Remove David Coleman

Remove David Coleman

Started
February 10, 2023
Petition Closed
This petition had 287 supporters

Why this petition matters

Started by Velvet Elvis

The College Board Needs New Leadership

Help us by signing this petition which will be sent to the College Board Trustees this week

February 14, 2023

Dear Trustee (Name),

The time has come to end David Coleman’s tenure as the CEO of the College Board. For more than a decade, Mr. Coleman has repeatedly put product before mission and made people of color pay the price. The debacle of the College Board’s response to the Florida Department of Education's rejection of the Advanced Placement African-American Studies (APAAS) is only the
most recent example of the harm Mr. Coleman has repeatedly done both to Black people and to the College Board itself.

Consider the track record (expanded on in the supporting document):

1. The Redesigned SAT Put English Language Learners at a Disadvantage, and the College Board Tried to Cover It Up.
2. The AP US History Framework Played Down Racism’s Impact on American
History to Appease Conservative Critics.
3. David Coleman Used a School Shooting as an Occasion to Celebrate AP Programs
(and Correct a Woman of Color).
4. The College Board Refuses to Take Responsibility for the Racist History of the SAT.
5. The College Board Hid the Environmental Context Dashboard after Conservative Criticism.
6. David Coleman Hired, Donated to, Promoted, and Praised a College Board Vice President who Voted for a Bill Restricting What Teachers Can Teach about Race and Racism.
7. The College Board Caved to the Florida Department of Education’s Attack on APAAS and then Misled Everyone about Caving, Deeply Damaging the Credibility of the Organization and Irreparably Harming the College Board’s Relations with the Black Community.

The irony is that Coleman’s efforts to appease Conservatives typically end with the College Board alienating both the Left and the Right. Republican media have been crowing for weeks about Gov. DeSantis’s victory and are calling it a blueprint for a war on the education establishment and the AP program itself. The Florida Department of Education (FDOE) letter released on Feb 8, 2023 undermined David Coleman’s claim that the AP Program “does not look to the statements of political leaders: so much that people on the left and on the right are calling
for the end of AP.

That would be a disaster.

The best path forward for the College Board is new leadership. The best chance to save APAAS and the AP Program is new leadership . As the College Board pushes forward with APAAS and with a redesigned digital SAT, it enters a new and challenging phase of its existence.

The organization can no longer afford the great risk that the CEO has already put it in and will assuredly do so again.

The College Board has never had a woman in charge of the organization, this despite the fact that women represent a majority of students in higher education and of people who work in college admissions, and it has had only one president who is a person of color. The time has come for the Board of Trustees to seek out a new CEO. As Roderick Ferguson–a Yale Professor whose work on Queer Black Studies was removed from the APAAS framework–recently put it, “We need to interrupt the social reproduction of cowardice.” The Board of Trustees can do so by removing David Coleman as CEO of the College Board.

Please find our supporting document linked at the site above.

Thank you for your service on the Board.

Sincerely,

 

Petition Closed

This petition had 287 supporters

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