With increasing political pressures on academic curricula over the past few decades, what does this look like for the DoDEA’s College and Career Readiness Education Programs? On August 28, 2025, the College Entrance Examination Board was awarded a $9.9 million dollar contract with the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) per the U.S. Department of War contracts^[1] through sole-source acquisition. The DoDEA has continued to partner with College Board to provide military-connected students with Advanced Placement (AP) programs and scholarships such as BigFuture. 

The DoDEA leverages the College Board’s curricula and nationally recognized standardized assessments for post-secondary preparation and college readiness. According to the DoDEA press release^[2] in October 2024, AP courses are used “as part of DoDEA curriculum offerings, emphasize open-mindedness and intellectual growth by grounding lessons in primary sources and encouraging students to form their own conclusions.” Military-affiliated high school students who attend DoDEA schools participate in the AP exams and scholarships from both the College Board and other organizations via its search feature, which includes the Department of Defense Dependents Schools (DoDDS) that began in 1978 to provide overseas support. Its Blueprint for Continuous Improvement 2025^[3] strategizes four key goals based on student, school, talent, and organizational excellence. Led by DoDEA Director, Dr. Beth Schiavino-Narvaez, this strategy proposes ‘Student Excellence’ through multi-tiered and future-ready learning approaches that include:

• School team process improvement to strengthen standards-based core instruction and data-informed interventions
• Student preparedness for college coursework
• High school student participation and proficiency in college-level coursework

This blueprint serves to guide the DoDEA’s mission of education, engagement, and empowerment to military-connected students through 2030 and beyond. 

Curriculum and Legal Controversies

Over the past few decades, the curricula have faced challenges in response to the nation’s sociopolitical climate and ideological biases. For example, the College Board’s Senior Vice President and Head of AP Program, Trevor Packer, sought to have the AP U.S. History curriculum rewritten in the early 2000’s through a committee of history professionals. The revised framework in 2012 ignited discussions over left-leaning “woke curriculum” that included gender-fluidity studies and race concepts. 

Fast forward to 2023, the College Board was perceived as conceding to political pressures regarding its revised AP African American Studies^[4] course framework pilot. Florida’s Department of Education letter^[5] to the College Board on January 12, 2023 criticized its topics such as intersectionality and Critical Race Theory, thus banning the AP course. The current version does keep intact the reparations debate. President Trump’s Executive Order, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History^[6], now advocates for right-leaning “patriotic” education influence on curricula in schools across the nation. Restrictions on how and what history is taught are additionally subject to state policies and laws. 

The College Board continues to face legal and political challenges. Last year in February 2024, College Board paid $750,000 in penalties for the mismanagement and monetization of student data based on the Attorney General of the State of New York^[7], though College Board disagreed in their statement^[8] on February, 13, 2024. On September 4, 2025, the College Board canceled its “Landscape” tool used by admissions to provide socioeconomic information following the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in 2023 and the Trump Administration’s federal requirement to expose colleges and universities using ‘hidden racial proxy’ discriminatory tools in August 2025. These impacts, sometimes interpreted as an attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, may continue to shape educational content or procedures despite the College Board’s insistence that political pressure has no bearing.

In terms of competing policy-making interest content, essential knowledge components appear aligned between McGraw Hill’s American Democracy Now and AP U.S. Government Politics Framework. These correlations can be found in the Advanced Placement Correlation Guide^[9] for its government course with some non-partisan highlights below (guide not officially endorsed by College Board).

• PMI-5.E.1: Interest groups may represent very specific or more general interests, and can educate voters and office holders, draft legislation, and mobilize membership to apply pressure on and work with legislators and government agencies.
• PMI-5.G.1: Single-issue groups, ideological/social movements, and protest movements form with the goal of impacting society and policy making.
• PMI-5.C.4: Parties use communication technology and voter-data management to disseminate, control, and clarify political messages and enhance outreach and mobilization efforts.
• PMI-4.B.1: Because the U.S. is a democracy with a diverse society, public policies generated at any given time reflect the attitudes and beliefs of citizens who choose to participate in politics at that time.
• PRD-3.B.2: The rapidly increasing demand for media and political communications outlets from an ideologically diverse audience have led to debates over media bias and the impact of media ownership and partisan news sites.

A similar AP correlation for United States History & Geography or United States History: Voices and Perspectives could not be found. For more information on the DoDEA’s contracted primary instructional resources that support the instruction and learning of their College and Career Ready program, see the DoDEA College and Career Ready Instructional Resources^[10] document. 

How the College Board Influences DoDEA Curriculum

All DoDEA AP courses are approved by College Board's curriculum requirements through the AP course audit designation, which are developed for academic rigor, quality, and consistency. Military-affiliated students are provided with access and testing to help them achieve academic success and preparation for college-level reading, writing, and mathematics. It also assists the DoDEA and educators with the data tools to address instruction, skills gaps, and curriculum improvement. The DoDEA’s partnership with the College Board supports their strategic objectives to better support mobile, military families with college and career coursework, planning, and academic learning. 

Both philosophies of the DoDEA and College Board promote students meeting educational core competencies and college readiness. The DoDEA emphasizes student well-being, critical thinking skills, and pursuit of life-long knowledge. The DoDEA additionally encourages ‘habits and dispositions in multiple subjects’ for their graduates in their College and Career Ready Standards^[11]. College Board, a not-for-profit organization older than a 100 years, espouses college and career pathways, skills development, and student resources. 

