AP CS Principles Redesign–Good, Bad, or just Different?

The College Board recently announced a AP Computer Science Principles Redesign that has got a lot of people talking. I read through the preview framework and it actually looks pretty good to me. More on  that in a bit but first the things in the announcement that are causing the discussions.

The first big change is that there is heavy AI integration required in the course. In fact, the announcement says:

• Students will complete a required series of hands-on, structured AI lab experiences.

and

• Students need access to a district-approved AI tool that accepts a student’s own written instructions and returns a response. Schools will need to make sure every student has access to one.

In short, students must use AI and the school must make it available. I imagine the AI companies are pretty happy about that. One university professor made the comment on Facebook “APCSP sponsored by OpenAI. With chatAPCSP available at a discount”

Some school administrators, school IT people, and a lot of teachers in a range of domains may not be too happy about that. On the other hand, is it really possible to do a good job of computer science education without using some AI tools? Probably not.

Possibly the most controversial part of the redesign though is the AI Create Project. Students will be required to use AI for their create project. Is this because someone assumes that students will use AI anyway so let’s just make it legal? I doubt anyone would admit to that even if it is true. And maybe it’s not but it feels that way to me. My worry is that students will wind up believing that they don’t have to write any code at all and will let AI do it for them. I remain convinced that doing it the hard way is the best way to learn. We’ll see I guess.

There is an emphasis in the framework on students reading and evaluating the AI generated code. How well they will be able to do that without having experience writing code on their own (without AI help) is not something that I can predict.

Another important piece to the redesign is that starting in the 2028/2029 school year a text-base language will be required for the Create AI. I believe that the timing is to allow teachers more time to learn a text based language and develop teaching methods and resources to teach it. A lot of teachers are only using block based languages these days.

Some curriculum providers are already moving to text based languages. I understand that CodeAI (nee code.org) is moving the Python for example. Teachers should look into the plans of any curriculum and/or tools suppliers they are using to find out  their plans and timings.

Looking at the AP Computer Science Principles Course effective fall 2027 I do think it is basically sound. I was afraid that they were going to lose a lot to make room for AI. There is an optional and untested Unit 5 that has a lot of what I was afraid would be lost. I wouldn’t keep that optional but a lot of schools may have trouble fitting it all in. Especially districts with fewer than 180 days of instruction.

I will be at the CSTA New York Conference next week (14 November 2026) and if you are there please find me and tell me your thoughts on the redesign. Or just to say hi.