It’s not easy being from California, especially if you’re hoping to leave the Golden State’s fires and rising home costs behind and move to a more affordable red state.
In Texas, some politicians have adopted “Don’t California my Texas” as both a rallying cry and a fundraising appeal.
In Montana, rising home prices prompted lawmakers to pass a package of bills this year that increased property taxes on people — including many Californians — who own second homes in the state.
And now, in Oklahoma, education officials have entered the fray by requiring teachers from California and New York to take an exam aimed at guarding against “radical leftist ideology.”
The test is being developed by leadership from the Oklahoma State Department of Education and PragerU, a nonprofit advocacy group that produces videos promoting conservative views of history, finance and other topics. PragerU videos have already been approved for use in schools in several states, including Oklahoma.
“Our teacher qualification test is very simple,” PragerU CEO Marissa Streit said in a statement to The Times. “Frankly, every American should be able to pass it. Certainly, every teacher should be able to pass it.”
She added that the full test will be available in the coming weeks. “We encourage you to take a look at the test yourself and make your own decision on whether it’s reasonable or not,” she said.
Superintendent Ryan Walters poses for a portrait in his office.
(Nick Oxford)
Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public instruction, told The Times that he launched the test out of concern over state standards in California and New York that require teachers to instruct students about gender identity.
The test comes at a time when Californians are increasingly relocating to other states in search of a slower pace of life and more affordable housing. Some cities seeking to reverse years-long population declines have created incentive programs to attract remote workers.
Tulsa Remote, which pays workers $10,000 to move to the second-largest city in the Sooner State, has attracted more than 3,600 remote workers since its inception in 2019. More than 7,800 Californians have applied to the program and 539 have made the move, cementing California as the second-most common origin state behind Texas.
Amid a nationwide teacher shortage, the Oklahoma schools system has launched a $50,000 signing bonus program — the largest in the country — to help recruit new educators for some of the most difficult to fill jobs, including early elementary and special education instruction.
The so-called “Californian exodus” accelerated during the pandemic, with places like Texas, Florida and Tennessee seeing major influxes from the West.
But by 2024, the exodus had ended, according to state data. The state’s population rose slightly in 2024 after three years of decline.
A Public Policy Institute of California survey in March found that many Californians who leave are either favoring nearby states such as Arizona, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; larger states such as Texas; or locations without income taxes — not necessarily Oklahoma.
And the emigration of Californians to other states has done little to shift political demographics in their new homes, according to Eric McGhee, a policy director and senior fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California.
“The partisan balance of people moving to different states tends to be an exaggerated version of the partisan balance of the state they’re moving to,” he said. “So states that are more Republican tend to have migrants from California who are even more Republican than people in the state they’re moving to.”
The number of teachers that would be mandated to take the test in Oklahoma is unclear, but some data indicates that it might be small.
Information from the Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability — which oversees the education department and reviews out-of-state certification assessments for comparability with Oklahoma’s testing standards — shows that since 2020, the agency has reviewed only 19 out-of-state applications from California and New York. In 2025, only one applicant came from California, and none from New York.
Critics say the exam will discourage educators from accepting jobs in Oklahoma, which has been struggling with a teacher shortage and continues to lag behind the national average in reading and math, according to national data.
“This MAGA loyalty test will be yet another turnoff for teachers in a state already struggling with a huge shortage,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said.
“[Walters’] priority should be educating students, but instead, it’s getting Donald Trump and other MAGA politicians to notice him,” she said. “Teachers are patriots, and whether they are conservative or liberal, they want what students need: safe and welcoming public schools that are engaging and relevant and that prepare kids for college, career and life.”
Dennis Prager, founder of PragerU, in 2024 in Los Angeles. A test for new teachers in Oklahoma is being developed by leadership from the State Department of Education and PragerU.
(Araya Doheny / Getty Images for DailyWire+)
Experts say the creation of a test where teachers are forced to adhere to a certain viewpoint to get a job is unprecedented in the American education system. It also highlights the growing foothold PragerU has on the education system in certain states, said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania.
“What they’re doing is they’re making Prager into a central player in the operation by vetting teachers based on their affinity for what Prager believes,” Zimmerman said. “I think the other thing that’s unprecedented, frankly, is the involvement of the White House in all of this.”
In January, Trump signed an executive order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” which sought to cease funding any schools that teach gender ideology or curriculum that portrays the United States as “fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory.” The order emphasizes the need for a “patriotic education.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen the White House engaging directly in these sorts of questions,” Zimmerman said.
“Historically, in the United States, school has been a state and especially a local concern and it still is,” he added. “The bulk of money for schools comes from states and localities, but I think something’s really different about our moment in the way these issues have become nationalized.”
With respect to California and New York educators, Walters has taken issue with the “gender fluidity argument,” which details that a person’s gender identity is not fixed and can shift or change over time, which he says is a “lie that they continue to push.”
The California Healthy Youth Act, which took effect in 2016, requires that districts provide comprehensive sexual health and HIV prevention education for students in grades 7 through 12 in public schools. The lessons, which parents can opt to take their children out of, include discussions of gender and sexual orientation.
Oklahoma public schools are not required to teach sex education, including gender. In 2021, the state passed a bill, HB 1775, that restricts the teaching of certain concepts related to race and gender in public schools and universities. The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging what they called “unconstitutional censorship” in schools. That case is ongoing.
New York and California were “the first states that we’ve seen that are actually requiring their teachers to do things that are antithetical to our standards,” Walters said, adding that the test’s goal is to ensure they’ll teach to Oklahoma state standards. Walters is also looking at requiring the test for teachers from other states including Massachusetts, Maine and Minnesota.
Still, the notion that waves of Californians moving to other states are changing the political leanings on a large scale of their destinations isn’t borne out in the research.
The 50 question multiple choice exam, which is expected to be rolled out in the next few weeks, will include questions about gender, civics and American history. A preview of the exam released by the department of education included the question: Why is freedom of religion important to America’s identity?
Teachers must answer all 50 questions correctly to pass the test, Walters said, noting that the state is proud to be focusing on creating good citizens and being “unapologetic about a patriotic education.”
Zimmerman sees the creation of a good citizen a bit differently.
“To me, a good citizen, is somebody who has the capacity and skill to judge matters for themselves. Now how are you going to teach a future citizen to do that if you’re simply giving them one answer? I don’t think you can,” he said.