What Comes Next

The DoDEA’s College and Career Readiness Education Programs future with the College Board rests on ongoing accountability and balance over the curriculum and processes. The strengths in this partnership enable nationally recognized assessment delivery, scholarship opportunities, and access to greater college pathways with both stability and consistency. The DoDEA’s Blueprint for Continuous Improvement 2025 elaborates on its commitment to be adaptable to challenges while maintaining resiliency as military families navigate various education systems and changes in a dynamic world. It is more important than ever that both the DoDEA and College Board demonstrate their own resilience, neutrality, and responsiveness to the communities they serve in the increasingly shifting political and social environment. This, in turn, encourages educators, policymakers, and military families advocacy that focuses on the diverse needs of military-connected students. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon’s investigation of Sen. Mark Kelly^[1] over a video that urges American troops to defy “illegal orders” has raised a slew of questions, and some criticism, from legal experts.

Some say the Pentagon is misreading military law to go after Kelly^[2] as a retired Navy fighter pilot. Others say the Arizona Democrat cannot be prosecuted as a member of Congress. A group of former military prosecutors insists he did nothing wrong.

The Pentagon announced the investigation last week after President Donald Trump’s social media post^[3] accusing Kelly — and the five other Democratic lawmakers in the video — of sedition “punishable by DEATH.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Kelly was facing investigation because he is the only one in that group who formally retired from the military and is still under the Pentagon’s jurisdiction.

Kelly dismissed the inquiry as the work of “bullies” and said it would not deter him and other members of Congress “from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable.”

‘It’s not totally unheard of’ 

Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor, said there has been a “significant uptick” in courts-martial of retired service members in the past decade. While courts have debated the constitutionality, the practice is currently allowed. He said there have been roughly a dozen such prosecutions across the service branches.

There are roughly 2 million people who formally retired from the military and receive retirement pay, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. Service members are generally entitled to retirement pay after completing 20 years of active duty.

Todd Huntley, a retired Navy captain and judge advocate general, or JAG, said it is rare to prosecute retirees for something that happened after they retired.

“It’s not totally unheard of,” said Huntley, who now directs Georgetown’s national security law program. “I actually prosecuted a enlisted guy who had been retired for 16 years. He was essentially assaulting his adopted daughter. Basically no one else had jurisdiction so we prosecuted him.”

A ‘ridiculous conclusion’ 

Colby Vokey, a prominent civilian military lawyer and former military prosecutor, said Hegseth appears to be misreading the Uniform Code of Military Justice to justify the Kelly investigation.

Vokey said Hegseth has personal jurisdiction over Kelly because Kelly is entitled to retirement pay. But Vokey said Hegseth lacks subject matter jurisdiction because Kelly made his statements as a senator.

Vokey said case law has evolved to where the military can prosecute an active-duty service member for a crime committed off base, such as robbing a convenience store. But applying military law to a retired service member and “assuming that means every offense ever is kind of a ridiculous conclusion.”

“Let’s say you have a 100-year-old World War II veteran who is retired with pay and he steals a candy bar,” Vokey said. “Hegseth could bring him back and court-martial him. And that in effect is what is happening with Kelly.”

Patrick McLain, a retired Marine Corps judge and former federal prosecutor, said the cases he has seen of retirees being called back “are more like extreme examples of fraud or some of these child pornography cases.”

“I’ve not seen anything like the kind of the wackadoodle thing they’re trying to do to Sen. Kelly for essentially exercising his First Amendment right to free speech, which they don’t like,” McLain said.

‘He did it as a civilian’ 

Charles Dunlap, a Duke University law professor and retired Air Force lawyer, said in an email that military law can restrict speech for service members that is protected for civilians under the First Amendment.

But even if the video was found to have violated military law, a key issue may be whether the law can be applied to someone who is retired, Dunlap said.

A group of former military lawyers, the Former JAGs Working Group, said in a statement that Kelly did not violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

“The video simply described the law as it pertains to lawful versus unlawful orders,” the group said. “It did not suborn mutiny or otherwise encourage military members to disregard or disobey lawful orders issued to them.”

Troops, especially uniformed commanders, have specific obligations to reject orders that are unlawful. Broad legal precedence also holds that just following orders — colloquially known as the “Nuremberg defense,” as it was used unsuccessfully by senior Nazi officials to justify their actions under Adolf Hitler — does not absolve troops.

Kelly and the other lawmakers did not mention specific circumstances in the video. Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s attempts to send National Guard troops into U.S. cities. Kelly has pointedly questioned the use of the military to attack alleged drug boats^[4] off South America’s coast, saying he was worried about the military officers^[5] involved with the mission and whether they were following orders that may have been illegal.

Michael O’Hanlon, director of research in the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution, said any case brought against Kelly likely would be thrown out or end in an acquittal.

O’Hanlon said it might not have been politically smart to “wave a red flag in front of the bull” but he does not see the legal grounds for a court martial.

“Saying that you shouldn’t break the law cannot be a crime,” O’Hanlon said. “But in addition, he did not do it as a military officer. He did it as a civilian.”

Separation of powers 

Kelly’s status as a senator could block the Pentagon’s investigation because of constitutional protections for the separation of powers in the U.S government.

The Constitution explicitly shields members of Congress from White House overreach, said Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University.

“Having a United States senator subject to discipline at the behest of the secretary of defense and the president — that violates a core principle of legislative independence,” Kreis said in a telephone interview.

Kreis said such protections were a reaction to the British monarchy, which arbitrarily punished members of Parliament.

”Any way you cut it, the Constitution is fundamentally structurally designed to prevent this kind of abuse,” Kreis said.