Oklahoma City – Students of the Oklahoma high school studying the history of the United States inquire about the industrial revolution, the suffrage of women and the expansion of the role of America in international affairs.
From the next school year, they will add conspiracy theories to the 2020 presidential election.
The new Oklahoma social studies standards for pupils from public schools from kindergarten to 12th year, already permeated by references to the Bible and national pride, have been revised in the direction of the superintendent of Ryan Walters state schools. The Republican official spent a large part of his first mandate by welcoming President Donald Trump, arguing the teachers’ unions and the superintendents of local schools, and trying to end what he describes as “sensitivity” in public schools.
“The left pushed the indoctrination from left to class,” said Walters. “We give it to really understand the story … and I am not excited about this.”
The previous standard for studying the 2020 elections simply said: “Examining the 2020 election problems and its results.” The new version is more extensive: “Identifying the differences in the results of the elections in 2020 by examining the graphs and other information, including the sudden stopping of ballot counts in certain cities in the main states of the battlefield, the risks of security of the postal ballot, the sudden contradiction, an unforeseen record of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of the” Belwetor County “. “”.
The new standard has raised red flags even among the Republican colleagues in Walters, including the governor and legislative leaders. They feared that several last -minute changes, including the language concerning the 2020 elections and a provision indicating that the source of the cocvid virus was a Chinese laboratory, were added a few hours before the State School Board voted on them.
A group of parents and educators filed a legal action asking a judge to reject the standards, arguing that they were not examined correctly and that they “represent a distorted vision of social studies which intentionally promotes an obsolete and manifestly biased perspective”.
GOP legislators cannot bring together enough support to reject new standards
While many Oklahoma teachers expressed their indignation at the change of standards, others say they leave a lot of room for an effective teacher to teach students the results of the 2020 elections without informing them.
Aaron Baker, who has taught us the government to secondary schools in Oklahoma City for more than a decade, said that he was most concerned about teachers from the rural and conservative regions of the state who could feel encouraged to impose their own beliefs on students.
“If someone hosts the influence of these far -right organizations according to our standards and is interested in inserting more Christianity into our practices as a teacher, then they are embraced,” said Baker. “For me, this is the main concern.”
The leaders of the Legislative Assembly led by Oklahoma led by the Republicans introduced a resolution to reject the standards, but there was not enough support for the GOP to adopt it.
Part of this hesitation probably comes from a last-minute opposition wave organized by pro-Trump conservative groups such as Moms For Liberty, which has a great presence in Oklahoma and threatened the legislators who reject standards with a main adversary.
“During the last electoral cycles, basic conservative organizations overthrew seats through Oklahoma by titling Low Responsible Republicans,” the group wrote in a letter signed by several other conservative and militant groups of the GOP. “If you choose to sit with the liberal media and make business with the Democrats to block conservative reform, you will be the next one.”
The Superintendent says that his new standards “encourage critical thinking”
After a group of parents, educators and other Oklahoma school officials worked to develop the new social studies standards, Walters brought together an executive committee mainly composed of experts outside the state of conservative think-tank to revise them. He said he wanted to focus more on American exceptionalism and incorporate the Bible as an educational resource.
Among the Walters appointed to the examination committee are Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation and a key figure of his 2025 project plan for a conservative administration, and Dennis Prager, a radio showcase animator who founded Prager U, a conservative non-profit organization which offers “pro-American” educational documents.
In a declaration to the Associated Press, Walters defended the students on the elements “unprecedented and historically significant” of the 2020 presidential election.
“Standards do not indicate students to believe; Rather, they encourage critical thinking by inviting students to examine real events, to examine information accessible to the public and to draw their own conclusions, “he said.
Says, criticism and audits in the battlefield of the States where Trump challenged his loss confirmed that the victory of the Democrat Joe Biden, and Trump lost dozens of judicial cases contesting the results.
Critics say that the new Walters standard is filled with deceptive phrasing that seeks to direct the discussion in a particular direction.
Democrats characterized him as another political scheme by Walters, widely considered as a potential candidate for the post of governor in 2026, to the detriment of schoolchildren.
“It is a posture and a political theater harmful to which our children do not need to be submitted,” said Senator Mark Mann, a democrat of Oklahoma City who previously sat on the school board for one of the greatest districts of the state.
Concerns about the politicization of school standards
National experts on education standards have also expressed the alarm, noting that Oklahoma has historically ranked among the States for its standards.
Brendan Gillis, director of teaching and learning at the American Historical Association which supervised a research project that analyzed standards in the 50 states, said that Oklahoma’s social studies standards had been “good enough” until the latest version.
In addition to the concerns about the disinformation of the elections, Gillis added: “There was also a lot of biblical content which was somehow retained in existing standards.”
He said that many references to Christianity and that the Bible misinterpreted the history of the country’s foundation and lacked historical nuances.
David Griffith, research director of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a reflection group on teaching conservative education, said that he was not aware of any other state that had tried to promote the disinformation of elections in their study standards.
He described the new “unhappy” starting standards of traditionally strong social studies standards of Oklahoma.
“It is simply inappropriate to promote conspiracy theories on standards elections,” he said.
