"So far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive," said Brandi Waters, senior director of AP African American Studies at the College Board. Waters, a New Jersey native who holds degrees from Yale, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania, said many students have called the course "a transformative experience."

Critics who argue the death of public schools is near are overexaggerating the reality of a healthy balance for school choice, researchers at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute write. Despite a growing interest in charter schooling, larger districts face little competition for students.

When mass shootings devastate communities, investigators often set out to learn what happened by interviewing a wide array of people. What’s made public, if anything, rarely details the intimate, candid and emotional responses of the survivors and the first responders.