Oklahoma state superintendent went from ‘excited’ to ‘disgusted’ over standards he helped create

State Superintendent Ryan Walters pledged to overhaul Oklahoma's academic standards for social studies, saying residents are 'disgusted' with the state of history education. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)

OKLAHOMA CITY — Bob Blackburn can still picture the room where he helped decide how Oklahoma students would learn their history.

Six years ago, the then-executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society sat at the head of a table with five other members of a committee spearheading the next state academic standards for social studies education.

To his right was Ryan Walters, at the time a history teacher at McAlester High School. Though he was much younger than others at the table, when Walters spoke, people listened, Blackburn recalled.

By the time they finished drafting the standards in early 2019, the committee was happy with the result, Blackburn said. He described the standards as having a more comprehensive view of Oklahoma’s past than ever before, including more details on Native American history and a requirement that schools teach about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Walters at the time said he was “very pleased” with the drafting process and “excited” about the finished product, according to a letter he issued at the time, which Oklahoma Voice obtained.

“I believe that educators will find the new standards to be very helpful in understanding the expectations for their classes,” he wrote.

But Walters, now the state’s top education official, has begun to paint an ominous picture of the standards he helped create. He gathered a group of right-wing voices , most of whom live out of state, to carry out a “complete overhaul” of the social studies standards in 2025, promising a more pro-America and pro-Bible revision.

In a recent interview on a conservative radio show, Walters claimed left-wing forces have turned the public school system “into a Marxist indoctrination factory,” even in red states. Oklahoma’s next social studies standards will reverse that trend, he said.

“We’re going to find the best minds from around the country to come in here and help us develop out that story of America,” Walters told American Family Radio. “We want our kids to be able to truly understand it. We don’t want any of our history censored from our kids.”

The academic standards that Walters and his committee create is “more important than the next election,” Blackburn said.

Their standards, if approved by the GOP-dominated state Legislature, will decide how the next generation of Oklahomans are taught history and government for the ensuing six years. It also will influence the social studies textbooks their schools could adopt.

“It should not be a political process,” Blackburn said. “It should be an educational process with people experienced in writing curriculum and understanding how it’s taught in the classroom. But, getting people who will be a champion for certain ideology, to me, is dangerous.”

Social studies schooling has undergone ‘fundamental shift’ nationwide

State standards for each subject are reviewed every six years, and social studies is next on the list.

Oklahomans are “disgusted” with young people’s poor history and civics knowledge and lack of love for America, Walters said.

In a statement through his communications office, Walters said he sent the letter of support for the 2019 standards while believing teachers would use the Bible to “make sure our students had a solid understanding of American history and culture.”

He claimed President Joe Biden, teachers unions and “their enablers” have since pushed the Bible out of schools.

“I’m proud to bring it back,” Walters said.

The standards have not changed since they were adopted.

Over the past decade, social studies education experienced a “fundamental shift” toward prioritizing critical thinking, student inquiry and translating learning into action, said Lawrence Paska, executive director of the National Council for the Social Studies. NCSS is a professional organization focused on social studies education.

In the classroom, that shift looks like teaching students how to think for themselves and how to apply what they’ve learned to the real world, Paska said. Oklahoma law makes similar requirements that students develop critical thinking skills and be prepared for “active citizenship.”

States also sought to be more inclusive of diverse historical perspectives in their social studies standards, Paska said, but that trend has gone in the opposite direction since 2020, when states started passing laws to exclude divisive concepts from schools.

Oklahoma followed suit in 2021 with House Bill 1775, which prohibited certain race and gender topics from K-12 and college classrooms.

The political attention on social studies has made educators across the country fearful of teaching the subject, said NCSS president Jenny Morgan, a middle school social studies teacher in Wisconsin.

“Social studies is not an easy topic to teach anyway, but in a politicized environment, it gets even worse,” Morgan said.

Walters aims for new standards to reinforce Bible order

Now, an emphasis on religion in schools has come to the forefront.

Louisiana recently required every public school classroom to display the Ten Commandments .

On June 27, Walters ordered all Oklahoma school districts to incorporate the Bible into their social studies curriculum. The intent, he said, is for every classroom in the state to teach biblical stories and their influence on historical figures.

The next social studies standards will bolster the effort to bring Bibles back into schools, he pledged.

Walters enlisted conservative media personalities and Republican policy advocates to develop standards emphasizing American exceptionalism. The group is distinctly different from the all-Oklahoman committee he and Blackburn served on years ago.

PragerU founder Dennis Prager, radio host Steve Deace, and Heritage Foundation president and Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts are among the national conservative voices on the committee. Only three of the 10 members have lived in Oklahoma.

