Florida public-school students are beginning expanded lessons on the history and dangers of communism under a curriculum required by state law. The new standards take students through the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, with different material introduced as they advance through middle and high school. Florida teachers say the framework lets them examine specific regimes, events and figures in greater depth. The curriculum is being implemented during the 2026–2027 school year.
Fox News correspondent Danamarie McNicholl reported on the rollout from Aubrey Rogers High School in Collier County, where educators said communism was already covered in social-studies classes. What changed this year is the state’s requirement that teachers follow a more detailed set of standards. “For the first time, they are required by law to teach a very specific curriculum,” McNicholl said.
“Starting in sixth grade each year, they will touch on different topics: the dangers of the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Revolution, North Korea, and the regimes of Cuba and Venezuela,” McNicholl explained. She said Fox News obtained the guidelines provided to teachers and that many of the lessons focus on the dangers of communist rule. The curriculum also examines how socialist movements can create conditions in which communist regimes rise to power.
Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1264 on April 17th, 2024, the 63rd anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion. The law requires age-appropriate instruction on the history of communism beginning in the 2026–2027 school year. Its required subjects include domestic communist movements, atrocities committed by communist governments, the political and economic conditions that preceded revolutions, and comparisons between communism and the principles of freedom and democracy. It also directs schools to cover Cuba’s communist policies and the spread of the ideology across Latin America.
The social-studies coordinator for Collier County Public Schools told Fox News that the standards give educators clearer points of emphasis. “It’s allowed our students, our teachers, to focus in on specific events, specific people,” the coordinator said. “It gives them guidelines to dig deeper into history and understand communism in a way that maybe other students may not.”
The rollout came days after the Democratic Socialists of America published a statement marking the centenary of Fidel Castro’s birth. The group called Castro “an organizer, a fighter” and “a stalwart symbol of anti-imperialist struggle and self-determination for the Global South.” McNicholl reported that DeSantis pushed back, saying the organization could attempt to portray Castro as a hero but Florida students would know better. Castro ruled Cuba for decades after the 1959 revolution, and his regime is among those addressed in the state standards.
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McNicholl also spoke with a senior whose family fled Cuba and who described the curriculum in personal terms. “To be able to like stop and appreciate your country and understand that what makes America so great, what makes us be able to say what we want and do what we want to an extent,” the student said. “Like that’s something that not a lot of countries have.”
The state has already updated the standards to include one of the most recent developments in Latin America. Official minutes show that the State Board of Education unanimously approved an amendment in February concerning the fall of Nicolás Maduro’s regime in January 2026. The revised material covers the regime’s human-rights abuses and the events surrounding Maduro’s capture. It places those developments within the broader lessons on Venezuela’s Chavismo movement and communist influence in the region.
McNicholl said the new material would continue to change as events unfold. “This curriculum is ever evolving,” she said, noting the board’s decision to add Maduro’s capture and its historical consequences. “So students here are getting a really comprehensive education.”