Columbia University is currently charging students $68,000 a year to take a course on how Marxism can fix capitalism.
While the Left spends billions turning lecture halls into socialist recruiting centers, one governor just drew a hard line.
Florida's classrooms are about to teach something the rest of America forgot – and Democrats are already screaming about it.
DeSantis Signs Florida History of Communism Law and Forces Schools to Teach the Body Count
Starting this fall, every Florida middle and high school student will receive mandatory instruction on the history and consequences of communism.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1264 into law, requiring public schools to deliver age-appropriate lessons on communist regimes, their victims, and the ideology's ongoing threat.
The curriculum covers the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Revolution, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela.
Students will study the mass deaths under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Castro – a roster of killers whose combined policies left more than 100 million dead.
The failure of collectivism and the superiority of free enterprise and private property are part of the required instruction.
The Florida State Board of Education approved the formal standards in November 2025, with a July 2026 update that folded in the fall of Nicolás Maduro – keeping the material current.
DeSantis was clear when he signed the bill: "We will not allow our students to live in ignorance, nor be indoctrinated by Communist apologists in schools."
"To the contrary," he added, "we will ensure students in Florida are taught the truth about the evils and dangers of Communism."
Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas explained why the timing matters: "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."
62 Percent of Young Americans Now View Socialism Favorably and Florida Schools Just Responded
A March 2025 Cato/YouGov survey found that 62 percent of Americans under 30 hold a favorable view of socialism.
Thirty-four percent of that same age group – roughly 18 million young Americans – said they hold a favorable view of communism.
A September 2025 Yale Buckley Institute poll found that nearly half of college undergraduates believe socialism offers a better economic model than capitalism, with some specifically praising Cuba.
This is what happens when the curriculum stops teaching history and starts selling ideology.
At Columbia University, current course offerings include "Marxism and Cultural Theory," which teaches students how Marxist ideas can critique global capitalism, and "Capitalism and Its Critics," which frames free markets as a system producing domination and violence.
The Young Democrat Socialists of America has over 100 recognized campus chapters operating across the country.
Florida's new curriculum builds on the state's existing Victims of Communism Day, which already requires at least 45 minutes of annual instruction on the horrors of communist regimes.
The expanded program runs from middle school through graduation – examining how communist movements took hold domestically and abroad, the conditions that made those takeovers possible, Cuba's role in spreading revolutionary ideology across Latin America, and what separates those systems from the founding principles of American freedom.
State Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez – whose parents fled communist Cuba – co-introduced the Senate bill: "This is my family's story."
DeSantis Signed SB 1264 on the Anniversary of the Bay of Pigs and Other States Should Take Notice
DeSantis signed SB 1264 in Hialeah on the 63rd anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
That was not a coincidence.
South Florida is home to hundreds of thousands of Cuban and Venezuelan exiles who watched communist regimes destroy their countries in real time.
They do not need a textbook to explain the difference between socialist promises and socialist reality – but their children's classmates do.
Democrat Rep. Anna Eskamani voted against the bill and accused Republicans of "indoctrination" for requiring instruction on communism.
That argument collapses on contact with reality.
Teaching the documented history of regimes that starved and shot their own people is not indoctrination – it is the education the left spent decades trying to prevent.
The Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Scholars endorsed the standards.
The Independent Institute built supplemental curriculum packages tailored to Florida's requirements – lesson plans, student workbooks, and assessments that local districts can approve without waiting on a statewide textbook adoption cycle.
Commissioner Kamoutsas said he expects other states to follow Florida's lead.
They should.
More than six in ten young Americans think socialism sounds like a good idea because no classroom ever forced them to read the body count.
Florida just started fixing that.
Sources:
- Anastasios Kamoutsas, "State Board of Education Approves New History of Communism Standards," Florida Department of Education, November 13, 2025.
- Hannah Grossman, "Florida's New Communism Education Mandate Reaches Classrooms This Year," The Epoch Times, August 22, 2026.
- Tom Gantert, "Young Americans Like Socialism Too Much – That's a Problem," Cato Institute, May 21, 2025.
- Staff, "About Half of College Students Say Socialism Is Better Than Capitalism," Campus Reform, September 24, 2025.
- Staff, "America's Higher Education Is Training the Next Generation of Socialists," Young America's Foundation, July 1, 2026.
- Staff, "New 'History of Communism' Classes Coming to Florida Schools Next Month," WEAR News, July 2026.