All public schools in Oklahoma are now required to incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments into their curriculum from grades 5 through 10, primarily for historical context.
Oklahoma Public Schools Chancellor Ryan Walters issued a memo Thursday to superintendents in every school district in the state informing them that they are required to incorporate the Bible into their lessons.
In her memo, Walters said her instructions were aligned with education standards approved in May 2019.
He told Fox News Digital there is a lack of understanding about the country’s history and the influence of the Bible since the country’s founding, and blames it on the far left.
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Oklahoma State Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters announced Thursday that all schools in the state will immediately begin teaching Bible classes to students in grades 5 through 12. (AP Photo/Sue Oglocki)
“We’ve seen the radical left take God out of our schools, take the Bible out of our schools. We have to make sure our kids understand what made America great,” Walters said.
“Failing to teach children about the beliefs of the Founding Fathers and the impact of the Bible on history is simply academic misconduct.”
He explained that under his direction, teachers in every classroom in the state would have a copy of the Bible to teach with.
Walters said teachers will teach the Bible in historical context, particularly its role in American history and its influence on the nation’s founders.
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Oklahoma public school teachers will be required to teach the Bible to understand the historical context of the nation’s beginnings. (iStock)
For example, when students learn about a topic such as the Mayflower Compact, which is older than America, they focus on the Pilgrims’ quotes that reference the Bible.
Civil rights leaders also cited the Bible.
Walters said that when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was in a Birmingham jail, he wrote a letter that quoted a Bible story.
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A police arrest photograph of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. after he was arrested for protesting in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, where he wrote a letter referencing a Bible story. (Gadot/Getty Images)
“So having the Bible in the curriculum is essential to understanding our country’s history, and we will make it mandatory,” Walters said.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed a bill last week requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all classrooms by 2025, but Walters said Oklahoma will be the first state to immediately require the use of the Bible in all classrooms.
“We’re the first school and we’re very proud of that,” he said. “We believe in American values, and we believe the better our students understand American history and American exceptionalism, the better off our state and our country will be, so we’re very proud to teach that to our students.”
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Oklahoma high school students will be getting a history lesson about the Bible. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Walters wanted to make it clear to non-believers that the lessons, which include Scripture, are for historical context only.
He said there is no denying that the Bible is a historical document.
“It’s fine for the left to be angry,” Walters said. “You can be as angry as you want, but you can’t rewrite history. It’s our history, it’s the history of this country.”
Walters said in a memo Thursday that the move to incorporate the Bible is not just an educational mandate, but “an important step to ensure students understand our nation’s core values and historical context.”
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He also said the state Department of Education could provide educational materials to ensure the message is conveyed uniformly.
The new curriculum will be implemented in the 2024-25 school year, and superintendents across the state were told monitoring and reporting instructions on the matter will be provided in the coming days.
