TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis' memoir was a choice for a high school AP Language and Compositions course at a Tallahassee high school, despite the governor's frequent disagreements with the AP boards.
The book, called "The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival," is about the policies that guide his administration, as well as his upbringing including his time at Yale University, Harvard Law School and serving in Iraq.
The summer reading list featured 13 different memoirs with other government-affiliated authors such as Justice Sonia Sotomayor's "My Beloved World" and former Senator John McCain's "Faith of My Fathers." Students were asked to choose one and annotate it focusing on word choice, tone, sentence structure and other literary elements, as first spotted by Peter Schorsch who posted the document.
DeSantis has been a critic of Advanced Placement courses in the past and clashed with the College Board in 2023 over its AP Psychology class. DeSantis passed a law limiting classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, but the board said they would "not modify our courses to accommodate restrictions on teaching essential, college-level topics."
The course asks students to describe how sex and gender influence a person’s development — topics that have been part of the curriculum since it launched 30 years ago. After the confusion when teachers and principals had to figure out if they could even teach the course, Education Commissioner Manny Diaz said it could be taught in full.
DeSantis also clashed with the College Board over the AP African American Studies course that he banned. His administration rejected the initial framework from being taught in the state and highlighted issues with sections on Black queer studies, the Black Lives Matter movement and activism. The administration said the topics amount to indoctrination, not education.
"At the end of the day, we highlighted things that were very problematic, it wasn't just people like me saying that – across the political spectrum, people were saying, 'You know, this really is junk. Why don't we just do and teach the things that matter? Why is it always someone has to try to jam their agenda down our throats?'" DeSantis previously said.
The board fired back saying the state was trying to use changes to the curriculum to score a political victory.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
