Walters Advocates 'Patriotic Training' For Oklahoma Teachers

State Superintendent candidate Ryan Walters says if elected he will mandate patriotic training for teachers. Walters says he wants this training from Hillsdale College available for all history teachers in the state if elected, but the Oklahoma Education Association says the state shouldn’t be nationally outsourcing trainings but using our own state resources instead.  

“I’ve already started conversations with Hillsdale College to get some of their courses here available for every history teacher in the state, so our teachers know our history, have access to the best professional development available, the best materials available to teach American history without indoctrination," said Ryan Walters. 

Hillsdale College is a private conservative liberal arts college in Michigan.  

“The saddest thing to me is that this is designed to convince parents and political leaders that we don’t need public schools, we need to privatize schools that this a national narrative, that our schools are failing, that we're indoctrinating our teacher," said the President of the Oklahoma Education Association, Katherine Bishop. 

Ryan Walters says he wants to implement training from Hillsdale for Oklahoma history teachers, to give them adequate tools to teach the full scope of U.S. and Oklahoma history, without violating House Bill 1775. Walters says HB 1775 is a very clear law, with 8 criteria, and teachers still have the ability to teach the entire scope of history without violating HB 1775. 

“This is where an understanding of history- and I mean all of it, we need to tell our kids about everything. and if you tell our kids our story, they’re gonna know that America is a great county, and there’s times America fell short and they’re gonna learn from that," said Walters. 

Katherine Bishop with the Oklahoma Education Association says she does not agree with bringing in training from Hillsdale. She says we need to take a closer look at changing or throwing out HB 1775 instead. She says the law is too vague and has created teacher fear. 

“We know what to do here in Oklahoma and we should be using our resources to teach our students the Oklahoma values we know we need guardrails there so teachers aren't in fear of- Am I crossing that line?" said Bishop. 

We reached out to Walter’s opponent, Jena Nelson, and although she was not able to speak with us Tuesday- we’re hoping to get her thoughts on this Wednesday.