Oklahoma to start ‘woke’ test for teachers: What you need to know
Oklahoma’s new “America First” teacher certification test will require educators from California and New York to agree with conservative curriculum.
A full-page advertisement in the New York Times shows what PragerU says is the entirety of Oklahoma’s so-called “woke” test for teachers from left-leaning states.
PragerU, a politically conservative nonprofit, also paid for a front page ad about the test. Both ads ran in the paper’s Sunday, Aug. 31, edition, touting the organization’s development of the test “for the State of Oklahoma at the request of its Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters.”
The Oklahoma State Department of Education has repeatedly refused to release a copy of the test, which has brought national attention to Walters’ conservative schools agenda.
According to the PragerU ad, the test includes 34 multiple-choice questions written by the nonprofit. There are multiple questions about biology and gender identification, political viewpoints, civics, the Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, key U.S. historical figures and dates, presidents and patriotism.
One question asks: “Should teachers be allowed to express their own political viewpoints in the classroom in order to persuade the students to adopt their point of view?”
Another question asks: “Why is the distinction between male and female sports important in area like sports and privacy?”
Beneath the questions, the ad addresses PragerU’s support for the test:
“How would you assess a teacher who took this test and failed it? Would you want that person teaching your children? The answer for Oklahoma is no. We suspect (or, at least, hope) your answer would be the same. Oklahoma will require teachers from New York and California to pass this test before being hired. Oklahoma, it seems to us, has the right to expect its teacher to be both competent and consonant with its values.”
The ad also includes a QR code that directs readers to what it says is an online version of the test.
Since Walters became state superintendent in January 2023, he has often bypassed local and state media outlets to make major announcements concerning culture-war issues, opting instead to turn to national outlets such as Fox News and CNN. His agency has also amassed a poor record of responding to open records requests and has been publicly chastised by the Oklahoma attorney general’s office as a result.
The Oklahoman has made five requests of the Oklahoma State Department of Education for a copy of the test, including three formal open records requests. In each case, the agency said it did not have a copy of the test.
“In response to the above-mentioned ORR, please be advised that after conducting a thorough search, we have been unable to locate any documents responsive to your request,” the agency said in an email to The Oklahoman on Thursday following the newspaper’s most recent request for the test.
Publicly, Walters has only provided vague details about the test. “You’re not going to come in here and teach that there’s 27 genders. There’s boys and girls. That’s in our science standards,” Walters said as he explained the test during a July 24 Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting.
“You’re going to come in, and you’re not going to undermine American exceptionalism by teaching anti-American, anti-Semitic hate.”
Who runs Oklahoma schools? Ryan Walters or the State Board of Education?
Walters works with PragerU on standards, diploma seal
Walters routinely works with PragerU to inject conservative politics and values into the state’s school system. The California nonprofit has focused on creating education materials to counter what it calls “the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media and education.”
In 2023, Walters posted links to PragerU materials on the state Education Department website, and in 2024, he announced that PragerU’s leadership would help review the state’s new social studies standards. Those standards have come under scrutiny for their multiple mentions of Christianity across grade levels.
Oklahoma public high school students can also gain credit toward a new state “civics seal” on their diploma if they join PragerForce, which is PragerU’s online network of “thousands of young patriots.”
More: New details emerge about Ryan Walters’ ‘woke’ test for teachers from California, New York
Walters claimed his decision to implement the PragerU teachers’ test wouldn’t need the board’s approval, drawing pushback from other board members. Board member Ryan Deatherage asked Walters for legal documentation as to why that would be the case, but Deatherage said he hadn’t received that explanation as of mid-August.
Walters has named California and New York as two states that have adopted requirements for teachers that run “antithetical” to Oklahoma’s standards. California, Walters contended, now requires educators to teach students there is no difference between genders.
According to the California Department of Education’s website, students must be taught “about gender, gender expression, gender identity and explore the harm of negative gender stereotypes. Schools must also “teach about all sexual orientations and what being LGBTQ means.”
Oklahoma official asks whether ‘woke’ test is legal
The legality of Walters’ agency administering the test has been called into question. The Oklahoma Office of Educational Quality and Accountability oversees teacher assessments and its executive director, Megan Oftedal, sent an email to her agency’s commissioners last week noting that, according to a report from online news outlet Oklahoma Voice.
“This is not the first instance in which (the state Department of Education) has acted in ways that appear to exceed its legal authority, and the pattern raises ongoing concerns about governance and the proper exercise of statutory responsibility,” Oftedal wrote in the email.
According to state law, the Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability – and not the Oklahoma State Department of Education – has the responsibility for adopting competency tests for teachers to become certified in Oklahoma.
“CEQA is responsible for reviewing out-of-state certification assessments for comparability to Oklahoma’s testing standards,” Oftedal told The Oklahoman. “When a teacher applies for certification using an exam taken in another state – rather than Oklahoma’s required Subject Area Tests – CEQA evaluates whether the assessment aligns with our licensure requirements.”
Oftedahl said her agency didn’t have data on how many certified teachers with current valid teaching certification in other states have applied to teach in Oklahoma, which is who the PragerU assessment is targeting. But among uncertified teachers who completed certification tests in other states and now want to teach in Oklahoma, since 2020, out of 573 out-of-state applications, only 19 came from California or New York, Oftedal said. In 2025, she said, only one applicant came from California and none from New York.
