Florida approved a new curriculum on Thursday to teach public school students about the \u201cdangers and evils of communism,\u201d academic standards that some historians have criticized as propaganda.<\/p>\n
Members of the State Board of Education, meeting in the Panhandle, also signed a Heritage Foundation education pledge to teach students about \u201cgood and evil\u201d in the world and help them foster \u201ca healthy sense of patriotism.\u201d Florida is the first state to sign the declaration put out by the conservative think tank influential with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
The approved standards for middle-and-high-school social studies classes stem from legislation (SB 1264) Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in 2024. The law mandates instruction on the \u201cconsequences of communism\u201d and aims to prepare students to \u201cwithstand indoctrination on Communism at colleges and universities.\u201d<\/p>\n
But some experts say the standards seem to wrongly rehabilitate the reputation of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who pushed the \u201cRed Scare\u201d communist panic in the 1950s.<\/p>\n
The curriculum covers 30 pages and more than 100 standards \u2014 benchmarks for what should be covered in class \u2014 including the death toll from communist regimes, how communist policies worsened people\u2019s quality of living and the \u201cdangers of pro-communist propaganda in entertainment and media industries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Board members said the standards would help protect students from indoctrination. Board Member Layla Collins, whose husband Lt. Gov. Jay Collins sponsored the legislation as a state senator, said socialism and communism were \u201cpenetrating every avenue of our life and every aspect of our child\u2019s education.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is our responsibility to make sure future generations can thrive and they learn how to think, not what to think,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n
But some expert historians have called the standards \u201cpropaganda\u201d and criticized the state\u2019s approach to teaching about McCarthy, a senator from 1947 to 1957 who in the standards is listed alongside then-Congressman and Senator Richard Nixon and President Harry Truman as examples of \u201canti-communist politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Oshinsky, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at New York University and a McCarthy expert, said in an October interview that Florida\u2019s anti-communism standards were \u201cdisturbing\u201d and incorrectly portrayed McCarthy as a responsible anti-communist leader.<\/p>\n
McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee, which investigated allegations of disloyalty and subversion, were later found to have falsely accused people and to have violated Americans\u2019 First Amendment rights. McCarthy\u2019s biography on the U.S. Senate website notes some of his accusations were deemed \u201ca fraud and a hoax\u201d and that he was censured by the Senate.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of these new standards direct what students should think, rather than allowing them to use their critical thinking to understand different cultures, religions, economic philosophies, and even countries,\u201d said Carole Guaronskas, vice president of the Florida Education Association, the statewide teachers union, speaking against the standards as the board heard public comment on them.<\/p>\n
A group of three Vietnamese men who said they fled that communist country, however, urged the board to approve the standards. They said those opposed to teaching children about the \u201cevils of communism\u201d should focus instead on teaching them to cherish the freedoms offered in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey keep teaching our kids the past injustices but neglect to educate them what to feel proud of as Americans, what accomplishment has America achieved,\u201d one of the men said.<\/p>\n
The seven-member board, all appointees of DeSantis, voted unanimously in favor of the new curriculum and the Heritage pledge.<\/p>\n
The Heritage Foundation also put out the Project 2025 blueprint that served as a guide to many of President Donald Trump\u2019s policies when he started his second term in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how anyone could disagree with parental choice and responsibility, curriculum transparency, academic excellence, instruction on objective truth. These principles are principles that everyone across the board on both sides of the aisles can agree with,\u201d said Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas of the Phoenix Doctrine.<\/p>\n
But not everyone agreed.<\/p>\n
Ilanaga Peck, a Gainesville woman who said she grew up in Argentina, said the declaration reminded her of indoctrination in Argentinian schools under the dictator Juan Per\u00f3n in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is indoctrination dressed up in pretty words,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, Kathleen Murray from the conservative group Citizens Defending Freedom said she supported the adoption of the doctrine.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlorida will continue to lead the nation in reclaiming the true purpose of education; the formation of wise, virtuous and free citizens,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ryan Petty, the board\u2019s chairman signed the declaration ahead of the meeting. He said the state had a duty to teach students about how the U.S.\u2019s constitutional democracy works and thought the pledge would affirm that commitment.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica is not perfect, but you cannot point to another society in the history of mankind that is more perfect than the United States of America,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida approved a new curriculum on Thursday to teach public school students about the \u201cdangers and evils of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29989,29992,22323,28,15578,30,29,29990,29991,5187,29993,412,21488],"class_list":["post-45661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-academic-standards","tag-approved-standards","tag-communism","tag-florida","tag-florida-education-association","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-heritage-foundation","tag-indoctrination","tag-jay-collins","tag-president-harry-truman","tag-ron-desantis","tag-sen-joseph-mccarthy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}