Oklahoma's meaningless "America First" teacher test is just a PragerU ad campaign

Ryan Walters and PragerU teamed up to quiz teachers transferring from "woke" states. Their only goal is selling conservative talking points.

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When your state lies at the bottom of national education rankings, it would make sense to figure out how you can attract better teachers, provide more funding to public schools, and make sure the curriculum is solid in order to help students achieve success in college and beyond.

Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters has done none of those things. His “solutions” have involved giving public money to private religious schools and shoving the Bible into as many classes as possible. He’s not trying to attract the best teachers, either.

Ryan Walters (screenshot via YouTube)

Instead, he announced over the summer that any educators coming to Oklahoma from “woke” states like New York or California would have to essentially pass an ideology test created by the right-wing propaganda group PragerU. (For now, let’s set aside the question of why anyone would voluntarily move from NY or CA to OK.) The exam, Walters said, would assess teachers’ knowledge of things like the Constitution and “fundamental biological differences between boys and girls.”

Why would the state impose any sort of hurdle on otherwise-qualified teachers? It seems absurd, especially when the state is suffering from a massive teacher shortage.

That’s because this isn’t actually a test at all.

It’s an advertising gimmick to promote PragerU. Seriously. This is as much of a “test” as PragerU is a “university.” Which is to say: It’s not. That’s part of the scam.

This has all been a massive publicity stunt to promote right-wing bullshit under the guise of tough education reform. That’s not just me engaging in hyperbole or exaggeration. It literally won’t prevent qualified teachers from working in Oklahoma even if they come from New York or California.

One reason I know that because I took the “America First” questionnaire and aced it even though I purposely answered everything wrong.

On Sunday, PragerU published the entire 34-question list as part of a full-page ad in the New York Times in addition.to another ad on the front page. (Being “woke” is bad, they say, but apparently giving money to a “woke” newspaper for the sake of attention is good.)

The “test” was also finally made available online for anyone interested in taking it. (You can read a clean version here.)

Here’s the thing about this “test”: It doesn’t matter what you answer. You’re literally unable to fail it. If you’re wrong on a question, you’re forced to keep guessing until you pick the answer they want you to pick. When you’re done, they email you a certificate of achievement. (Earlier versions of the certificate misspelled the word “certifiy,” because conservatives aren’t even good at performative bullshit.)

When you’re done with the online questions, you’re directed to a page where you can make a donation to PragerU. Because, again, none of this is a serious filter for potential educators. This is an ad campaign for a right-wing group propped up by the Oklahoma State Department of Education and Ryan Walters.

It doesn’t help students. It doesn’t make anyone a better teacher. You would learn more by accidentally turning on a 1980s action movie starring Jackie Chan.

It’s also just a shitty “test.”

If you’ve ever taken a standardized test, you know that some answer choices are purposely close but not quite right. They’re meant to trip you up. You won’t find that here. There are multiple obvious wrong answers for every question and virtually no “distractor” choices meant to fool you.

Again, that’s because this isn’t about assessing anybody, but rather using the purported “test” as a vehicle for promoting conservative propaganda.

Let’s set aside the basic questions like “How many total U.S. senators are there?” (Answer: 100) because any halfway-decent 5th grader could answer them and look at the ones that really show what this stunt is all about.

Several of the questions attempt to delegitimize transgender people, as if discussions about trans identities constitute 95% of all K-12 education.

• What is the fundamental biological distinction between males and females? (“Answer”: Chromosomes and reproductive anatomy)

• How is a child’s biological sex typically identified?

  (“Answer”: Visual anatomical observation and chromosomes)

• Which chromosome pair determines biological sex in humans?

  (“Answer”: XX/XY)

• Why is the distinction between male and female considered important in areas like sports and privacy?

  (“Answer”: To preserve fairness, safety, and integrity for both sexes)

Even if there wasn’t a malicious anti-trans agenda at work here, you have to wonder why Oklahoma would prevent a math or Spanish teacher from working in the state if they got these “wrong.”

But those answers are overly simplistic. For example, while a child’s biological sex is typically identified by sight, there’s a reason we use the phrase “sex assigned at birth." Dr. Jey McCreight, a transgender science communicator with a PhD in Genome Sciences, told me “someone can be assigned female at birth and later discover they have XY chromosomes and/or internal testes.” What about the XX/XY distinction? It’s fine to use if you’re introducing students to genetics, but there’s nuance involved. McCreight mentioned the possibility of X, XXY, and XYY combinations that exist, just to name a few. Also, “In XXY people (also known as Kleinfelter Syndrome), 95% of individuals are assigned male at birth, but 5% are assigned female.”

