Florida approved a new curriculum on Thursday to teach public school students about the “dangers and evils of communism,” academic standards that some historians have criticized as propaganda.

Members of the State Board of Education, meeting in the Panhandle, also signed a Heritage Foundation education pledge to teach students about “good and evil” in the world and help them foster “a healthy sense of patriotism.” Florida is the first state to sign the declaration put out by the conservative think tank influential with the Trump administration.

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 “consequences of communism” and aims to prepare students to “withstand indoctrination on Communism at colleges and universities.”

But some experts say the standards seem to wrongly rehabilitate the reputation of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who pushed the “Red Scare” communist panic in the 1950s.

The curriculum covers 30 pages and more than 100 standards — benchmarks for what should be covered in class — including the death toll from communist regimes, how communist policies worsened people’s quality of living and the “dangers of pro-communist propaganda in entertainment and media industries.”

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 “penetrating every avenue of our life and every aspect of our child’s education.”

“It is our responsibility to make sure future generations can thrive and they learn how to think, not what to think,” Collins said.

But some expert historians have called the standards “propaganda” and criticized the state’s 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 “anti-communist politicians.”

David Oshinsky, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at New York University and a McCarthy expert, said in an October interview that Florida’s anti-communism standards were “disturbing” and incorrectly portrayed McCarthy as a responsible anti-communist leader.

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’ First Amendment rights. McCarthy’s biography on the U.S. Senate website notes some of his accusations were deemed “a fraud and a hoax” and that he was censured by the Senate.

“Many 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,” 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.

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 “evils of communism” should focus instead on teaching them to cherish the freedoms offered in the United States.

“They keep teaching our kids the past injustices but neglect to educate them what to feel proud of as Americans, what accomplishment has America achieved,” one of the men said.

The seven-member board, all appointees of DeSantis, voted unanimously in favor of the new curriculum and the Heritage pledge.

The Heritage Foundation also put out the Project 2025 blueprint that served as a guide to many of President Donald Trump’s policies when he started his second term in January.

“I don’t 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,” said Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas of the Phoenix Doctrine.

But not everyone agreed.

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 Perón in the 1970s.

“This is indoctrination dressed up in pretty words,” she said.

However, Kathleen Murray from the conservative group Citizens Defending Freedom said she supported the adoption of the doctrine.

“Florida will continue to lead the nation in reclaiming the true purpose of education; the formation of wise, virtuous and free citizens,” she said.

Ryan Petty, the board’s chairman signed the declaration ahead of the meeting. He said the state had a duty to teach students about how the U.S.’s constitutional democracy works and thought the pledge would affirm that commitment.

“America 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,” he said.

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