In “Straight Talk with Rick and Jal,” Harvard University’s Jal Mehta and I examine the reforms and enthusiasms that permeate education. In a field full of buzzwords, our goal is simple: Tell the truth, in plain English, about what’s being proposed and what it means for students, teachers, and parents. We may be wrong and we will frequently disagree, but we’ll try to be candid and ensure that you don’t need a Ph.D. in eduspeak to understand us. Today’s topic is Oklahoma’s America-First Assessment.
Rick: Jal, let’s talk about Oklahoma’s new teacher test. This summer, outgoing Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters, who is stepping down to become the chief executive officer of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, announced that the state would be rolling out a new test for would-be teachers from New York and California, intended to screen out “woke indoctrinators.” The 50-question test, developed by PragerU, covers the teacher’s role, American government, religious freedom, and gender-related issues. In unveiling the test, Walters explained that it would reflect a “very America-first approach” in response to New York and California standards that he regards as “antithetical” to Oklahoma’s.
I should preface things by saying I’m hugely sympathetic to the impulse here—that I think there are big issues with teacher preparation and there frequently is an ideological tilt in teacher standards. But I’m not sure the test is an especially good way to address those concerns. When it comes to civics, for instance, test-takers are asked how many Senators there are, to name the “two parts” of Congress, and to identify the first three words of the U.S. Constitution. I came away unsure just how much those sorts of questions actually accomplish.
Anyway, here’s my take. First, I find the exercise misguided. For starters, conservatives have spent years decrying the illiberal politicization of teacher preparation and the ideological bias baked into licensure. 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’s school of education. Those on the right have argued that teacher assessment should not be in the business of policing right-think. So, it’s enormously frustrating to see a red state settle for performative right-wing illiberalism at a time when there’s finally the opportunity and political will to pursue more substantive reform.
Second, it’s fair for Walters to note that all the criticism of teacher preparation and licensure hasn’t yielded reform—that things have only gotten worse. Ed. schools were already aggressively policing aspiring teachers for the “right” dispositions two decades ago, and, in the past decade, this morphed into heavy doses of “anti-racism”; DEI; and declarations that age-old notions of merit, hard work, and discipline were inequitable and “problematic.” So, if more measured pushback didn’t deliver, there’s a case for stronger medicine. But it’s hard to make the case that this is it.
Third, despite the actual test featuring some dumb questions and dubious answers, there are also plenty of reasonable ones. Many of the questions are things every teacher should be able to answer. For instance, it’s wholly appropriate to ask, “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?” If the dumb questions and loaded answers were excised, and if the test were administered to teachers coming from more than two states, this would feel a lot less like a political exercise.
Fourth, I’ve long argued that we need fewer licensure barriers to teaching, except perhaps for those related to scientifically anchored pedagogy. We should make it easier for prospective teachers to apply for teaching positions and for schools and systems to hire based on determinations of merit. A red state chief seeking to bust up the teacher-licensure cartel could go that way. Instead, I fear this whole thing pulls us in the wrong direction. I’m curious to hear your take, my friend.
Jal: Well, I took the test. And I passed! It includes questions like “What is the fundamental biological distinction between males and females?” (answer: chromosomes and reproductive anatomy), and “Why is the distinction between male and female important in areas like sports and privacy?” (answer: “to preserve fairness, safety, and integrity for both sexes.”) It is less like a test on being an effective teacher and more like a test on contemporary conservative talking points. I don’t think it would actually screen anyone out. Rather, it signals which points of view are welcome in Oklahoma. Since I don’t think there should be a political litmus test for teachers, I find this to be a pretty odious idea.
At a deeper level, there are so many things wrong here that I’m not sure where to start. One angle is that this is another example of education being treated like a political football. Scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are declining, schools are in need of fundamental reinvention, the teaching profession is in crisis, and yet we are again politicizing it in superficial ways rather than focusing on these core issues. A second angle is the problematic nature of contemporary American politics—Ryan Walters justified these tests by arguing that teachers from California and New York were engaging in liberal indoctrination of their students. We can debate the merits of that claim, but the education response should not be the conservative indoctrination of students. Indoctrination of any kind is anathema to the purpose of education, which is to help students to think, to develop their own views, and to challenge those views with alternate perspectives. If the governor of Oklahoma had championed this test, it would be par for the course, but the fact that it came from the state’s superintendent, whose focus should be more on education than on politics, is particularly shameful.
