Ryan Walters Appoints Extremists to Revise Oklahoma Social Studies Curriculum
By: dianeravitch (Diane Ravitchs blog)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
KOSU's Beth Wallace reports that the Executive Review Committee assembled by Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters features prominent conservatives, including Dennis Prager of PragerU, David Barton of the Christian Nationalist organization, Wallbuilders, and the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts." She then reminds readers that, "The Heritage Foundation is the think tank behind Project 2025, a movement that proposes to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education."
More information was provided to NBC's Tyler Kingkade and Marissa Parra during their interview with Walters about his plans for transforming school curriculums. They reported that "Oklahoma educators who refuse to teach students about the Bible could lose their teaching license." Ryan Walters said that those teachers would "face the same consequences as one who refuses to teach about the Civil War. The punishment could include revocation of their teaching license."
Moreover, Walters expressed confidence "that his order will survive legal challenges because of the Justices then-President Donald Trump appointed to the Supreme Court." And if Trump is elected, "it will help us move the ball forward, even more so than this."
Until recently, Dennis Prager was the best known rightwinger selected for Walters' committee. The Hill's Lexi Lonas explained that Prager's so-called education group "focused on teaching conservative principles. The conservative platform has been made its way into multiple states, with videos such as 'Was the Civil War About Slavery?' and 'The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party.'"
National Public Radio's Barbara Bradley Hagerty referred to another committee member, David Barton, in a very different way, as "the most important Evangelist You've Never Heard Of." Hagerty explained that Barton collected 100,000 documents and, "He says they prove that the Founding Fathers were deeply religious men who built America on Christian ideas — something you never learn in school." Barton argued that the Constitution isn't a secular document because it "is laced with biblical quotations."
However, NPR "looked up every citation Barton said was from the Bible, but not one of them checked out." The Constitution had "no mention of God or religion except to prohibit a religious test for office." Then Hagerty quoted, "John Fea, chairman of the history department at evangelical Messiah College," who said, "Barton is peddling a distorted history that appeals to conservative believers."
Hagerty also fact-checked Barton's claim that President Thomas Jefferson "who owned nearly 200 slaves — was a civil rights visionary," and he had plans that "would've ended slavery really early on," and "they would have gone much more toward civil rights." Barton said that Virginia law "prohibited Jefferson from freeing his slaves during his lifetime." When that statement was shown to be false, Barton said that, "Jefferson could not afford to free his slaves."
So, David Barton and Dennis Prager clearly aren't qualified to recommend history curriculums, but the most dangerous member of the committee is Kevin Roberts, who is a driving force in the Christian Nationalist Project 2025, which is a detailed game plan for a Trump administration for dismantling the federal government's administrative institutions. It seems obvious that his goal for the Oklahoma Executive Review Committee is to dismantle public education.
The Washington Post reports that Roberts recently said of Project 2025, "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."
Roberts told the New York Times' Lulu Garcia-Navarro that "he views Heritage's role today as 'institutionalizing Trumpism.'" Garcia-Navarro said that Project 2025 was:
A transition blueprint that outlines a plan to consolidate power in the executive branch, dismantle federal agencies and recruit and vet government employees to free the next Republican president from a system that Roberts views as stacked against conservative power.
Roberts has praised Hungary's authoritarian, Christian Nationalist Viktor Orban, adding that "Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model." He's also said that he wants to "destroy the administrative state," and defeat "the secret Communist movement in America."
And since he is serving on Walters' committee for rewriting history, it is noteworthy that Roberts said that Joe McCarthy "largely got things right."
When asked if he believes that President Biden won the 2020 election, Roberts replied, "No."
And that brings us to the reason why Rex Huppke writes in the Oklahoman:
Project 2025 is a governing blueprint designed by a collection of former Trump administration officials who seem to have looked at Hitler's path to power in 1930s Germany and thought, 'Cool!'
Huppke refers to Project 2025, as "a painstakingly detailed and hellishly authoritarian plan for a second Trump presidency." He notes that "according to The Heritage Foundation itself," Trump "embraced nearly two-thirds of the policy recommendations."
I would just add that the leader of Project 2025, and his allies, clearly see Ryan Walters' Executive Review Committee as one part of their plan.
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If these conservative extremists had their way, they would teach children their Christian nationalist fantasy.
I think they're going to be very disappointed on that score.
Also, it would be more accurate to point out that this sort of thing spoken of in this article, assuming it is portrayed correctly, only appeals to some conservatives.
We pretty regularly see conservatives here try and argue that Christian nationalism isnt really a thing, and then we see a state education official in one of our states appointing Christian nationalists to a board deciding state educational curriculum.
When will it be a thing?
It already is and those who deny are gaslighting the rest of us or have their heads so far up their own butts they can bite their own tongue
I think it would be more accurate to say we don't see it as big as you tend to make it out to be. I remember how much was made of white nationalists and how big a threat they were supposed to be after Jan 6th. Pelosi made a big show of keeping the National Guard around for a couple of months, claiming how they would be needed to fend of all the Nazis that were supposed to emerge from under everyone's beds or something. Nothing but the sound of crickets, though.
Further, as we have seen, even when they get into position to try something, they face legal battles and aren't successful. Even so, it seems to escape you how extremist views from the left have enjoyed much more success in forcing their views into the public sphere, such as the sexualization of children in both the public space and schools. The government's efforts at social engineering concerning LGTBQ, DEI, CRT, climate activism and all the rest. As far right as you view their actions, so too are the ideologies coming from the left. You don't seem to notice that.