High school teachers in Tennessee will soon have to alter the way they teach the history of communism, specifically focusing on the "threat" of the political ideology.
The Tennessee General Assembly passed a bill this year recognizing Nov. 7 (the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution) as “Victims of Communism Day” and requiring public schools in Tennessee to provide high school world history and geography classes with at least 45 minutes of instruction on “how victims suffered under communist regimes, including through poverty, starvation, migration, systemized lethal violence, and suppression of speech,” according to the legislation’s text.
State Sen. Ken Yager walks carefully past the state Capitol, January 2026
The bill — sponsored by state Sen. Ken Yager (R-Kingston) and state Rep. Dennis Powers (R-Jacksboro) — was passed by Tennessee’s Republican supermajority and signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee in April. The law goes into effect this school year, though how exactly it will be implemented is still up in the air at Metro Nashville Public Schools.
Rather than enacting statewide curriculum, the legislation allows local school districts to choose how they want to provide the instruction in their schools. MNPS spokesperson Sean Braisted tells the Scene that because Nov. 7 falls on a weekend this year, the schools will provide the required instruction on Nov. 9 and that sample lesson plans have not been developed or finalized yet.
We recap what the state legislature did — and didn’t do — this year at the Capitol
“There is not a set date at this point to supply teachers with the lesson plans, simply prior to the required instruction date,” Braisted says in an email to the Scene.
Some MNPS teachers tell the Scene that they only recently heard of the new law, which they say has a potential to throw their classroom schedule off kilter as they often create their lesson plans months in advance. Educators also express that they feel left out of the discussions surrounding legislation that could impact their curriculum. Others see the bill as unnecessary.
“I think it’s a solution that is looking for a problem,” says Brett Kmiec, a U.S. history and comparative government teacher at Hume-Fogg Academic High School. Kmiec just began his 26th year of teaching.
“If I had to teach a lesson telling kids how bad communism is, I don’t think that there’s going to be anybody walking out of here saying, ‘Thank goodness we learned that, we were just about to go communist.’ I think that people who spend their time thinking a lot about politics kind of think that everybody thinks a lot about politics and don’t get that most people don’t think in terms of ideologies.”
Kmiec says there is sometimes a misconception that teachers have plenty of free time and that it’s easy to slot in new curriculum with little notice.
Lawmakers also passed a bill that would update education standards to reflect their preferred teachings on the history of communism. Lee signed the bill into law in April, though no immediate changes have been made as updating education standards is often a yearslong process.
Rep. Sam McKenzie, February 2026
That bill was also sponsored by Republicans, state Rep. Jody Barrett of Dickson and state Sen. Janice Bowling of Tullahoma. During committee debate during this year’s legislative session, state Rep. Sam McKenzie (D-Knoxville) called the legislation “troubling” and worried about which historical figures might be referred to as communists. Other Democrats also objected to the bill, arguing the subject is already included in school curriculum.
In February, the American Historical Association sent a letter to Tennessee lawmakers urging them to reject the legislation, saying it presents a “highly politicized version of Cold War and modern American history that is based on a misleading interpretation of the American past.”
“Tennessee students deserve to be taught a full and accurate history,” the letter reads.
Tennessee is one of several Republican states in the U.S. pushing for additional anti-communism instruction in the classroom. Florida education officials voted in 2025 to approve new social studies teaching standards, which includes a focus on a so-called communist “infiltration” of groups advocating for civil rights, as well as instruction on the use of “‘McCarthyism’ as an insult” and other “slander against anti-communists,” such as the term “Red Scare.”
