Oklahoma’s Teacher Test: Right Problem, Wrong Answer

This summer, Oklahoma’s then-superintendent Ryan Walters announced a new test for would-be teachers from New York and California, promising that it would keep out “woke indoctrinators” from those states (and only those states). The 50-question test was developed by PragerU and covered American government, religious freedom, gender issues, and the teacher’s role.

Walters described his as a “very America-first approach,” promising, “Oklahoma classrooms will be safeguarded from the radical leftist ideology fostered in places like California and New York.” As a one-time high-school civics teacher who’s spent decades battling progressive groupthink in teacher preparation, I think Walters’ concerns are valid.

Checking rudimentary civic knowledge is fine, but this is a really low bar. But I’ve big reservations about his solution.

For starters, Oklahoma’s test is less a measure of teaching ability or civic literacy than a quiz of rudimentary political knowledge, coupled with MAGA-aligned talking points on gender, religious liberty, and parents’ rights. The test asks how many senators there are, the names of the “two parts” of Congress, and the first three words of the U.S. Constitution. It also poses questions such as “What is the fundamental biological distinction between males and females?” (Correct answer: chromosomes and reproductive anatomy) and “Why is the distinction between male and female important in areas like sports and privacy?” (Correct answer: “to preserve fairness, safety, and integrity for both sexes”).

A teacher may know basic facts about Congress or biology and still be terribly woke. Checking rudimentary civic knowledge is fine, but this is a really low bar—and not an especially good way to weed out woke indoctrinators. After all, a teacher may know basic facts about Congress or biology and still be terribly woke. And ideological or ignorant teachers also hail from the other 48 states (trust me on this). Assessing all would-be teachers regarding civic knowledge and professional ethics would be a good thing. But this isn’t that. Moreover, targeting California and New York as Walters did reveals the whole thing to be a performative stunt, engineered to capture the attention of MAGA social media.

Well, just the other week, Walters announced he’d be resigning in order to serve as the CEO of a new education advocacy group. That means his successor has the opportunity to take up this initiative and get it right. That will require three things: acknowledging the problem, offering a principled solution, and seizing the opportunity to rethink teacher licensure.

The Problem: Teacher licensure has long been ineffectual and ideological. Heck, I was beating this drum a quarter-century ago—it was a part of what got me chased out of the University of Virginia, with the then-president of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) threatening my job at the National Press Club for my heresy. Today, AACTE champions the “integral role educator preparation programs play in advancing scholarly work on Critical Race Theory,” while accreditation standards for teacher preparation require candidates to inventory “their personal biases” so as to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Politicized teacher preparation and licensure isn’t a figment of Walters’ imagination. That’s what makes it so frustrating to see a red state opt for performative right-wing illiberalism at a time when the Right’s willingness to take on higher education and face down the education cartel has finally created an opportunity to pursue more substantive reform. I can still recall those long-ago days of 2023 when progressives insisted that training aspiring teachers to spot “white supremacy culture” wasn’t political—that it was just sensible pedagogy.

The Solution: Back in those long-ago days of 2023, it was conservatives who railed against ideological litmus tests. That’s a healthy principle and a winning one. Today, teacher licensure is mostly a matter of purchasing dubious credentials and passing an embarrassingly easy test of subject matter and professional knowledge. A rigorous test covering civic knowledge, professional ethics, and the role of a professional public educator in a democratic society could be a good thing. It would discipline education schools, reinforce healthy professional norms, and combat the silliness that often prevails in the field.

Oklahoma’s new test features enough serious questions that one can see the contours of a useful assessment. It’s entirely appropriate, for instance, that the test ask (as it does), “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?” Similar questions on professional ethics, regarding topics such as social media, suspected abuse, or bullying, are in order. It’d also be terrific to ensure that all teachers have a broad familiarity with the nation’s founding documents. If the dumb questions and dubious answers were excised, the rigor raised, and the test administered to all aspiring teachers, I could see its value.

Oklahoma’s new test features enough serious questions that one can see the contours of a useful assessment. The Opportunity: In theory, licensure ensures that teachers can do their job; in practice, it burdens prospective teachers and deters promising candidates without delivering on that core promise. Earning a license requires would-be educators to sit through a catalog of dubious education courses. For everyone except for those undergraduates who know at age 18 or 19 that they want to teach, licensure involves a graduate school of education or an alternative credentialing program. This model is bureaucratic, sclerotic, costly, and a big reason why America’s classrooms are filled with more than 300,000 long-term subs at any given time.

Busting up the teacher-preparation and licensure cartel would give schools more opportunity to hire teachers based on experience and expertise. We need fewer licensure barriers to teaching. Busting up the teacher-preparation and licensure cartel would give school leaders more opportunity to hire would-be teachers based on experience and expertise rather than on paper credentials. This would enable policymakers to attract responsible professionals, bust up the ed-school stranglehold, and create room for teacher training that’s independent of the education blob. Now, a less burdensome role for state regulation doesn’t mean the state should play no role. That’s where a 2.0 version of Walters’ test could play a vital part. If the test were seen as a meaningful screen of civic and professional understanding, it could be a cornerstone of a streamlined system.

So far, Oklahoma’s teacher test represents an unserious solution to a serious challenge. Indeed, even if the test survives the inevitable legal challenges, it’ll be more a symbolic exercise than a substantive one. And it would inevitably trigger copycat ploys by some blue states, engendering another round of pointless posturing—while complicating state-to-state reciprocity for those teachers simply seeking to ply their trade in another state.

With Walters stepping down, Oklahoma’s next chief has a chance at a reset. What would that look like? The state should apply its new standards to all aspiring teachers. It should overhaul the test, ditching the ideological trolling and Mickey Mouse questions in favor of substantive questions about professional responsibility and civic knowledge. And it should seize the opportunity to rethink teacher preparation and licensure. Walters hit on a real problem but whiffed on the solution. Here’s hoping his successor can do better.

Frederick M. Hess is the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the co-author of Getting Education Right.