In August’s primary, Wisconsin voters flirted with nominating an advocate of socialism as the Democratic Party’s candidate for governor. Elsewhere in the region, national elected officials openly embrace socialist ideals, while the U.S. senator-elect in neighboring Michigan has drawn significant attention for his radical views.
Whatever one’s political affiliation, these developments raise an important question: Is it time for Wisconsin to adopt statewide education standards that ensure students understand the history of communism and the dangers it has posed to freedom, democracy, and human dignity?
There are two distinct variants of socialism, and candidates have not always been clear about which kind they favor. Some favor Sweden as their model, failing to recognize that Sweden today is not socialist — but, rather, a strong market economy with an extensive social safety net. Others do not favor a market economy at all and insist that the government must own the means of production. They are reluctant to name an example nation, however, because the examples have been obvious failures, such as Cuba and North Korea, or growth stories that only happened when the state retreated from central planning, such as China and Vietnam.
According to an old saying, you can vote your way into socialism but you have to shoot your way out — but that is not quite right. Swedes voted for an extensive welfare state but then pulled back democratically, especially during a 1990s fiscal crisis. Today Swedes enjoy such policies as school vouchers and a larger private role in health care. But when Venezuelans empowered Hugo Chavez to centralize control, they found the system he started could not be voted out. When they tried in 2024, the regime declared itself the winner anyway.
This is not simply a question about today’s political environment. Students who embrace socialism need to understand the real danger — granting the government power that disables the means of taking it back. And polling makes it clear that young people like the idea of socialism more than their elders. In a March 2025 Cato Institute-YouGov survey, 62 percent of respondents ages 18 to 29 expressed a favorable view of socialism, compared to 43 percent of adults overall. Perhaps the youthful supporters of socialism have lost sight of the danger and death its communist variant brings.
Estimates of the death toll associated with communist regimes are imprecise, but “The Black Book of Communism” (1997) put it as high as 100 million lives. China under Mao Zedong, the Soviet Union under Stalin, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and a number of other examples have profoundly influenced world history. In countries where authoritarian communist governments have taken power, the historical record includes political purges, mass killings, forced labor, censorship, religious persecution, widespread poverty, and restrictions on basic freedoms.
As of October 2026, at least five states have enacted laws or established curriculum requirements addressing communism, its history, or its consequences:
- Arizona’s high school standards require students to compare and discuss political ideologies, such as communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy. (In 2024, Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have mandated at least 45 minutes of instruction on the history of communist regimes in high school government classes.)
- Arkansas requires public schools to teach students in grades 7 to 12 about the failures of communism and autocratic governments. The required subjects include oppression, mass killings, economic failures, and the principles underlying the American constitutional republic.
- Florida requires instruction on the history and global impact of communism. Its approach also includes observance of Victims of Communism Day, providing opportunities to examine political repression, starvation, forced migration, violence, and restrictions on individual liberty.
- Tennessee has adopted academic standards addressing the history of communism, including communist movements in the United States, atrocities committed abroad, and comparisons involving communism, totalitarianism, freedom and democracy. State law also provides for at least 45 minutes of instruction for qualifying high-school students in connection with Victims of Communism Day.
- Texas directs its State Board of Education to incorporate the study of communist regimes and ideologies into social studies standards for grades 4 to 12. Topics include historical atrocities, propaganda, censorship, forced conformity, and firsthand accounts from victims of communist regimes.
These states have taken different approaches, but their efforts share a common premise: Students should understand more than the names, dates and definitions associated with communism. They should also learn how communist governments have operated in practice and how the concentration of political and economic power has created widespread death and poverty.
At the national level, on Sept. 30 the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter encouraging schools to teach students about the historical impact and dangers of communism and socialism. Wisconsin should consider whether its own academic standards adequately address these lessons. A statewide requirement would not need to dictate every classroom discussion or prescribe a single political viewpoint. Instead, Wisconsin could establish clear, age-appropriate learning objectives that require students to examine the history of communist regimes, the human consequences of authoritarian rule, the relationship between economic systems and political freedom, and the experiences of people who have lived under such governments. Students could study primary sources, historical testimony, and scholarly accounts while learning to distinguish political theory from the actions and outcomes of particular governments.
The Legislature, the Department of Public Instruction, educators, parents and historians should engage in a serious discussion about what students need to know and how best to teach it. The question is not whether Wisconsin students should be told what to think about communism. The question is whether they should graduate without a clear understanding of its history, its documented abuses under authoritarian regimes, and the consequences of sacrificing individual liberty to unchecked government power.
Before the next generation is asked to debate the merits of competing political systems, it should have the knowledge necessary to understand what those systems have meant for the people who have lived under them.
Scott Niederjohn is dean of the Batterman School of Business and the director of the Free Enterprise Center, both at Concordia University Wisconsin, and he is a visiting fellow of the Badger Institute.
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