What to know about how Florida will teach McCarthyism and the Cold War

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Students in Florida’s public schools will soon be learning an interpretation of McCarthyism and the Cold War fight against communism that is steeped in the rhetoric of that era, after state education officials voted to approve sweeping new social studies teaching standards Thursday.

The standards, which represent the core content Florida students are expected to learn, detail a communist “infiltration” of Civil Rights advocacy groups, include instruction on the use of “’McCarthyism’ as an insult” and reference “slander against anti-communists,” including the terms “red-baiter and Red Scare.”

The standards soften decades of reflection on work by former U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who led a political movement to root out what he saw as communism in political, civil rights and artistic communities during the early 1950s. The effort stripped employment opportunities and social reputations from many of the people McCarthy accused.

The new teaching benchmarks, which were prompted by a law signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2024, have alarmed some educators and experts on McCarthyism, who say the standards appear deeply ideological and directed at “teaching students what to think, rather than how to think.”

“If I were a teacher, I would feel really scared by this,” said Tawny Paul, a professor of history and director of the Public History Initiative at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Collectively, Florida’s sprawling new “History of Communism” standards span 29 pages, roughly three times the length dedicated to the teaching of American History (9 pages) and Civics and Government (11 pages).

The Florida Board of Education approved the standards Thursday, setting up textbook publishers and educators to implement them in the 2026-2027 school year.

Here’s what to know.

What’s in the new standards?

Florida’s new history of communism teaching standards span Plato’s Republic and the history of utopias to the Russian Revolution and the 1989 protests at Tiananmen Square. McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities are painted as champions of anti-communism, rather than the more commonly accepted interpretation that they fomented one of the most repressive chapters in modern American history.

Absent from the standards’ rendering of the Red Scare is the devastating impact the purge had on American society and free speech, said Ellen Schrecker, a retired Yeshiva University history professor and an expert on McCarthyism. She noted the movement spanned society and was marked by public inquisitions, ideological loyalty tests, blacklists and mass firings.

“McCarthyism was, up until the current moment, the longest lasting and most widespread episode of political repression within the United States,” Schrecker said.

What’s behind this push?

Last year, DeSantis signed into law legislation that required the State Board of Education to adopt new teaching standards on the history of communism for the 2026-2027 school year.

The move follows the Republican-controlled Legislature’s designation of Nov. 7 as Victims of Communism Day in Florida’s public schools, to include at least 45 minutes of instruction on figures like Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro.

Overseeing implementation of the standards is the state’s new education commissioner, Anastios Kamoutsas, who grew up in Miami as the grandchild of Cuban exiles who fled the Castro regime.

Miami’s Cuban diaspora and its anti-communist fervor has long dominated the city’s politics. In recent years, Cuban Americans have helped deliver Miami-Dade County for the Republican Party, a watershed political feat that has helped strengthen their cultural clout in today’s GOP.

What’s the reaction been?

Members of Florida’s State Board of Education, who are appointed by DeSantis, applauded the standards as historically grounded and necessary, backed by four of the five public speakers who addressed the topic at Thursday’s meeting.

Meanwhile, Schrecker, the McCarthyism expert, said the standards present “a very narrow and repressive view of American history” that reinforces the status quo and obscures historical moments that sparked social and political change.

Paul, the UCLA professor, worries how the dictates of the curriculum may limit teachers’ willingness to engage their students on some of the country’s darkest chapters, and its contemporary challenges.

What about Florida’s Black history standards?

In 2023, civil rights activists decried Florida’s changes to its public school curriculum on Black history, specifically a requirement that Florida school teach that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

The changes sparked widespread outcry from teachers, parents, and some Black conservatives, including Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, who spoke out against the curriculum and said at the time that he planned to work with the state board to “bring refinement” to that topic. Such changes have yet to be made.

Donalds is now running to succeed term-limited DeSantis, with the the endorsement of President Donald Trump.

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Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.