More than 75 residents of the state, most of whom are public school educators, are also involved in updating the state standards, Walters said. None of them have been identified.

Developing the state’s academic standards traditionally has been done exclusively by teachers and experts living in Oklahoma, lists of past committee members show.

Leaning on in-state educators and experts, not outside special-interest groups, is considered the national best practice for developing academic standards, according to the NCSS.

These are the people who teach social studies on a daily basis, have a deep knowledge of the state and understand local laws, said Paska, the NCSS executive director. After they create an initial draft, the public also should get to weigh in, he said.

Politicizing what should be a non-partisan process, he said, produces ineffective standards and creates a risk of indoctrination.

“They won’t achieve your goals,” Paska said. “And frankly, we’re concerned that they might hurt the educational environment of your state more than help.”

Politics were ‘very much not’ part of past standards development, former committee member says

Oklahoma standards are usually developed with three committees: an executive committee that leads the process, a committee that writes the standards and a drafting committee that gives feedback. The 2019 executive committee, which included Walters, chose the members of the other two panels while also helping with writing and revising.

Amy Curran, who sat on the social studies drafting committee in 2019, said the participating members brought a variety of perspectives and expertise into the same room, all representing communities throughout Oklahoma.

Civics was Curran’s wheelhouse. At the time, she was the regional director of Generation Citizen, an organization that teaches civic engagement to public high school students. She now works with other nonprofits.

The committee’s robust discussions ended with a set of standards that were a “good representation” of Oklahoma while leaving room for schools to teach social studies in a way that aligns with their local community values, Curran said.

But it seems like the process will be different this time based on who Walters has chosen to involve, she said.

“My concerns around the way that’s happening now is it feels like it’s being driven less by the people who are in the communities and more by political ideology, which was very much not the process that I experienced,” Curran said.

Curran questioned how individuals from out of state would have a depth of knowledge about the communities where Oklahoma students live — a question she imagines would worry Oklahomans and their state lawmakers.

Democratic legislators already have voiced their frustration. In a series of statements, House Democrats called Walters’ changes a “dangerous politicization of our academic process” and further evidence of an “extremist political agenda.”

No objections have surfaced from the state Legislature’s Republican leaders.

Incoming House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, declined to comment until further information is available.

The state Senate’s president pro tem designate, Sen. Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, didn’t take a stance, saying he’s been focused on the recent Senate leadership election. Senate Republicans chose Paxton as their next caucus leader on Monday, though they will take another vote in November.

“I do get lots of constituent calls both in support and concern for what Superintendent Walters does,” Paxton said after the Republican caucus vote. “I look forward to going and meeting with him and talking a little bit more in detail.”

The Legislature will have the final say on whether to approve the new academic standards. First, the proposed standards must pass a vote by the Oklahoma State Board of Education, which has voted uniformly with Walters since he took office.

School districts, legal experts push back on Bible memo

Requiring schools to teach from the Bible, though, could face an uncertain legal future.

The Center for Education Law, an Oklahoma City-based firm, predicted Walters’ order will end up in court if his administration tries to enforce it.

The firm represented Edmond Public Schools in a successful legal challenge against the Oklahoma State Department of Education earlier this year when the agency tried to force Edmond high schools to remove certain books from their libraries.

State law assigns control over curriculum to local schools, not the state Department of Education, the law firm wrote in a letter to districts. While state standards lay out the topics schools must teach, local districts decide how to teach them.

Any attempt by the state to direct a local school’s curriculum is “without legal authority and invalid under Oklahoma law,” the firm wrote.

Norman Public Schools already has said it doesn’t plan to change its curriculum or mandate Bibles in its classrooms .

Superintendents of the Moore and Bixby school districts wrote recent letters acknowledging that teaching about the role of religion in historical and cultural contexts is part of the state standards, but teaching a specific religious doctrine is not. Both districts say they permit students to bring religious texts to school.

“Therefore, we affirm our decision to keep our current (Bixby Public Schools) curriculum unchanged, providing continuity and stability for our students and staff,” Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller wrote.

Meanwhile, Walters’ recent moves have been gaining attention on a local and national scale. He celebrated his recent directives in interviews on national conservative talk shows and during a church service with Pastors for Trump founder Jackson Lahmeyer.

Lahmeyer, known for espousing far-right views, hailed Walters as a hero at his Tulsa church for the effort to bring Bibles into public schools.

“Courage is contagious,” Lahmeyer said during the church service. “Nobody wants to be the pioneer. Now because he’s the pioneer, guess what will happen? Other states will follow suit because there was a man who had the courage to do the right thing.”

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