Oklahoma City – Secondary school students in Oklahoma are learning who study the history of the United States about the industrial revolution, women’s rights and the role of expansion in America in international affairs.
Starting from the next academic year, they will add conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential elections.
The standards of new social studies in Oklahoma were reviewed for students of public schools from kindergarten to the twelfth grade, which was already revived by references to the Bible and National Pride, towards the director of government schools Ryan Walters. The Republican official spent most of his first term in his position while praising President Donald Trump, and he contradicts the unions of teachers and local school principals, and an attempt to end what he describes as “sadness” in public schools.
“The left was pushing the left indoctrination in the chapter,” Wallets said. “We really return it to understanding history … and I apologize for that.”
The previous criterion for the study of the 2020 elections said only, “examining the issues related to the election of 2020 and their results.” The new version is more expanding: “Determining the contradictions in 2020 election results by looking at charts and other information, including the sudden stop of the vote in selected cities in the main battlefields, the security risks of messages through polls, the emptying of sudden payments, an unexpected number of voters, and the unusual facilitation of” Blidhar’s directions “.
The new standard raised red flags, even among the colleagues and Republican Tars, including the ruler and legislative leaders. They were concerned that many changes at the last minute, including the language about the 2020 elections and a judgment that shows that the source of the Covid virus was a Chinese laboratory, just hours before the government school council voted on them.
A group of parents and teachers have litigate The judge’s demand to reject the criteria, on the pretext that it was not properly reviewed and that they “represent a distorted view of social studies that intentionally prefer an old and starkly biased perspective.”
The Republican Party can not mobilize enough support to reject the new standards
While many Oklahoma teachers expressed their anger at the change in standards, others say they leave a large space for the effective teacher to direct students about the results of the 2020 elections without sacrificing them.
Aaron Baker, who studied the US government in secondary schools in Oklahoma City for more than a decade, said it is more concerned about teachers in the conservative rural parts of the country who may feel encouraged to impose their beliefs on students.
Baker said: “If someone welcomes the influence of these extreme right -wing organizations on our standards and is interested in introducing more Christianity in our practices as teachers, they have become upset,” Baker said. “For me, this is the main concern.”
Leaders in the Legislative Board of Republicans made a decision to reject the standards, but there was not enough support for the Republican Party to pass it.
Part of this frequency is likely to stem from a wave of opposition at the last minute organized by a previously supportive conservative groups such as TROMP Mothers for freedomThat has a large presence in Oklahoma and threatened legislators who reject the standards with a basic discount.
The group wrote in a letter signed by many conservative groups and Republican activists: “In the past few elections, conservative organizations have reversed the level of al -Qaeda on the seats via Oklahoma by holding weak Republicans accountable.” “If you choose to bring the liberal media closer and the deals of the rear age with the Democrats to prevent conservative reform, it will be the following.”
The supervisor says his new criteria “encourage critical thinking”
After a group of parents, teachers and other officials of Oklahoma School worked on developing the standards of new social studies, Waltz collected an executive committee mostly consisting of critics outside the state from the province’s research to review them. He said he wants to focus more on the American exception and Integration of the Bible As an educational resource.
Among those assigned to the review committee are Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation and a major figure in its project 2025, plans for the administration of a governorate, and Denis Bragher, adding radio dialogue programs founded by Bragher Yu, which is non -profit that provides “educational materials”.
In a statement by Associated Press, Walters defended students’ teaching of “unprecedented and historical” elements in the 2020 presidential elections.
He said: “The standards do not ask students about what they believe in; rather, they encourage critical thinking by inviting students to examine real events, review the information available to the public and reach their own conclusions.”
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Critics say that the new Waltz standard is full of misleading formulation that seeks to discuss the discussion in a specific direction.
Democrats have described it as another political trick by Waltrz, which is widely seen as a potential candidate for the ruler in 2026, at the expense of school children.
“It is a harmful situation and the political theater that our children do not need to be subjected,” said Senator Mark Man, a democratic of Oklahoma City who previously served in the school council in one of the largest regions in the state.
Fears about politicizing school standards
National experts in education standards also expressed his warning, noting that Oklahoma has it Historically highly ranked Among the countries for its standards.
Brendan Gillis, Director of Education and Learning at the American Historical Association, who supervised a research project that analyzed the standards in all fifty states, said that the standards of social studies in Oklahoma were “very good” until the latest version.
In addition to concerns about misleading elections, Gillis added: “There was also a lot of biger content that was somewhat shoes throughout the current standards.”
He said that many references to Christianity and the Bible have misinterpreted the history of the country’s founding and lacks historical differences.
David Griffiths, director of research at the Thomas B Institute, said. Forteham, a conservative education thinking center, is unaware of any other states that tried to enhance the information about elections in its standards of curricula.
The new criteria called for “unfortunate” exit from the strong social studies standards in Oklahoma.
“It is inappropriate to enhance conspiracy theories about elections in the standards,” he said.
