Walters’ office made the announcement in a Tuesday email. His goal is to empower students with a love of their country and a proper understanding of its founding, he says. A big part of Walters’ plan will be using the Bible in Oklahoma classrooms.
"What we have seen is the Bible and the faith of our founders has been driven out of our schools, driven out of our history – and the radical Left has censored our history and tried to rewrite it," he told AFN in an earlier interview.
The committee tasked with the overhaul includes Dennis Prager, co-founder of conservative nonprofit PragerU; Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts; David Goodwin, the president of the Association of Classical Christian Schools; media figure and author Steve Deace; and other conservative figures.
Deace wrote on X Wednesday that he was honored to join Walters’ “A-Team that will rid the Sooner State of the Spirit of the Age influences that have turned its social studies curriculum into Marxist agitprop and return it to teaching actual American history and civics.”
“We want to make sure our kids have the best understanding of American history. I’m so tired, and parents have been fed up, with the teachers unions pushing lies onto their kids,” Walters said on American Family Radio Thursday.
“We’ve seen all of this DEI, CRT, this anti-American nonsense in standards and curriculum. We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen in Oklahoma. We’re going to make our kids understand history in this country,” Walters told show host Jenna Ellis.
The announcement was met with quick opposition from Democrats and leftist groups.
According to The Oklahoman, the Center for Education Law – a legal group that successfully challenged Walters on a school libraries issue earlier – said the decision whether to use the Bible lies with local school boards, not the state department of education.
Local authority when convenient
That reverence for local authority was missing when the Biden administration announced its rewrite of Title IX. The new measures that okay boys on girls’ sports teams and in girls’ public spaces are set to take effect on Aug. 1.
Those measures are currently being challenged by at least four southern states. Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina joined in a lawsuit announced in April.
Walters praised his curriculum review committee. “We want the best in the country to help us develop our history curriculum, our history standards so our kids understand it,” he said.
The Bible is absolutely necessary for students to understand America’s history, Walters added.
“It’s the most read book in American history. It’s the most purchased book in American history. It’s the most cited book in American history. How in the world do you teach a history class without referencing that book? What book meets that standard? If the Bible doesn’t, what does?” he asked.
Walters referenced the Founding Fathers and the numerous connections between Christianity, the Bible and America’s roots.
Faith abounds in the founding
Ignoring the Bible’s place in American history is “lying to kids,” said the state superintendent – and those connections didn’t end in the 1700s, he explained.
“Look at [MLK's] Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Martin Luther King Junior said, ‘Do you know why I’m here? Do you know why I continue to stand against a law that is unjust? Because I look at the Apostle Paul. I look at biblical examples, and I’m called to a higher truth.’
“How do you explain his actions and his behavior in the civil rights movement if you don’t talk about the Bible or scripture?” Walters concluded.
