Episode 361: The History of Advanced Placement

In this episode, Natalia, Niki, and Neil discuss the history of the Advanced Placement program.

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Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show:

• Florida governor Ron DeSantis has denounced the Advanced Placement African American Studies course as being too “woke.” We drew on Annie Abrams’ forthcoming book, Shortchanged: How Advanced Placement Cheats Students. Natalia referred to this Washington Post interview with AP director Trevor Packer and Niki discussed this Atlantic article on previous AP controversies. Neil referenced this Vox article on the specific controversies around AP history courses.

In our regular closing feature, What’s Making History:

• Natalia discussed Alaina Demopoulos’ Guardian article, “’Watch this Creep’: The Women Exposing Gym Harassment on TikTok.”
• Neil shared Michael Schulman’s New Yorker article, “What Became of the Oscar Streaker?”
• Niki recommended historian Matt Delmont’s new book, Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II At Home and Abroad.