Oklahoma will require teachers from NY, California to prove they back 'America First'
Teachers from California and New York who want to work in Oklahoma public schools will be required to pass a certification test to prove they share the state's conservative political values.
Regardless of the subject or grade they teach, they'll have to show they know "the biological differences between females and males" and that they agree with the state's American history standards, which includes teachings of a disproved conspiracy theory that the Democratic Party stole the 2020 presidential election from President Donald Trump.
The state department of education will implement the new certification test for teachers from the two largest Democrat-led states "who are teaching things that are antithetical to our standards" to ensure newcomers "are not coming into our classrooms and indoctrinating kids," Oklahoma schools Superintendent Ryan Walters, said in an interview with USA TODAY.
Walters has dubbed the new requirement an "America First" certification, in reference to one of Trump's political slogans.
Oklahoma's Republican Governor Kevin Stitt appointed Walters, a Republican, to the helm of the state's education department in Sept. 2020 and voters then elected him for a second term in November 2022.
Oklahoma is offering teaching bonuses that go up to $50,000 to attract teachers from across the nation and has seen "a dramatic increase in teachers wanting to come to Oklahoma," Walters said. The new test is meant to ensure they weed out teachers with opposing views from the state's standards. The state, like many others, has a persisting teacher shortage.
He said the test will only apply to teachers from California and New York, for now, because those states specifically teach lessons that are antithetical to those taught in Oklahoma.
"A lot of the credit goes to Gavin Newsom," Walters said. He alleged California under the governor has implemented lessons on "gender theory," and that won't be allowed in Oklahoma schools. (The California Healthy Youth Act, passed in 2016, requires that public school lessons across the state "must be inclusive of LGBTQ students" and same-sex relationships and teach students about "gender, gender expression, gender identity, and explore the harm of negative gender stereotypes" and "about all sexual orientations and what being LGBTQ means.")
Oklahoma's 'America First' Test
Nonprofit conservative media company Prager U is helping Oklahoma's state department of education develop the test.
The company previously helped develop the state's new high school history curriculum standards, which includes lessons on how to dissect the results of the 2020 election, including learning about alleged mail-in voter fraud, "an unforeseen record number of voters" and "security risks of mail-in balloting."
The new curriculum also teaches the contested theory that COVID-19 emerged from a lab leak and removed a prior proposal for lessons about George Floyd's murder and Black Lives Matter.
"These reforms will reset our classrooms back to educating our children without liberal indoctrination," Walters wrote in a post on X on April 29. "We're proud to defend these standards, and we will continue to stand up for honest, pro-America education in every classroom."
The state superintendent said some of the history questions will about American government, how the nation came to be and its founding documents.
Walters' office shared five sample questions with USA TODAY:
Walters said the test will be finished by Aug. 15 and it will be available to prospective teachers the week of Aug. 18.
"We're very close," he said.
Oklahoma schools have become more has conservative under Walters' took the helm of the state's education department in Sept. 2020, and voters elected him for a second term in November 2022. Along with the changes to the state's history curriculum standards, Walters has ordered public schools to teach the Bible in June 2024. Bible lessons will not be on the new teacher certification exam, he said.
Teachers' union leaders: Test will be 'a huge turn off' to teachers amid 'serious teacher shortage crisis'
Teachers' union leaders decried the new certification test in interviews with USA TODAY.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Walters' new test is going to be a "huge turn off" to teachers and that it's not "going to solve a problem."
"Teachers in this country are patriotic, and suggesting they're not is insulting," she said. Weingarten went on to criticize Walters for several of his conservative pushes for education in Oklahoma, including bible lessons, and support for a religious charter school, which was blocked by a split Supreme Court vote this May.
She called those moves and the implementation of the new test "a major distraction."
"Ryan Walters appears to be trying out for MAGA in chief, not educator in chief, because everything that he's doing is about the culture wars, not about the reading, writing and arithmetic," she said. "If he wants to be MAGA in chief then go be MAGA in chief. But let someone else be educator in chief and focus on other things people deserve, which is reading, literacy and wraparound services – and actual teachers who want to be in Oklahoma."
Oklahoma and California teachers union leaders agreed.
"This is a political stunt to grab attention," said Cari Elledge, president of the Oklahoma Education Association. "All of the mandates coming out of the Department of Education are baseless and are distractions from real issues in Oklahoma."
One of those pressing issues is "the serious teacher shortage crisis," she said. "When political ideology plays into whether or not you can teach in any place, that might be a deterrent to quality educators attempting to get a job ... We think it's intentional to make educators fearful and confused."
The political climate in Oklahoma has contributed to the teacher shortage, she said, noting there are about 30,000 teachers in Oklahoma who hold state teaching certifications but are not working in classrooms.
"We believe the political morale is making it scarier to teach," she said. "We know our jobs are so much more important and at the end of the day it's about the future of our students."
The state teachers union told its members in a July 11 letter, which Elledge provided to USA TODAY, that Walters "has no legal authority to vet certified teachers based on political ideology."
They say that's because "licensing and certification are governed by state statute, not personal opinion or partisan preferences" and state law "requires us to recognize out-of-state teaching credentials."
The letter references part of the state education code that says it "must issue certificates to qualified teachers from other U.S. states and territories if they meet basic requirements, including a criminal background check."
The union is also concerned about the state education department's partnership with PragerU "because it's not an educational authority and it's partisan," Elledge said.
"OEA is actively monitoring this and other overreaches," the letter reads. "We remain vigilant in protecting the rights of Oklahoma's educators and students."
Teachers in Oklahoma don't teach newly implemented conservative ideologies in classrooms, which are expected to be on the 'America First' certification test, Elledge said.
"They're not here to give opinions in class; they're here to teach facts," she said.
There are not many teachers in Oklahoma who come from California or New York, anyway, because of political differences.
"People in Oklahoma have more conservative values," she said. "It's not a destination state for people from California and New York, which is sad because it's a really good place and students here deserve the best they could possibly have."
David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers' Association, said he also hasn't heard of an influx of teachers who want to move from California to teach in Oklahoma.
But at a time when states are trying to solve teacher shortages, the Oklahoma test is trying to "scare them away," he said.
"This almost seems like satire and so far removed from my research around what Oklahoma educators need and deserve," he said. "I can't see how this isn't some kind of hyper-political grandstanding that doesn't serve any of those needs."
Goldberg rejects that what teachers need in California – "respect" and a livable wage – is different than what Oklahoma teachers need to thrive. Teachers have a responsibility to take care of kids in both places despite their different education systems, he said.
Contact Kayla Jimenez at kjimenez@usatoday.com. Follow her on X at @kaylajjimenez.
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