Florida Board of Education to vote on including the ‘horrors’ of communism in state curriculum

On Nov. 13, the Florida State Board of Education is set to have a final review of a proposed change to social studies standards that would include teachings on the “horrors” of communism. 

The updated standards seek to highlight many aspects of the ideology, including the “suffering of the victims of communism,” as well as “how communist movements … use propaganda to gain and maintain power.” This review aligns with the state’s effort to provide students a fuller understanding of political ideologies and their real-world impact. 

“In 2024, Governor DeSantis expanded Florida’s commitment to teaching students the lasting consequences of communism by signing Senate Bill 1264 into law,” Florida State Board of Education Chair Ryan Petty told Campus Reform. “This bill requires comprehensive instruction on the history of communism beginning with the 2026–2027 school year.”

Petty continued to tell Campus Reform how just as the board does for any new standards, they convened Florida educators and content experts to develop “rigorous academic standards” with the goal of granting students “a deep understanding of various communist regimes and how victims suffered under these regimes through poverty, starvation, systematic violence and suppression of fundamental human freedoms such as speech and religion.”

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The bill focuses on many aspects of communism, including the “Atrocities committed in foreign countries under the guidance of communism” as well as “Comparative discussion of political ideologies, such as communism and totalitarianism.”

The bill also put a major focus on the Department of Education “seek[ing] input from any individual who was a victim of communism,” in the creation of their new guidelines. 

The effort originates from bipartisan legislation passed in 2024 that mandates updates to how communism is taught in schools, aligning with Gov. Ron DeSantis’s broader campaign to promote awareness of communist history. DeSantis declared an annual official Victims of Communism Day on Nov. 7, 2022.

Some opponents of the proposed change are calling it a revival of “McCarthyism” and are concerned by the curriculum’s inclusion of “propaganda and defamation utilized to delegitimize anti-communists.”

One academic standard proposed around the new curriculum point would have students be able to “Identify the factors that led to the decline and fall of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.”

Another standard outlined in the document is that students must be able to “Compare The Communist Manifesto (1848) and the Bill of Rights in their views on individual rights, property, and government.”

The overall goal of the changes is to provide a comprehensive history of the “intellectual, political, and economic origins of communism.” This includes the history of anti-communist movements. 

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A report from the Communist Revolutionaries of America claims that “Millions of young people have moved far to the left in recent years. Every day, while building the party, we encounter more people who have been driven to revolutionary conclusions by the catastrophic impact of capitalism on every aspect of our lives.”

The Board is currently taking advance public comment on the proposal before its final vote.