As for the sports and privacy matter, PragerU conflates several issues in one loaded question. McCreight said trans people are “much more likely to be attacked in bathrooms, as well as have higher rates of UTIs and kidney infections from avoiding bathrooms out of fear,” so safety is clearly not the goal. And the idea that students are transitioning to win athletic events is just ridiculous. “Trans people are not disproportionately winning medals or scholarships,” McCreight pointed out. If fairness mattered, there are better ways to address it than kicking trans people out of competitions—like taking everyone’s size or weight into consideration.

Another question asks what right the Second Amendment protects. The “correct” answer is “The right to keep and bear arms.” But that response says nothing about a “well regulated Militia” even though that phrase is vital to understanding why the amendment is so controversial.

Another question asks: “What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?” Answer? “Ended slavery in the rebelling Confederate states.” Okay, but that raises the question of why Juneteenth is such a big deal.

Another: “What cause is Martin Luther King Jr. best known for?” Answer: “Advocating for racial equality under the law.”

That simplistic response suggests that MLK would be supportive of the kind of “reverse racism” arguments hurled by conservatives in order to condemn affirmative action, DEI initiatives, and anything that might address systemic racism. The response “Advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion” is deemed incorrect even though those issues were at the heart of his activism.

(Also, no question about the Tulsa Race Massacre? Really?!)

Then there’s a question asking to identify a phrase from the Pledge of Allegiance.

The answer is “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” though another option is “One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” There’s no way to point out that the Pledge was changed in 1954 specifically to shove religion into it and that the “incorrect” option of (C) was very much part of the Pledge for years.

It’s no wonder Oklahoma State Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, a Democrat, released his own “test” titled “Is Ryan Walters a Good State Superintendent?” (I aced this one, too.)

Rob Miller, the Democratic candidate hoping to win Walters’ job in next year’s election, issued a statement saying the “test” felt like “an 8th-grade pop quiz — no studying, no effort, barely a second thought.” He added: “Families deserve more than political gimmicks. They deserve leaders who will do the real work of supporting teachers and improving student outcomes.”

This entire charade exposes what Ryan Walters and his PragerU allies truly want. They don’t give a shit about better teachers, stronger schools, or brighter futures for Oklahoma’s students. All they want are obedient ideologues willing to parrot their worldview. But this isn’t even a “test” to do that.

This is an advertising campaign for PragerU masquerading as an assessment. It won’t stop outside teachers from working in Oklahoma—whoever they are—because it was never intended to do that. Walters just wanted to promote a conservative group using his government job, so he told the media he was imposing this “test” on blue state transfers. (He’s not. He can’t. People fell for it anyway.)

In fact, the Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability (which is actually responsible for “reviewing out-of-state certification assessments” for teachers in Oklahoma even if Ryan Walters pretends otherwise) said that, among uncertified teachers who took competency tests in other states and then moved to Oklahoma, only a fraction came from those two states:

… among uncertified teachers who completed certification tests in other states and now want to teach in Oklahoma, since 2020, out of 573 out-of-state applications, only 19 came from California or New York, [Oklahoma Office of Educational Quality and Accountability executive director Megan] Oftedal said. In 2025, she said, only one applicant came from California and none from New York.

So this “test” is a scam, and even if it weren’t, it would only apply to a small handful of people at most. Also, imposing this “test” on anyone may be illegal.

Last night, Walters posted a video saying he’s already had “over 16,000 people take the test and pass it.”

But how many of those 16,000 people took it only out of curiosity like me? How many from blue states actually want a teaching job in Oklahoma, and how many will get hired? And why boast about how thousands of people passed the test when it’s literally impossible to fail?

There’s a reason other states aren’t copying this; he hasn’t achieved anything. He’s more interested in the press release than the results.

At a time when the state is starved for qualified educators, Walters isn’t doing anything to bring them into the fold. Instead, he’s pretending to erect meaningless hurdles. It’s not governance. It’s sabotage.

Conservatives like Walters aren’t interested in helping young people think critically, thrive academically, or engage meaningfully with a complex world. They believe everything exists in black and white and any attempt to bring nuance into the classroom is part of some liberal crusade. He’s using classrooms as battlegrounds for his personal culture war beefs.

Oklahoma’s students don’t need Bible mandates or PragerU pop quizzes. They need resources, teachers who understand the subject matter and have the gift of making those subjects interesting and useful, and a commitment to uncomfortable truth over lazy right-wing ideology.

Until people like Walters are held accountable, though, the state will remain a cautionary tale of how propaganda can pass for policy while entire generations of kids are left behind.

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