Oklahoma is set to implement a controversial new requirement for teaching applicants from California and New York, mandating they pass an assessment from a conservative non-profit before gaining state certification.
The state's top education official claims the measure is designed to protect against "radical leftist ideology," while critics have labelled it a "MAGA loyalty test."
Ryan Walters, Oklahoma's public schools superintendent, announced on Monday that any teacher relocating from the two traditionally Democratic states would need to clear an assessment administered by PragerU, an Oklahoma-based conservative organisation.
“As long as I am superintendent, Oklahoma classrooms will be safeguarded from the radical leftist ideology fostered in places like California and New York,” he said.
PragerU, short for Prager University, is known for producing short videos that offer a conservative perspective on political and economic issues.
The group promotes itself as "focused on changing minds through the creative use of digital media."
Quinton Hitchcock, a spokesperson for the state’s education department, said the Prager test for teacher applicants had been finalized and would be rolling out “very soon.”
The state did not release the entire 50-question test to reporters but did provide the first five questions, which include asking what the first three words of the U.S. Constitution are and why freedom of religion is “important to America’s identity.”
PragerU did not immediately respond to a phone message or email seeking comment.
However, CEO Marissa Streit told CNN that several questions on the assessment relate to “undoing the damage of gender ideology.”
Jonathan Zimmerman, who teaches history of education at the University of Pennsylvania, said Oklahoma’s contract with PragerU to test out-of-state would-be teachers “is a watershed moment.”
“Instead of Prager simply being a resource that you can draw in an optional way, Prager has become institutionalized as part of the state system,” he said.
“There’s no other way to describe it.”
Zimmerman said the American Historical Association did a survey in 2024 of 7th- to 12th-grade teachers and found that only a minority were relying on textbooks for day-to-day instruction. He said the upside to that is that most history books are “deadly boring.”
But he said that means history teachers are relying on online resources, such as those from Prager.
“I think what we’re now seeing in Oklahoma is something different, which is actually empowering Prager as a kind of gatekeeper for future teachers,” Zimmerman said.
One of the nation’s largest teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers, has often been at odds with the Donald Trump administration and the crackdown on teacher autonomy in the classroom.
“This MAGA loyalty test will be yet another turnoff for teachers in a state already struggling with a huge shortage," said AFT President Randi Weingarten.
She was critical of Walters, who pushed for the state’s curriculum standards to be revised to include conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.
“His priority should be educating students, but instead, it’s getting Donald Trump and other MAGA politicians to notice him,” Weingarten said in a statement.
State Rep. John Waldron, the Oklahoma Democratic Party chairman, decried the test as “political posturing.”
“If you want to see a textbook definition of indoctrination, how about a loyalty test for teachers,” said Waldron. “It’s a sad echo of a more paranoid past.”
Waldron, a New Jersey native, said he would have been in the target demographic for this kind of test when he moved from Washington, D.C., to Oklahoma to teach social studies in 1999. He said it would have struck him as an indication that the state “wasn’t serious about attracting quality teachers.”
“Teachers are not rushing here from other states to teach. We’ve got an enormous teacher shortage and it’s not like we have a giant supply of teachers coming in from blue states anyway,” he said.
