Oklahoma state superintendent fights to keep 'woke' textbooks out of schools

Oklahoma State School Superintendent Ryan Walters is leading a focused effort to keep textbooks containing “woke” ideology out of the state's public schools.

An increasing number of states are heightening their vigilance against controversial ideologies that are creeping into textbooks for standard school subjects such as math. 

Superintendent Walters observes, “When we’re looking at a math textbook, we’re talking about math. And again, what we’ve seen from so many different textbooks across the country is that instead of focusing on students’ mastery of the subject matter, they push a left-wing worldview.”

In October, eight math textbook publishers withdrew their books from consideration by the Oklahoma Textbook Committee. Walters believes their withdrawal is an indication that those textbooks do not meet the standards required by an Oklahoma state law passed in 2020 which “requires an extra layer of review by experts to determine if the textbooks are of poor quality or contain controversial ideologies such as CRT [Critical Race Theory] and social emotional learning (SEL).” 

Walters declares, “We are not going to allow indoctrination in the classroom. We’re not gonna do business with companies that are pushing left-wing indoctrination on our kids and any vendor that does business with the state of Oklahoma and education, they’re gonna abide by those rules.”

In an interview on Washington Watch with Tony Perkins, Superintendent Walters explains his opinion that there is a deeply sinister motivation behind the messaging included in the textbooks in question:

We're never going to be held captive by woke companies trying to dictate to our state what our education system's going to look like. This is a path for other states to follow. Guys, lead on this issue. Don't allow the left to capture these kids. They are truly pushing state-sponsored atheism in our schools by pushing all this indoctrination in math classes. I mean, what in the world can be their explanation for pushing this in math classes? And it shows you their end goal here, by the way. So, if they're willing to cut off customers . . . they're willing to say we're not going to do business in red states, they're actually hurting their bottom dollar, but they don't care. They are on a spiritual warpath for our kids. Their mission is to create socialist left-wing idealogues out of our kids. . . 

The radical left-wing ideology – this ‘woke’ mind virus – it's a cult. Look at their belief system. They will hurt themselves, they will damage their family, they will damage their shareholders for this crazy belief system that they hold dear. We have to push back.

Walters rallies other states to follow Oklahoma's example, encouraging them that they can take a strong stance against liberal educational agendas and successfully protect their children's learning experience: 

We've got to see states fight back. You can win. I’ve gotten so much correspondence from Oklahomans around the state thanking me for driving out these woke vendors…

We have a path forward to put parents back in charge of their kids’ education, put God and prayer back in schools, drive the teachers’ unions out. … [W]e just launched the biggest tutoring initiative in the nation today to get our kids back on track with reading. You can do these things, but you have to beat back the unions [and] the woke ideology, embrace parents, and protect religious liberty in our schools, and we can get education back on track.