New Oklahoma Curriculum To Include Conspiracy Theories About 2020 Election Fraud & Covid
The passage of the new state standards are controversial, not just for their content but for how they were passed.
As schools across the country face the looming uncertainty of Federal cuts to program, funding, and the planned dissolution of the Education Department itself, they nevertheless continue the important work of educating the nation’s children, including the development of new standards and curricula.
In Oklahoma, however, newly approved high school social studies standards require teachers to discuss “discrepancies” in the 2020 election, effectively asserting debunked right-wing conspiracy theories to explain Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden. State Superintendent Ryan Walters lauds the standards, set to go into effect in academic year 2025-2026 as “the most unapologetically conservative, pro-America social studies standards in the nation are moving forward.”
These new standards cover all social studies curricula from kindergarten through high school and include a section on Trump’s presidency, including tax and border policies and the effect of his Supreme Court appointments, specifically citing the overturning of Roe v Wade. But it also includes requirements that are far from politically neutral, including...
Identify the source of the COVID-19 pandemic from a Chinese lab and the economic and social effects of state and local lockdowns
and
Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of “bellwether county” trends.
While there is no definitive proof that the Covid-19 pandemic was the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China, it is a theory Trump has repeated as fact — frequently and vociferously — for years. Early this year, the White House took down some government websites with information on Covid and replaced them with dramatic images of Trump over the words “Lab Leak: The True Origins of Covid-19.”
There is reasonable debate that suggests a lab leak theory. Federal agencies and Congress have issued conflicting reports on the matter, in some cases admitted “low confidence” on their conclusions. Many scientists believe the virus is of wild animal origin. No one has definitively established the origin of the virus. As such, teaching the lab leak theory as a statement of fact runs contrary to scientific consensus.
As for “discrepancies in 2020 elections results” is itself problematic insofar as the standards assert — without substantiated evidence — that such discrepancies existed at all. Careful analysis of the data has, in fact, established just the opposite.
But it’s not simply the new standards themselves that have raised ire in Oklahoma. The state issues new standards every six years. These were introduced within hours of the relevant Board of Education meeting in February and Walters told board members — falsely — that they needed to be approved that day. But pushback from Republicans and Democrats alike was swift and based largely on the rushed process that didn’t give them sufficient time for review. However, NPR reports, “in April, after a closed-door meeting with Walters, the state Legislature declined to block the standards.”
And so, despite efforts from both parties, they passed and will likely be taught starting in the fall.
This is not the first time Walters has been at the center of political controversy. From requiring Bibles to and prayer in schools to being so against “critical race theory” that he felt “skin color” should not be part of the discussion of the Tulsa Massacre, Walters has established himself as a conservative firebrand and fierce ally and champion of Donald Trump... who, incidentally, lost the 2020 election fair and square.
