Bill Directs Foundation to Create High School Curriculum on Communism, Focusing on Global Death Toll and Human Rights

A new piece of legislation, the "Crucial Communism Teaching Act," aims to shape how high school students learn about communism and totalitarianism. It directs the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOCMF), a non-profit organization, to develop a specific civic education curriculum. The stated goals are to ensure students understand that communism has led to over 100 million deaths worldwide, grasp the dangers of these ideologies, and recognize that 1.5 billion people currently live under communist rule, ultimately fostering civic responsibility.

What's on the Syllabus?

The bill lays out clear instructions for the VOCMF-developed curriculum. It needs to compare political ideologies like communism and totalitarianism directly against the principles of freedom and democracy foundational to the U.S. A key requirement is regular updates to cover both historical and current regimes, with a specific focus on human rights abuses – the bill explicitly mentions the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, actions against pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong, and aggression toward Taiwan by the People's Republic of China. Alongside the curriculum, the VOCMF is tasked with creating "Portraits in Patriotism," a set of oral history resources featuring personal stories from victims of communist and totalitarian regimes, again comparing their experiences to U.S. ideology. The bill stresses the curriculum should be accurate, relevant, accessible, and adaptable for various high school courses.

From Foundation to Classroom

This isn't a direct federal mandate forcing schools to teach this specific material. Instead, the bill directs the VOCMF to create the curriculum and resources, and then work with state and local education leaders to encourage its adoption in high schools across the country. The success of this initiative hinges on two things: the quality and perceived balance of the materials produced by VOCMF, and the willingness of individual states and school districts to actually implement them.

Reading Between the Lines

While the goal of educating students about historical atrocities and political ideologies is straightforward, the specifics here raise points worth noting. Assigning curriculum development to a foundation with a clear mission centered on memorializing victims, coupled with requirements to compare ideologies specifically against U.S. principles and focus on particular current events (like China's actions), could shape the material from a distinct perspective. The challenge will be ensuring the resulting curriculum is viewed as balanced historical and civic education rather than advocacy, especially when terms like "civic-minded qualities" for the oral histories are open to interpretation. How state and local school boards, educators, and parents receive these materials, should they become available, will be crucial.