Schools are political entities. They are democratically governed, and thus it is misguided to assume there is a world where we can entirely “take the politics out of education.” But if we want to improve the educational part, a little buffering may be in order. Oklahoma, like all the states in our nation, needs more good teachers. What makes a good teacher is not whether they are politically liberal or conservative but whether they know their subject and can open a child’s mind to new possibilities. Cutting their potential workforce in half is not a decision anyone can afford right now.
Rick: Can I stay with the California and New York thing for a minute? It really signals that the whole thing is a clumsy political stunt. Presumably, Walters did that on purpose: Targeting two high-profile blue states would make this pop more vividly on MAGA social media. But, for anyone who focuses more on education than messaging, it’s wholly self-defeating. If the point of the test is to protect Oklahoma’s students from the “wrong” sort of teachers, then the test should apply uniformly. After all, teachers from other blue states, or even from red states, might not have the “proper views and values.”
Given that I’ve long been frustrated with the grouping that prevails in teacher training and licensure, I wish that I could push back on your characterization of the test. But I really can’t. You’re right that it’s less a test of skills and knowledge than a screen for talking points. Indeed, Bellwether’s Andy Rotherham has aptly described the test as an exercise in trolling—one that’s less interested in what teachers know than in eliciting right-wing groupthink on questions of law, gender, and policy.
The hypocrisy of our current moment is staggering. Heck, I can remember those long-ago days in 2023 when progressives and teacher educators patronizingly explained that requiring teacher-candidates to be trained to spot “white supremacy culture” or to show competencies in “diversity” and “equity” wasn’t political—that it was just sensible pedagogy. And I can remember Republicans railing against teacher education programs for their ideological litmus tests and progressive dogma. Now, that signal has gone forth to trade places. I’ve got to believe we can do better.
For those who reject Oklahoma’s solution but think something has to be done about teacher preparation, any wisdom to share?
Jal: There is much we could potentially discuss around teacher licensure. Those of us who want to raise standards in the name of professionalization need to explain how we plan to do that in an era of significant teacher shortages. And those, like you, Rick, who have suggested that the solution is through tearing down these walls, need to account for the fact that alternative-certification pathways have grown substantially since your initial position paper in 2001, without much evidence that doing so has improved results for students.
There is also a good debate to be had about the qualities and skills we should look for in teachers. In the book I co-authored with the University of California San Diego’s Sarah Fine, In Search of Deeper Learning, I found that the teachers most prized by students were those who had a different stance toward teaching and learning. They focused less on covering the material and more on inspiring lifelong learners in their fields; less about compliance and more about intellectual play; less about students simply receiving knowledge and more about students developing their own interpretations of key debates and dilemmas. Students felt intellectually respected by these teachers; the teachers were actually interested in what they had to say. How can we get more of these kinds of people in our classrooms? Now that’s something that a state superintendent of education should be thinking about.
Rick: With Walters stepping down to take on a new role, Oklahoma’s next chief has a chance at a reset. Like I’ve said, I’m sympathetic to the impulse here. There are problems with teacher preparation and licensure. We can agree on that, even if we may disagree on the appropriate remedy. I would hope that a reset would include three things: It would apply to aspiring teachers from every state, including Oklahoma (suggesting that the exercise is more than a political stunt). It would overhaul the test, ditching the ideological trolling and Mickey Mouse questions while leaning into substantive questions about professional responsibility, civic knowledge, and things like the science of reading. And it would seize the opportunity to rethink fundamental assumptions about how Oklahoma approaches teacher preparation and licensure. Ultimately, I think Walters hit on a real problem but missed on the solution. Here’s hoping his successor can do better.
