State Board approves new rules on immigration reporting, classical testing, school donations

The Oklahoma State Department of Education held its monthly board meeting on Tuesday morning.

State Superintendent Ryan Walters opened the meeting by addressing several proposed rules for Oklahoma education. Each of those rules was approved by the board during the meeting. They must now go before the state legislature. (See those statements below)

The board also voted to suspend the teaching licenses of several teachers including former Sperry principal Richard Akin. The board said they would go before a hearing at a later date.

Rule on Gathering Immigration Statuses:

Oklahoma school board advanced plan to require K-12 students to show immigration status when enrolling in public schools.

Walters said the state needs to account for how many students of illegal immigrants are in Oklahoma schools. To have to have data about where kids are coming from.

"I'm going to just start off by being crystal clear our rule around illegal immigration accounting is simply that it is to account for how many students of illegal immigrants are in our schools," said Walters. "Why do we need that account? Well, to be clear, we know that, at a minimum, the state of Oklahoma spent $474,000,000 to educate the children of illegal immigrants under the Biden administration. That [dollar amount] is personnel from inside the school year to meet the needs of those students those are numbers that we didn't have information on. That is, information that wasn't available to the state department wasn't available to the local district. We want to make sure that all that information is gathered so that we can make decisions on where resources go and where personnel go. And we can continue to make sure that Oklahoma is leading the country in education reform, but to do that, you have to have the information you have to have the data around where your kids are coming from we will make sure that President Trump and his administration have the information they need."

The rule will move forward to the state legislature but could be challenged by some as a violation of Plyler v. Doe.

In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot deny public education to children based on their immigration status. Walters suggests that the information about students' immigration status would not be used to deny them access to education, but rather to "account" for their presence in the system and to provide that information to law enforcement or the federal government if requested.

Rule allowing for "Classical Learning Test"

"We're very excited with our rule to add the classical learning test as an option for school testing. Parents have long demanded choices in their kid's education, and frankly, we see classical learning as a very exciting return to the basics," said Walters. "We are seeing it as one of the fastest growing movements in the country today and so we want to make sure that if parents choose that type of learning for their child, they can be eligible for college scholarships college admission as we continue to see colleges that say listen, this is absolutely a good method of education."

Classical learning, also known as classical education, is a traditional approach to education based on ancient Greek and Roman models of learning. Proponents say it emphasizes critical thinking, reasoning, and communication skills through the study of the liberal arts and the "great works" of Western civilization. Organizations like the Society for Classical Learning and Hillsdale College’s Barney School Initiative have advocated for a return to classical education.

CLT.com, a site that offers Classical Learning test assessments online, states that the CLT test assesses reading, grammar, writing, and mathematics. CLT uses classic literature and historical texts for the majority of reading passages on the exam.

According to CLT.com, over 250 colleges and universities currently accept CLT test results with some offering scholarships. The list of schools is largely Christian or private universities.

In Oklahoma, six schools currently accept CLT's assessment scores:

1. Oklahoma Baptist University
2. Oklahoma Christian University
3. Oklahoma Wesleyan University
4. Oral Roberts University
5. Seminole State College
6. University of Tulsa

Rule Requiring Teachers to Take Naturalization Test For Teacher Certification:

Walters said the OSDE will be requiring teachers to take the US naturalization test.

"Teachers will be required to take the US naturalization test to ensure that they understand the basics of America, American history, American government, and civics. What this does is ensure that every one of our teachers also meets the same requirements as every citizen in this country," said Walters.

Rule Requiring schools to report donations exceeding $18,000

Walter also said the School Board will require schools to report any exceeding $18,000. He said this is mainly in reference to keeping China out of Oklahoma schools.

"We are requiring schools to report any donations exceeding $18,000, and I want to tell you why we're doing that. If you all remember about a year or so ago we found out that a school had entered into an agreement with the organization that was attached to the CCP. And we didn't want communist China getting into our schools and begin to influencing (sic) the information that our kids were getting," said Walters. "Well, what we've seen are these groups continue to find workarounds to give through certain entities through 501(c)(3) and this is information that wasn't available to this board. So, it took quite a bit of digging frankly it took a group outside of government to go and kind of unravel this. But what we think is very important for Oklahomans to know, when schools get these donations; where the donations coming (sic) from, are there strings attached to those donations? It also helps us when we're making decisions around resources and where those resources go to be able to see how much money schools are receiving from those entities."

Rule to "promote patriotism"

Walters then addressed a rule that had been raised previously which would require schools to adopt a policy to ensure the promotion of patriotism. The U.S. flag would need to be flown and displayed on all school campuses without infringement. This proposal follows an incident in Edmond, where a student was told he could not display a U.S. flag, or any other flags, on his truck at school.

"Another rule I would like to highlight is, listen, we've got a rule to promote patriotism in our schools. As you all remember, a few months ago, we saw a school district that decided to force a child to take down an American flag in this pickup truck. That's absurd. That's ridiculous. We absolutely want our kids to be proud to be an American. We want our kids to be proud of that American flag that so many fought and died for. And so we're now required districts to protect those rights. And so I think it's of the utmost importance we continue to emphasize American exceptionalism and American patriotism in our school," said Walters.

Rule Emphasizing School Safety

Lastly, Walters talked about a new rule requiring more extensive screening for bus drivers.

"I want to applaud this board for taking unprecedented action to removing (sic) child predators out of our schools. We'll be looking at several more today to take action on. Thank you for your efforts to ensure that our kids are safe. There was a loophole that we've discovered. We got a lot of feedback on this. Bus drivers are not required to go under an accreditation process through us or undergo additional screening. We believe that we need to ensure that individuals that are spending time with our kids go under the proper screening and have that accreditation," said Walters.

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