Florida is paving the way in education reform and could enhance that welcome movement by returning to a successful reform it unwisely abandoned.

The Sunshine State has been a leader in school choice. Gov. Ron DeSantis also has led the opposition to poor policies and programs such as critical race theory and “diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Recently, the Board of Education unanimously adopted the Phoenix Declaration, an education blueprint adopted by Florida that emphasizes parental choice, transparency, and a focus on truth and virtue in education. It aims to reshape public education by promoting accountability and character formation. Florida is the first state to adopt the Phoenix Declaration, which was developed by the Heritage Foundation.

With the Far Left continuing to embrace socialism and beyond, it is important for Florida to be standing firmly for traditional American values and principles.

That’s why the TRACE Act is important.

 U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean of Jacksonville has a bill to address the aggressive and systematic threats from foreign adversaries that seek to infiltrate K-12 schools, and it has passed the House.

The Transparency in Reporting of Adversarial Contributions to Education Act, otherwise known as the “TRACE Act,” solidifies the rights of parents to know how foreign funding is impacting their child’s classroom.

“American schools are for education, not espionage. Yet this is what happens when our institutions of learning accept the Trojan horse of foreign funding,” Bean said, “The TRACE Act puts parents back in charge, exposes foreign influence for what it is, and slams the door on hostile nations trying to reach America’s youth.”

Bean said the TRACEAct will:

• Require schools to allow parents the opportunity to review any curriculum that has been provided by or purchased with foreign funds.
• Require that schools notify parents of any foreign contracts or financial transactions they partake in.
• Stipulate that parents be notified of how many school employees, if any, are being compensated by another country or foreign adversary and whether foreign nations have donated to the institution.

Bean’s bill is aimed directly at the Chinese communists.

Some six decades ago, Florida children were taught the difference between Americanism and communism, thanks to a Jacksonville legislator.

State Rep. George Stallings, a graduate of the Bolles School, businessman, YMCA leaders and a World War II veteran, sponsored the “Americanism versus Communism Act of 1961.”

Stallings was a Democrat, at a time when there were conservative Democrats.

His landmark piece of legislation mandated anti-communist instruction in public high schools amid the height of the Cold War. The law required students to study the evils, dangers, and fallacies of communism while emphasizing American democratic principles and free-enterprise capitalism. The act remains codified in law today, although a standalone course has been integrated into broader social studies requirements.

Stallings argued that existing school teachings on communism were hit-or-miss and insufficient to counter its infiltration of American institutions, including universities.

Introduced in the 1961 session of the Florida Legislature, the bill passed both the House and Senate with only one dissenting vote. It made the course mandatory for graduation beginning September 1962.

The act mandated a minimum 30-hour course titled “Americanism versus Communism” for all public high school students, typically offered in the 12th grade: Educators were forbidden from presenting communism as preferable to American democracy or free enterprise.

Supplementary materials were approved, such as workbooks on profit as part of a “risk/reward” system and the difference between public and private property.

In 1962 Stallings testified before the Duval County Budget Commission, where he pushed for $60,000 to broadcast it statewide on educational television.

Liberal critics said the course amounted to “indoctrination” – precisely what the Far Left has been doing in government schools for years, except they are promoting socialism.

In 1982 a gubernatorial commission recommended its repeal but the 1983 Legislature rejected the proposal by an 89-26 vote. By 1988, however, it was folded into the Florida Statutes, requiring comparative studies of political ideologies as part of high school graduation.

Liberals were highly pleased with a 1988 doctoral thesis from a University of Florida student, which claimed the course did not meet scholarly standards set by liberal professors.

After the course requirement was removed from curriculum, the inexorable slide of the Democrat Party towards socialism continued, bolstered by younger people who had little idea of the difference between totalitarian government and the American system.

Given that drift and its implications, the legislature might be wise to revisit the remedy Stallings offered. Give students factual information and let them decide whether they prefer communism, which has failed everywhere, or the American way of life, which has produced the most powerful, prosperous nation in the world.

Let liberals insist that the old Soviet Union, Red China, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela are superior to the United States, while the rest of us remember George Orwell’s observation: “There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”