By Linda Murphy

Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) have been pushing forward with a highly controversial “transformational” education model. In July 2016, I wrote about the integration of religion into the online curriculum starting at the 1st grade level. TPS “continues to advance the education model based on Common Core State Standards, which are highly opposed and have been repealed from Oklahoma state law.” In 2014, Tulsa Superintendent Ballard vowed to continue Common Core as soon as we got it stopped on a statewide level and Superintendent Gist has followed his lead at an accelerated pace. (The Oklahoma Constitution, Changes in Tulsa Public School Curriculum: Teaching about Religion in Grades 1- 4)

Most people are shocked when they read the article and see how religion is being taught to 1st graders. They are even more shocked when they find out that Common Core is tied directly to the United Nation’s World Core Curriculum with roots deep in New Age Spiritualism.

The following excerpts are taken directly from Tulsa’s on-line curriculum for 1st graders from Amplify – Core Knowledge, English Language Arts – ELA:

Judaism – Christianity – Islam

1. “Identify Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as major monotheistic world religions”

2. “Locate Jerusalem, Israel, and the area known as the Middle East on a map”

3. “Define monotheism as the belief in one God”

4. “Identify the Western Wall (or the Wailing Wall) as associated with Judaism, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher with Christianity, and the Dome of the Rock with Islam”

This is just a small portion of the teaching on religion in the 1st grade. You can see what happens when these very different religions – Islam, Christianity and Judaism – are introduced to young children in a format where they are shown as being “equal” religions, religions that worship “one God” (monotheistic). It encourages a “belief system,” where students accept the idea that all religions are equal paths to the same God. That is Ecumenicalism, which is a religion and is in direct opposition to what most Oklahomans believe and would want their children to be taught. It is in opposition to Christianity based on the Bible.

The Teacher’s Guide Introduction says: “Welcome to the Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) program! This K-5 program has been carefully researched and designed to ensure students acquire the knowledge and skills foundation needed to become literate adults (i.e., college and career ready), as called for in the Common Core State Standards English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA).”

Under State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister, we also have Common Core imbedded in the statewide plan which she developed. From the beginning of her time in office, Hofmeister has aligned the activities and goals of the Oklahoma State Department of Education with the U.S. Department of Education and to the praise of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). This alignment was first under President Obama and continues today under President Biden. These Democrat Presidents have advanced the United Nation’s agenda for the environment, education, and all of the other UN 2030 Sustainability Goals.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) created education benchmarks, which were used in writing Common Core State Standards. Democrat Janet Napolitano, Governor of Arizona at the time, was the Chairman of the National Governor’s Association (NGA) when she worked with OECD to start the process to develop Common Core State Standards. They originated not from the bottom-up in the states, as promoters tried to convince the public, but from the top-down at the OECD, which is a UN NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) working with the NGA and the CCSSO.

The backers of Common Core include the U.S. and State Chambers of Commerce, which adhere to global corporations’ ideology and involvement in K-12 education with a focus on the goals for creating job training programs with requirements for character and behavioral traits for global citizenship. These goals will be furthered by the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce which has just hired a new President, CEO, Christy Gillenwater. The new OKC Chamber leader “spent a good bit of her time in her Chattanooga Tennessee Chamber position waging a campaign for greater Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” DEI. (Tennessee Conservative News, Woke Chattanooga Chamber President and CEO Accepts New Job in Oklahoma City)

The Chamber together with some Tulsa Democrats, billionaire philanthropists; Bill Gates, who signed a UN education pledge for Microsoft and other backers are pushing for the state of Oklahoma to produce “global citizens” trained for the workforce.

In 2016 following the passage of the Federal Education bill Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), I wrote: “Regulations and directives from the U.S. Department of Education are pushing for requiring test items to screen for mental health, ‘affective’ domain or emotions, feelings, attitudes, values and beliefs. These are often called ‘Soft Skills’ or Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).” Under Hofmeister, schools across the state are implementing SEL, but many teachers do not know or do not want to believe there is a larger political agenda that has been tied to it.

In 2021 - 2022, some Oklahoma schools were given surveys from the State Mental Health Department that included gender identity questions and many other probes into private student and family information. Acceptance of “fluid,” “non-binary,” and “trans,” Gender Identity is a major area of focus for the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and questioning or queer) political agenda being pushed by the state and federal Departments of Education.

State Superintendent Hofmesiter sent instructions to all Oklahoma schools, to establish clubs for students to promote and celebrate their sexual identity. These activities are also being aggressively asserted by the Center for Disease Control (CDC ) the Office of Civil Rights and directly in speeches by President Biden, under the label of mental health and suicide prevention. Hofmeister, cloaks the ideology in “Counselor Training and in Mental Health” programs.

While traditional education has focused on the “Cognitive Domain,” as found in academic learning, a “paradigm shift” has been made under Hofmeister to the “Affective Domain,” which is moving the state to a transformational model. As noted earlier, the affective domain includes emotions, feelings, attitudes, values and beliefs. This dangerous change easily becomes an intrusive involvement in the religious beliefs of students and their family. The increased collection of student data online, entered and stored in a database, adds to potential danger in the use of this information for central planning. Does this sound pretty radical? Well…… it is but it is real.

Using the Common Core curriculum for religion along with goals for testing or surveying, training or reforming student attitudes, values and beliefs sounds like the goals laid out in a very disturbing statement made by a U. N. official. This is from the founder of the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO), Psychiatrist Brock Chisholm who said: “To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas.”

In Tulsa on October 3, a teacher at Will Rogers’ High School was videoed by Project Veritas making several radical statements. He talked about being in trouble last year in Owasso Public Schools for his progressive leftist political statements. He made it very clear that he is a political activist, who is knowingly trying to change students’ attitudes, values and beliefs. He said “F….. Parents.” He later said, “Eventually you want to remove Christianity from, religion from progressive thought because it is inherently hierarchical.” Superintendent Gist knew who it was, what his intentions were, and how he would fit into her system for transforming education when she hired him.

In Part 2, I will continue with a further look at the Spiritual/ Religious roots in the U.N. World Core Curriculum and how it is being spread. The United Nations’ World Core Curriculum was developed by Robert Muller, who was chosen by UN Secretary General U Thant, a former school headmaster from Burma. Muller called U Thant his “spiritual master.” Muller said U Thant “said to me when I was his assistant: Robert, there will be no peace on Earth, if there is not a new education. He was right.” This led to Muller creating the World Core Curriculum.

Linda Murphy was Oklahoma Governor Keating’s Education Advisor, Deputy Commissioner of Labor for Workforce Education and Training, Administrator of the Eastern Oklahoma Department of Labor, Member of the State Job Training Coordinating Council, and the Governor’s School-to-Work Council. She was a candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1994, 1998 and 2018. Murphy was appointed by Governor Keating as Secretary of Education, but was denied confirmation by the majority Democrat Education Committee, following her 49.5% statewide vote in 1994. She also served on the Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women. More recently, she has served as Chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party’s Committee on Education. You may contact Linda at: lindalearn1@yahoo.com