Woke teacher test a study in the cowardice of our so-called leaders
If only there were Republican office-holders with the constitutional power to rein Ryan Walters in. Oh, wait, they're literally everywhere
We’re led by idiots.
That’s what they’ll say when the world moves right past Oklahoma for good.
They may not be dumb.
They may not be stupid.
In a vacuum, that is.
But what they do and what they refuse do is indeed idiotic, all in the name of reelection, the next job or just their unwillingness to make a political enemy in the name of doing right.
In the meantime, Ryan Walters continues to do his daily damage, damage that will not be easily undone because the whackadoodles his party has fostered, even if less than half our state’s Republican electorate, are still the loudest, most active and never miss a primary.
So, today, of course, we’re talking about Walters’ woke test for teachers, the one … I guess … he can unveil all by himself, without approval of the state school board, either house of the legislature, the governor or the attorney general.
Seems like it, anyway.
The courts, perhaps, may save us, but the cowards have made their stand by sitting down, fingers in their ears, hands out to the same donors who’ve never valued education, yet happily devour every tax break they buy.
According to The Washington Post, which wrote about it on Tuesday, the test might only be applied to prospective teachers from New York and California.
A few days earlier, Aug. 15, a CNN report opened its story by saying …
“Teachers from ‘liberal’ states who have relocated to Oklahoma and are seeking to work there must take a controversial new assessment, to be given for the first time today, that ‘keeps away woke indoctrinators,’ according to Oklahoma’s top education official.”
So maybe it’s not just for teachers from New York and California.
CNN also reported it was given “exclusive access to parts of the multiple-choice assessment, which is around 50 questions.”
One question, reports CNN, has to do with gender and ”which chromosome pairs determine biological sex.”
Another asks why freedom of religion is so intrinsic to the American identity.
Another asks for the first three words of the U.S. Constitution, which happen to be “We the People,” a near branded Republican cliché at this point, when the better idea would have been to focus on the eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th words of the document — “in order to form a more perfect Union” — which is exactly what a partisan test like Walters’, created by PragerU, will not do.
So where do we begin?
Well, if real fear about real indoctrination from real teachers with dangerously antithetical views were really the case, why limit the test to teachers coming from New York and California or other so-called liberal states? Why not make it universal for every teacher, even those already in the job, rather than grandfathering in our homegrown instructors?
Aren’t all these teachers members of those terroristic unions Walters always talks about, Oklahoma teachers included? Chase away the heretics and you might need 8,000 or 10,000 emergency certified instructors to fill the gap, but aren’t our children worth it?
Of course, Walters is not concerned at all the way he claims to be concerned, and still he’s willing to alienate another sliver of teachers out of their jobs and into other professions by issuing any test at all, all in the name of keeping the red-hots red-hot, continuing a culture war that’s all about the money, national profile and power in the name of power rather than service, a notion so quaint in Republican legislative circles they out to be forbidden to use the word.
There is also this.
Liberal teachers are not a problem. We need liberal teachers.
Because that’s who teachers are.
Teachers care about service, about performing an often thankless job for way too little pay because they value things greater than themselves.
Teachers are motivated to do the right thing in the name of doing the right thing.
Teachers live to give their students the world, a future, the skills to problem solve and think for themselves, because what future will any of us have if they’re not fulfilling those roles. They live to give, not take, which is liberal to the core even as they remain non-partisan. They’ve never been indoctrinators, though they may feel like one if made to teach to our state’s new social studies standards.
Teachers, even Republican teachers, because everybody seems to be one in our state, are nonetheless filled with a liberal ethos and liberal hearts and we should thank God that’s who they are because we’d be lost without them.
We need teachers with that ethos and heart because it’s what the job requires, just as we need conservative accountants, efficiency experts and managers, not to mention columnists because all types of thinking should reach the public square to be debated, not forced upon children in their classroom.
We need people of all stripes to make this state and country work, which, by the way, is all DEI was ever supposed to be about in the first place.
Instead, when it comes to education in Oklahoma, we have Ryan Walters choosing not to welcome new teachers into our state, but to make them pass a purity test instead, even when we’re sure to have already passed 5,000 emergency certifications (and for this academic year, I’ll take the over on 6,000).
If only there were people in our state, office-holders, with the constitutional power to rein Walters in, to take his power from him, to throw him out of office if that’s what it takes, because our children are too important.
Oh, wait, they’re everywhere, but their ambitions are too great to come to the aid of those same children, involuntarily trapped in a 50th-ranked quagmire.
For crying out loud, why would any teacher who didn’t have to come to Oklahoma to teach, come to Oklahoma to teach?
It’s a problem that needs addressing.
But nope, not here, now now.
We’re led by idiots.
I taught in THREE red states (two before OK)! I was raised by a New-Deal Dem...and I could have quietly slid in under Walters' WOKE radar and potentially indoctrinated thousands of students with a love of reading! Hope I did. So the idiots have totally idiotic ideas. Thank you for your beautiful words about educators.
“We’re led by idiots.” And not only in OK…spot on Clay, keep up the good work.