Oklahoma to put Bible teaching in public schools

Oklahoma’s top education official last week updated the state’s proposed social studies guidelines for public schools to teach K-12 students about Christianity’s influence on the United States. The state would be teaching public school students about the full and true context of the nation’s founding, and what principles continue to make it an exceptional country, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters said.

The guidelines are short descriptions of what students are expected to know and be able to do at different stages of their education. The state department of education is taking public comment on the revised standards through January 21, 2025.

Didn’t Oklahoma already do something like this earlier this year? Walters earlier this year ordered public schools to teach 5th through 12th-grade students about the Bible. A few months later, more than thirty Oklahomans asked the state’s supreme court to block that mandate from going into effect.

Last month, Walters also purchased 500 Bibles for use in Advanced Placement Government classrooms throughout the state. Roughly a month earlier, Walters announced that the Oklahoma Department of Education would put 55,000 Bibles in classrooms all across the state.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report in The Sift about Walters’ efforts toward religious freedom and patriotism in Oklahoma’s schools.