New academic standards set to pass after lack of vote from Oklahoma Legislature

OKLAHOMA CITY — New academic standards proposed for social studies and science are expected to take effect after state lawmakers took no action Tuesday on resolutions to reject them.

Republican majorities in the state House and Senate held a vote on none of the three resolutions that would send the proposed standards back to the Oklahoma State Board of Education for further review. Agendas for Tuesday’s legislative proceedings didn’t include any of the resolutions.

That left less than the constitutionally required minimum time for the Legislature to pass a measure through both chambers before a deadline Thursday to take action on the standards. Lawmakers have had 30 legislative days to pass a resolution to accept, reject or amend the standards, but by taking no action, they allow the proposed draft to take effect as written.

After the legislative day concluded, state Superintendent Ryan Walters celebrated that “the most unapologetically conservative, pro-America social studies standards in the nation are moving forward.” Walters’ administration oversaw the process of developing them.

Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, worked with Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, to file a resolution Thursday to reject the standards for social studies and science, but there wasn’t enough GOP support to pass it, Paxton’s spokesperson, Alex Gerszewski, said in a statement Tuesday.

The Senate Republican Caucus discussed the matter in a private meeting with Walters.

“Following a lengthy conversation Monday, the caucus was not on board with rejecting the standards based on the process in which they were presented to the (state) board of education,” Gerszewski said.

House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, said any action from his chamber needed to be in concert with the Senate, and “it was clear there was not consensus on what, if any, changes were needed to the social studies standards.”

“Today the Legislature followed precedent by choosing not to insert itself in the curriculum standards process that the state superintendent was elected to oversee,” Hilbert said in a statement.

House and Senate Democrats filed their own resolutions March 31 to reject the social studies standards.

Gov. Kevin Stitt and members of the state Board of Education have raised transparency concerns with the way state Superintendent Ryan Walters handled the adoption process. The Governor’s Office did not return a request for comment Tuesday.

Half of the state board said they were unaware of last-minute changes made to the social studies standards at the time they voted on them during a Feb. 27 meeting.

Some of the changes include the addition of language stating there were “discrepancies” in 2020 election results including “sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.”

Walters and his staff made no mention during the Feb. 27 meeting of any significant differences from the original draft posted publicly in December. The Oklahoma State Department of Education didn’t share the updated version online until weeks after the board vote.

Board members received the final draft of the standards at 4 p.m. the day before a 9:30 a.m. meeting to vote on the proposal, according to email records from the state Education Department. One member, Ryan Deatherage, said before casting the only vote against the standards that he didn’t have enough time to read through the lengthy document.

Pugh’s resolution in the Senate, which seven House members co-signed, offered to send the standards back to the state board for “proper review and consideration” given the “magnitude of the decision,” doubts over transparency and an estimated $33 million price tag to implement them.

Academic standards are a list of topics and concepts that public schools must teach to students. They are reviewed and updated every six years.

State standards are typically developed with committees of Oklahoma educators and subject-matter experts. For the social studies standards, Walters also chose to involve national right-wing media personalities and conservative policy advocates in a leading review committee.

Walters said he decided to add new language to the standards after his administration received input from the public and from focus groups. He said the new content wasn’t intended to support or deny the results of the 2020 presidential election, but rather to encourage students to draw their own conclusions.

The original draft of the standards already faced controversy over the inclusion of references to biblical stories and the teachings of Jesus.

“For nearly a year, we engaged in a thoughtful, transparent process to deliver standards that teach students factual history, including the realities of the 2020 election, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the threat posed by Communist China,” Walters wrote in a social media statement. “These reforms will reset our classrooms back to educating our children without liberal indoctrination.”

Senate Minority Leader Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, called Walters’ new standards “dangerous for kids.” She said her Republican colleagues have failed to take the matter as seriously as they should by taking up neither resolution filed in the Senate to reject the standards.

“Our classrooms will be focused on these politicized measures that have been written by political hacks from outside of our state, and if we’re not concerned enough to put that on the agenda and take a vote on it, that deeply disturbs me about the business of the Senate,” Kirt told reporters Tuesday.

In response, Senate Democrats will “take time on bills” and slow down floor votes, she said. Sen. Mary Boren, D-Norman, began filibustering shortly before noon. Republicans quickly ended the floor session and called for a lunch recess.

House Minority Leader and candidate for governor Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City, expressed similar outrage at the lack of action by Republican leadership. Political pressure from Walters, she said, mattered more than the “extremist political agenda” the standards will introduce into public schools.

“Because no action has been taken by Republican legislative leaders, the voices of Oklahomans — across the state and party lines — who have been urging us to disapprove these problematic, and costly, social studies standards have gone unheard,” Munson said in a statement.

Several local GOP party officials and far-right-wing groups, including Moms for Liberty Oklahoma, signed a letter to lawmakers supporting Walters’ proposal as “strong, conservative, pro-American standards.” The letter, dated Monday, urged legislators to oppose Pugh’s resolution to reject.

“We want to remind every legislator: In the last few election cycles, grassroots conservative organizations have flipped seats across Oklahoma by holding weak Republicans accountable,” the letter reads. “If you choose to side with the liberal media and make backroom deals with Democrats to block conservative reform, you will be next.”

Reporter Barbara Hoberock contributed to this report. Oklahoma Voice (oklahomavoice.com) is an affiliate of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, supported by grants and donations. Oklahoma Voice provides nonpartisan reporting, and retains full editorial independence.