TALLAHASSEE (LifeSiteNews) — The Florida Board of Education announced on Thursday it has approved updated standards for teaching the history of Communism, to equip the next generation of Floridians to recognize the dangers of the notorious ideology.
Developed in collaboration with Florida teachers and content experts, the new standards will hit classrooms starting with the 2026-2027 school year, according to a department press release, and provide a “truthful, in-depth understanding of how communist ideologies suppress individual freedoms, abuse power, and inflict widespread suffering.”
“With the resurgence of communist ideologies across the United States and throughout the world, it is more important than ever for students to understand the catastrophic failures and human suffering caused by communist regimes,” said state Commissioner of Education Anastasios Kamoutsas. “Florida’s new History of Communism standards will ensure that students learn the truth about the brutal realities of life under communism and gain a deeper appreciation for the blessings of liberty that define our nation.”
The move builds on an effort that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis began in 2021 when he signed a law requiring public civics education to “include a comparative discussion of political ideologies, such as Communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy essential to the founding principles of the United States”; alongside promotion of understanding students’ “shared rights and responsibilities as residents of the state and of the founding principles of the United States,” a “sense of civic pride and desire to participate regularly with government at the local, state, and federal levels”; the “process for effectively advocating before government bodies and officials,” and the “civic-minded expectations (…) of an upright and desirable citizenry that recognizes and accepts responsibility for preserving and defending the blessings of liberty inherited from prior generations and secured by the United States Constitution.”
The following year, DeSantis designated November 7 as a statewide Victims of Communism Day.
“Honoring the people that have fallen victim to communist regimes and teaching our students about those atrocities is the best way to ensure that history does not repeat itself,” the governor said at the time. “Through HB 395 and the funding announced today, we are guaranteeing that the history of those who fled communist regimes and their experiences are preserved and not forgotten by our students.”
“While it’s fashionable in some circles to whitewash the history of communism, Florida will stand for truth and remain as a beachhead for freedom,” he said.
Such measures rose amid a growing nationwide revolt against public educators’ promotion of critical race theory (CRT), a doctrine asserting that “law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.”
Several states, including Florida, have moved to prohibit schools from promoting CRT as true; DeSantis has gone a step further in hopes of making schools proactively pro-American, as part of a broader effort to make Florida, in his words, the state where “woke goes to die.”
