition, the physically and mentally disabled and homosexuals.

So some understanding of both gender and sexual orientation is essential to meeting Grade 9-12 benchmarks, which were incorporated into the rules here. Either the College Board has shitty lawyers (a real possibility, I admit!) or they just didn't want to make the argument. And as @netstack suggests, maybe the College Board was just tired of making arguments after the African-American Studies thing, maybe they think it's futile and the DeSantis bureaucracy is just out to get them regardless of what they say. Maybe they're right about that! But that doesn't get the College Board off the hook, I think, for the blatant mischaracterizations they decided to trot out instead.

Either the College Board has shitty lawyers (a real possibility, I admit!) or they just didn't want to make the argument.

I don’t think that would have been much of an argument. The AP Psych course requires teaching, as part of unit on developmentalpsychology, "how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development." That is nowhere close to what your examples from state standards relate to, and an argument that a standard that requires teaching how the Nazis treated homosexuals somehow brings within its ambit "how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development" would seem to be frivolous.

Edit:

Maybe they're right about that!

I doubt that they have it out for the College Board. But I do note that DeSantis is running for President on an anti-"woke" platform.

the relevant law is quite clear that such instruction may be offered in grades 9-12.

Is it? I read the law and didn’t see that anywhere.

But there is no apparent basis for the College Board to believe this.

Look carefully at the language the state is using: “the Department believes that AP Psychology can be taught in its entirety in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate.” They don’t say that AP Psychology is taught in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate. They don’t say that AP psychology as the college board recommends it be taught is compliant with Florida law. They sent a letter to The College Board asking them to review their courses for compliance with state law. The clear implication is that Florida wants The College Board to change something about their courses.

On the object level, I totally believe that the modern incarnation of AP Psychology is chock full of postmodern critical theory bullshit, and that Florida is well justified keeping it out of the classroom, but on the meta level, The College Board is correct that the Florida Department of Education is trying to ban their preferred version of AP Psychology.

Look carefully at the language the state is using: “the Department believes that AP Psychology can be taught in its entirety in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate.”

This very much seems to be a scissor statement within this discussion. My reading of that portion of the letter was, "Look, the College Board is freaking out because we have this law in Florida saying that course content needs to be age and developmentally appropriate, so I just want to assure you that, as I see it, AP Psychology can be taught, in it entirety, in a way that is developmentally and age appropriate. Just don't go crazy and show the kids hardcore porn in class or make them affirm that we are all born as trans homosexuals or whatever." In the Washington Post article and others, that line is taken to be an implicit threat, "Hey superintendents, you'd better make sure you keep your course content appropriate, or else [makes throat cutting motion]."

It's not a true scissor because I can understand how the other side would read it as more menacing, but that wasn't my interpretation at all.

the relevant law is quite clear that such instruction may be offered in grades 9-12.

Is it? I read the law and didn’t see that anywhere.

Er...

Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in prekindergarten 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 in a manner that is age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.

So it's explicitly not forbidden in grades 9 through 12, and furthermore the law anticipates that if it is taught in grades 9 through 12, it just needs to be "age-appropriate." Forgive me for wondering how you can possibly have read the law, as you claim, and missed that.

They sent a letter to The College Board asking them to review their courses for compliance with state law. The clear implication is...

Why is that implication "clear?" You don't see points that are explicitly written in the law, but somehow you then turn around and think the implication of "please review" is "clear[ly]" "please modify?"

on the meta level, The College Board is correct

Maybe, but probably not. I have yet to see a document where the FDE even specifically calls out AP Psychology--the College Board appears to have done that all on their own. They could have therefore responded, "we did an audit, and we do not think AP Psychology can meet your standard for age-appropriate education, and we're not going to change it, so the ball is in your court on that one, but otherwise we're good." Instead, they decided to skip the part where they negotiate in good faith, and went straight to culture warring.

Ah, I was looking at HB 1557. Your quote seems to be from HB 1069.

The key phrase, “in a manner that is age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” still applies.

It seems that some schools are adding AP Psych back to the curriculum. I guess we’ll find out soon enough who misunderstood who (or who had a rogue staffer).

The statute is vague on what's age appropriate because it defers to "state standards". I would assume some other part of the statutes say which agency gets to set "state standards" (almost certainly the Florida Department of Education, which already approves AP Psychology)

Yep, the DoE was required to update any relevant standards by June 30, 2023. Most of the earlier complaints and suits centered on their not having done so, yet, and thus being underspecified. I imagine they completed the standards on time, but I haven’t been able to find a copy.

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