Oklahoma would require candidates for trainer jobs coming from California and New York to move an examination that the Republican-dominated state’s prime schooling official says is designed to safeguard towards “radical leftist ideology” however that opponents decry as a “MAGA loyalty check.”
Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s public colleges superintendent, mentioned Monday that any trainer coming from the 2 blue states will probably be required to move an evaluation examination administered by PragerU, an Oklahoma-based conservative nonprofit, earlier than getting a state certification.
“So long as I’m superintendent, Oklahoma school rooms will probably be safeguarded from the unconventional leftist ideology fostered in locations like California and New York,” Walters mentioned in a press release.
Sue Ogrocki / AP 
PragerU, quick for Prager College, places out quick movies with a conservative perspective on politics and economics. It promotes itself as “centered on altering minds by way of the artistic use of digital media.”
Quinton Hitchcock, a spokesperson for the state’s schooling division, mentioned the Prager check for trainer candidates has been finalized and will probably be rolling out “very quickly.”
The state did not launch all the 50-question check to The Related Press however did present the primary 5 questions, which embrace asking what the primary three phrases of the U.S. Structure are and why freedom of faith is “essential to America’s id.”
Prager did not instantly reply to a cellphone message or e mail in search of remark. However Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, instructed CNN a number of questions on the evaluation relate to “undoing the harm of gender ideology.”
Jonathan Zimmerman, who teaches historical past of schooling on the College of Pennsylvania, mentioned Oklahoma’s contract with PragerU to check out-of-state would-be lecturers “is a watershed second.”
“As an alternative of Prager merely being a useful resource which you could attract an non-compulsory means, Prager has change into institutionalized as a part of the state system,” he mentioned. “There is not any different strategy to describe it.”
Zimmerman mentioned the American Historic Affiliation did a survey final yr of Seventh- to Twelfth-grade lecturers and located that solely a minority had been counting on textbooks for day-to-day instruction. He mentioned the upside to that’s that almost all historical past books are “lethal boring.” However he mentioned meaning historical past lecturers are counting on on-line assets, similar to these from Prager.
“I believe what we’re now seeing in Oklahoma is one thing totally different, which is definitely empowering Prager as a form of gatekeeper for future lecturers,” Zimmerman mentioned.
Oklahoma’s transfer sharply criticized
One of many nation’s largest lecturers unions, the American Federation of Academics, has usually been at odds with the Trump administration and the crackdown on trainer autonomy within the classroom.
“This MAGA loyalty check will probably be one more turnoff for lecturers in a state already fighting an enormous scarcity,” mentioned AFT President Randi Weingarten.
She was important of Walters, who pushed for the state’s curriculum requirements to be revised to incorporate conspiracy theories concerning the 2020 presidential election.
“His precedence needs to be educating college students, however as an alternative, it is getting Donald Trump and different MAGA politicians to note him,” Weingarten mentioned in a press release.
Tina Ellsworth, president of the nonprofit Nationwide Council for the Social Research, additionally raised considerations that the check would forestall lecturers from making use of for jobs.
“State boards of schooling ought to keep true to the values and rules of the U.S. Structure,” Ellsworth mentioned. “Imposing an ideology check to change into a trainer in our nice democracy is antithetical to these rules.”
State Rep. John Waldron, the Oklahoma Democratic Social gathering chairman, decried the check as “political posturing.”
“If you wish to see a textbook definition of indoctrination, how a couple of loyalty check for lecturers,” mentioned Waldron. “It is a unhappy echo of a extra paranoid previous.”
Waldron, a New Jersey native, mentioned he would have been within the goal demographic for this sort of check when he moved from Washington, D.C., to Oklahoma to show social research in 1999. He mentioned it might have struck him as a sign that the state “wasn’t severe about attracting high quality lecturers.”
“Academics will not be speeding right here from different states to show. We have an unlimited trainer scarcity and it is not like we have now a large provide of lecturers coming in from blue states anyway,” he mentioned.
