Reading, Writing, Communism: Inside New Curriculum Teaching Kids About Evil

Florida students are heading back to school this year with a new addition to their history curriculum: a comprehensive study of communism, including its history, domestic movements, and the atrocities committed by communist regimes.

The new standards are the culmination of a five-year effort by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and Florida lawmakers to expand civics education and ensure students learn about the dangers of totalitarian ideologies.

The effort began in 2021, when DeSantis signed a package of legislation overhauling civics education in Florida. One of those measures required high school students to receive instruction comparing political ideologies such as communism and totalitarianism with the principles of freedom and democracy underlying the American founding. The legislation also created the state’s “Portraits in Patriotism” initiative, which uses the stories of people who fled persecution in countries including Cuba and Venezuela to teach students about the value of American liberty.

In 2022, DeSantis signed legislation establishing Victims of Communism Day in Florida. Beginning in the 2023-24 school year, public schools were required to provide at least 45 minutes of instruction addressing communist regimes and the suffering of their victims, including poverty, starvation, migration, political violence, and the suppression of speech and religion.

Then, in 2024, DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1264, expanding the state’s existing requirements to include the history of communism in the United States, domestic communist movements and their tactics, as well as the atrocities committed by communist regimes around the world.

“We’re going to tell the truth about communism in the state of Florida. We’re going to tell the truth about the evils of communism,” DeSantis said when signing the legislation in 2024.

The State Board of Education approved the resulting History of Communism standards in November 2025, with implementation beginning during the 2026-27 school year. The standards are designed to extend across the K-12 curriculum, with the state emphasizing that instruction will be age-appropriate at each grade level. Then-Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas said at the time, “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.”

The curriculum will cover more than the familiar history of the Soviet Union. It includes communism’s development in the United States, domestic communist movements, the tactics used by communist organizations, and the consequences of communist rule internationally. It also requires students to compare communism and totalitarianism with the principles of freedom and democracy that underpin the American system of government.

The reforms have particular resonance in South Florida, where generations of Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan immigrants have personal or family histories of fleeing communist and socialist regimes. When DeSantis signed the 2024 legislation, he was joined by veterans of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

“The most important fight against communism is the one that’s done in the schoolrooms,” Rafael Montalvo, president of the Brigade 2506 Veterans Association, said at the time. “That’s where the battle is happening right now.”

Florida’s effort represents a sustained attempt to make anti-communism and civic literacy a formal part of public education rather than leaving those lessons to individual teachers or schools.

As students return to classrooms for the 2026-27 school year, the reforms that began with DeSantis’ 2021 civics push are finally becoming a regular part of what Florida students are taught about America’s founding principles — and the ideologies that have historically opposed them.