A Modest Proposal: California should test red state teachers for wokeness | Opinion
Oklahoma’s public schools superintendent, Ryan Walters, is apparently so concerned about the influx of woke, liberal ideology into his schools that last week he announced a special assessment test for all New Yorkers and Californians. Now, would-be educators from these blue states must pass a 50-question loyalty test before they can teach in God’s holy land of Oklahoma.
The 50-question test will be administered by PragerU, a conservative nonprofit that has received backlash for its religious-driven, propagandistic content with misleading and factually incorrect information on subjects like climate change, slavery and immigration. Their classroom content, PragerU Kids, is now approved for unquestioned use by teachers in Louisiana, Arizona, New Hampshire, Florida and Oklahoma, just to name a few.
“As long as I am superintendent, Oklahoma classrooms will be safeguarded from the radical leftist ideology fostered in places like California and New York,” Walters said in a statement.
In an interview with CNN, PragerU CEO Marissa Streit said that several questions on the assessment will relate to “undoing the damage of gender ideology.”
Walters’ test must be answered without a single error to receive a state teaching license — but under scrutiny, his office has only released the first five questions, which include real barnburners such as:
Why is freedom of religion important to America’s identity?
a) It makes Christianity the national religion
b) It bans all forms of public worship
c) It limits religious teaching in public life
d) It protects religious choice from government control
(Granted, I only have two college degrees, but I’m pretty sure the answer is D — no matter how much certain people would prefer it to be A.)
Walters, until now, was perhaps best known for requesting $3 million from the state legislature to buy a Bible for every classroom in his budget-strapped state. (A request that went blessedly unfulfilled). He’s also made headlines for revising the state’s social studies standards to include conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election; including one statewide standard that required students to be able to “identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting (and) sudden batch dumps.”
But if California is going to be painted with a radical leftist brush by a bush league Southern bureaucrat with less national name recognition than Donald Trump’s bone spurs, then I think we ought to at least earn the title.
Therefore, I propose we institute a similar test for any red state refugees who want to teach in California, to make sure they align with our coastal values and to help weed out any one of which Walters would approve.
We can call it the PURITY Test: “Panic Unleashed over Rainbows, Inclusivity and Thinking for Yourself.”
Questions could include:
1) You and your non-binary life partner, Rabbit, have recently adopted a child. What is the first activity you do with your nudist commune to welcome them?
a) Take them to the doctor for their first gender reassignment surgery
b) Teach them their A-C-A-Bs
c) Put their name on the waiting list at the local methadone clinic
d) Book a tour of the secret tunnels under your city that Gavin Newsom built
2) You make $16.50 per hour at a job that requires a four-year degree. You’ve been mandated to return to the office, which is a 115-minute commute in rush hour traffic to drive a total of 10 miles. Your monthly rent is $2,900. If you buy avocado toast daily, what side gig will you need to work to afford gas at $5.23 per gallon?
a) Drag queen brunch waitress (Tucking required)
b) Uber driver (Tesla required)
c) Cat litter supplier to elementary schools (Imagination required)
d) All of the above
3) How many times a week, on average, do you use a racial slur?
a) Only when singing along to Biggie Small’s 1994 hit, “Juicy”
b) Only when you see a Black person
c) Only when you think you see a Black person
d) Only when Caitlin Clark gets fouled while driving to the rim
4) True or False? PragerU is headquartered in California, has an annual revenue of more than $56 million, is not an academic institution, is not accredited by any institution and does not confer degrees, despite having the word “university” in its name.
5) In July 2025, the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office opened an investigation into Superintendent Walters for what alleged reason?
a) Playing a video featuring multiple naked women in his office during a board meeting, according to board members Becky Carson and Ryan Deatherage, who say they were the only people seated where Walters’ screen could be seen.
b) “Something … on the screen that should not have been,” according to State Board of Education member Chris Van Denhende, who was also at the meeting.
c) “A strange, unsettling scene that demands clarity and transparency,” according to Oklahoma Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, a Republican.
d) Something that “raise(s) a number of questions,” according to State Sen. Adam Pugh, a Republican and the Senate education chairman.
e) All of the above
If red states want to indoctrinate their students with religious, jingoistic fervor that falsifies and whitewashes American history, then I suppose that’s their business.
But California’s schools are — and remain — open to any teaching professionals who are serious about educating 5.8 million of tomorrow’s best and brightest.
Haters need not apply.
