State lawmakers and education officials say they’re eager for a retry on Oklahoma’s academic standards for social studies after last-minute changes last year caused significant controversy and were thrown out in court.
In a news conference Thursday, Oklahoma State Department of Education staff said they’re now grappling with major complications to essential functions after the agency’s former leadership added polarizing content, some of which was inserted the day before a board vote. The agency has since proposed a revised version.
Leaders in the state Legislature said they welcome a set of standards free of last year’s frustrations.
“Social studies standards should not be that controversial,” Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, said. “I’m glad we’re getting another bite of that apple.”
This week, the Education Department proposed a new draft of the academic standards, which mandate what topics public schools must teach in social studies classes. It deleted language from a 2025 version that included disputed content about the origin of COVID-19 and claims of “discrepancies” in the 2020 presidential election results.
The new draft also leaves out the 2025 edition’s references to Bible stories and the teachings of Jesus.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court overturned last year’s version because the Education Department failed to give proper notice of fundamental content changes made shortly before a state board approved the standards.
Language about the 2020 election was inserted the day before the Oklahoma State Board of Education met to review and vote on the standards, said Sharon Morgan, the Education Department’s program director for the Office of Standards and Learning.
The controversial elements of last year’s draft all were added at the insistence of Walters’ executive team, Morgan told reporters Thursday. Walters, who has since resigned from office, said at the time he was responsible for the changes.
Agency staff, along with a writing committee of Oklahoma educators, have since sought to restore a more neutral version of the standards, Morgan said.
The standards are a minimum starting point for teachers to develop lesson plans, said Brenda Beymer-Chapman, the agency’s project manager for social studies. They also challenge students to use primary sources and critical thinking while learning history and civics.
“It’s very important that teachers present those in neutral fashions to where the students are creating their own ideas about those topics,” Beymer-Chapman said.
The latest draft of the standards is open for public input through Feb. 18. Education Department staff will review each submitted comment and aim to present a finalized draft to the state Board of Education for a vote on March 26, Morgan said.
If the board approves the proposed draft, the standards will go to the state Legislature for a final review. It also would allow the State Textbook Committee to begin preparations for adopting new social studies textbooks.
If the standards fail to pass a board vote, Oklahoma’s current social studies standards, approved in 2019, would remain in effect. Adoption of new textbooks for the subject would be off the table for the foreseeable future, the textbook committee decided Friday.
Morgan, who leads the textbook committee, said Education Department staff tried to warn Walters’ executive team of “some of the repercussions that we’re seeing now.”
Academic standards and textbooks for each school subject are updated every six years. That cycle now is experiencing unprecedented disruptions, she said.
Textbook adoption for other subjects could be postponed, and school districts face the possibility of having to afford two major textbook purchases in the same year — social studies and science.
“When we have these interruptions, it interrupts a lot of different areas,” Morgan said.
Legislative leaders at the state Capitol said they’re glad to get a redo with social studies.
Paxton, the Senate’s top leader, co-wrote a resolution last year to reject Walters’ standards. Half of the state Board of Education members at the time said they were unaware when they voted on the standards that new, controversial content had been added.
Paxton’s resolution failed because of a lack of support from fellow Republicans, who hold a supermajority in the House and Senate. Instead, the Legislature took no action, thereby allowing the standards to take effect as written.
“I was pleased the Supreme Court overturned those,” Paxton said Thursday. “I supported rejecting those. We just couldn’t get the support in the full Legislature. I was glad to see the fact that we get a chance to do those again.”
House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, declined to comment on the standards until lawmakers receive a board-approved draft.
Democratic leaders in the House and Senate celebrated the Supreme Court decision while, at the same time, voicing frustration that the Legislature had permitted the now-overturned standards to pass.
“I think the former superintendent, Ryan Walters, just had a hold on the Republicans in this building,” House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City, said. “His influence was really, I think, weighing on those who are elected, and so they didn’t want to fight him.”
Editor Janelle Stecklein and reporter Emma Murphy contributed to this report.
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