I took the PragerU 'America First' Teacher Assessment; Here's what happened

A new 34-question test State Superintendent Ryan Walters says will keep “radical leftist ideology” out of the classroom appears to be impossible to fail. 

Walters announced in July that the State Department of Education was partnering with conservative Christian media group PragerU to create the America First test to ensure “American values” and “patriotic education.”

“Unless you are a Marxist indoctrinator, this shouldn’t be that difficult,” said Walters in a video about the test. “If you are, to your core, you are trying to get into a classroom to warp the minds of America’s youth into hating this country and to just hating basic facts, rejecting common sense, well, yeah, we don’t want you in the classroom.”

Critics, including the American Federation of Teachers, have branded it a political loyalty test that would worsen the state’s teacher shortage.

“This MAGA loyalty test will be yet another turnoff for teachers in a state already struggling with a huge shortage,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten.

America First Assessment 

Superintendent Walters says teachers coming from New York and California are required to take and pass the online assessment to be able to teach in Oklahoma.

The test combines traditional civics questions with additional questions regarding gender and identity. PragerU CEO Marissa Streit told CNN that several questions relate to “undoing the damage of gender ideology.”

Following a link posted on the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s website, I was able to take the assessment. Here’s what I found.  

Impossible to Fail

The 34-question ‘America First’ assessment is a multiple-choice, multiple-guess test that does not let test-takers fail. 

I initially passed the assessment and signed up to take it again to see what would happen if I got the answers wrong. For that second test, I purposefully selected the wrong answer for every question, multiple times. For every wrong guess, I was directed to ‘try again’ until getting the correct answer. There was no option to continue with the test without changing my answers. Once correct, the test moved on as if no wrong answers were selected. 

Watch the Full Test Below:

After completing the 34-question test, while selecting the wrong answers multiple times, I was sent the certificate of completion. Neither the email, certificate, nor final page of the assessment reflected the number of incorrect answers selected. 

Donate to PragerU?

The last page of the assessment, which OSDE has linked on its website and will require teachers to take, asks users for a donation to PragerU.

The following day, I also received an email thanking me for joining PragerU and providing a link to its digital library. 

PragerU, short for Prager University, puts out short videos with a conservative perspective on politics and economics. It promotes itself as “focused on changing minds through the creative use of digital media." The organization is not an academic institution.

Fine print at the bottom of the organization’s website reads, “PragerU is not an accredited university, nor do we claim to be. We don't offer degrees, but we do provide educational, entertaining, pro-American videos for every age.”

This is not the first time Superintendent Walters has partnered with PragerU. He announced in 2023 that videos created by the conservative group would be available to teachers in public schools. 

Related Story: Local Districts On PragerU In Oklahoma Classrooms

Teacher Recruitment Effort

Superintendent Walters announced Sept. 2 on social media that more than 16,000 people across the country have expressed interest in becoming an Oklahoma teacher by taking the test, which he calls the “LARGEST recruitment effort of teachers in history,” saying “we are restoring truth to Oklahoma classrooms.”