The College Board’s 2023 AP United States History Course and Exam Description says vaguely that students should know about the influence of “the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence[, which] reverberated in France, Haiti, and Latin America, inspiring future independence movements.” It never actually says what those ideals are. Florida’s rival U.S. History examination, just created for its Florida Advanced Courses and Tests (FACT), does: “The Declaration does more than announce independence; it makes a case that legitimate government rests on natural rights and consent of the governed, and it presents a bill of particulars to show that the king has violated those principles.” The College Board’s inability to talk straightforwardly about the substance of the Declaration of Independence makes vividly clear why competitors are rushing in to offer better alternatives.

Both the Classic Learning Test (CLT) and the state of Florida are developing alternatives to the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) tests. It’s early days yet, but America looks to have a set of alternatives to the AP tests up and running in the next 5-10 years. That means education reformers should start thinking now about public policy changes to ensure that the College Board’s new competitors can operate on an even playing field.

Simply producing a better test isn’t enough.

CLT focuses on classical education, and its new Classical Baccalaureate Courses (Enduring Courses) will provide classical-education equivalents to the College Board’s AP tests. These tests will be folded into a larger Classical Baccalaureate, which “integrates CB Courses for college credit, and an IB-style diploma evaluation—featuring elements like a thesis project, extended seminar, and civics project—to provide universal recognition while preserving the depth of Western heritage, liberal arts, and virtue ethics.” CLT’s first two exams will be ready for schools in Spring 2027: Government & Politics and Rhetoric & Composition. They plan a full spectrum of exams, including in the sciences.

The state of Florida, meanwhile, has begun to implement the Florida Advanced Courses and Tests (FACT). The first FACT course was College Algebra; the second, just released, is U.S. History. The latter has received publicity as “anti-woke”; certainly, and to its great credit, it is unwoke. The state of Florida does not have an articulated educational vision precisely comparable to that of the classical education world. It simply provides what the College Board conspicuously has failed to do: to provide rigorous, unpoliticized AP examinations.

And it is the College Board’s sustained and systematic failures that have prompted CLT and Florida to create rivals to the APs. The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has been critiquing the politicization of the College Board’s AP history examinations for more than a decade, long before the College Board’s recent tangles with Florida over African American Studies. The College Board also has sacrificed rigor to increase market share: the College Board has shifted to saying that doing well on AP measures college readiness, not that it substitutes for collegiate instruction. Colleges have responded by reducing or eliminating the credit they give for high scores on AP exams. CLT and Florida aren’t just trying to replace an ideologically biased test, but a test that no longer actually measures for advanced placement.

Simply producing a better test isn’t enough. Schools need to adopt courses that prepare students to take the courses, and that means an extraordinary amount of time-consuming and costly transformation of how they do business. Then, too, you need demand for these courses. The College Board’s greatest advantage over rivals, such as dual enrollment, is that you can use its credit anywhere in the nation. Colleges nationwide have institutional procedures to recognize AP credit. They may be giving less credit for APs, but CLT and the state of Florida will have to arrange for colleges to recognize their scores at all. If they don’t, schools and students won’t see the point of taking these courses in the first place.

Education reformers should focus on administrative reform and targeted spending programs to make it easier for competitors to the College Board to establish themselves. Different states should adopt and/or recognize the AP courses provided by CLT and Florida: wherever state legislation explicitly names the College Board and/or the International Baccalaureate, it also should name CLT’s Enduring Courses and Florida’s FACT, while adapting textbook acquisition, model lesson plans, and professional development to fit these courses. Without increasing total expenditures for K–12 education, state policymakers should also consider tailored subsidies for professional development to prepare teachers to teach these courses, as well as subsidies to school districts to ease the administrative transition away from the College Board and toward these alternatives.

Education reformers need to act across several dozen states, but what we most need is for one state to provide a model for administrative and statutory reform.

State policymakers should also state explicitly that all laws forbidding “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” “critical race theory,” and other forms of politicization in the classroom apply to all AP courses without exception. A College Board AP class shouldn’t be used as an excuse for school districts to allow bias and propaganda into the classroom.

States should also ensure that state university systems recognize these classes for college credit. State lawmakers, once they are assured that these courses do indeed possess sufficient rigor, should require public universities to accept Enduring Courses and FACT classes for college credit. Education reformers should get as many states as possible to recognize these courses. The sooner we have a system of national recognition for rivals to the College Board, the sooner schools and students will abandon the College Board’s politicized, unrigorous simulacrum of advanced placement courses.

Education reformers need to act across several dozen states, but what we most need is for one state to provide a model for administrative and statutory reform. Once these reforms are implemented in one state, others can follow suit. Establish a best practice, and then—with modifications—copy and paste it elsewhere.

CLT and the state of Florida are doing wonderful, essential work to build a new education system to replace the rotted status quo. Now it is our responsibility to see that our states and school districts will take full advantage of the work they’ve done.

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