Allderdice High School students (from left to right) Syd Kaplan, Quincy Peterson, Jamie Coles, Amaya Dorman (sitting), Lena Gay and Natalie Lund in the school library. (Photo by Clare Sheedy/ PublicSource)
PPS Allderdice is one of about 60 schools nationwide that’s piloting the course, recently at the center of a curriculum debate.
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High school senior Lena Gay learned about Black history mostly through her family, but there were still gaps in her knowledge. In school through 11th grade, her teachers had glossed over the subject and focused on well-known figures, such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
“I learned most of Black history from being Black and just from at home,” said Gay, who attends Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh Public Schools.
This school year, she’s had something new to share with her mother when she comes home each day. She’s enrolled in a pilot AP African American Studies course, a rare offering for students anywhere. Allderdice is one of about 60 high schools nationwide that’s piloting the course this academic year.
At Allderdice, several students in the course said they’ve gained a deeper understanding of American history, a greater sense of pride in their identity and a more tangible connection to their roots and culture. But they’re also attuned to the backlash that the course has ignited beyond the walls of their classroom.
In January, Florida’s education department initially rejected the course, with the commissioner claiming it represented “woke indoctrination masquerading as education.” Officials from at least four other Republican-led states — Arkansas, Virginia, Mississippi and North Dakota — have said they will review the course to determine if it can be taught, given their laws and policies limiting education on racial issues.
And in February, the College Board released the framework for the official course, leaving out several themes that were present in the pilot. Topics such as Black feminist literary thought and Queer studies were excluded, as were the voices of several Black scholars. Critics on the left have claimed the College Board altered the course due to political pressure, but the nonprofit has asserted that the core revisions were made prior to Florida’s pushback.
Florida’s education department has asked the College Board to submit the revised course for its consideration.
The national debate surrounding the course has left students in the Allderdice class feeling frustrated. They emphasized that students are choosing to learn Black history — instead of being “indoctrinated” — and that the course is helping to tell a fuller, more complex version of American history.
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