This week, Oklahoma is starting to screen teachers relocating from California and New York for “radical leftist” ideology. The America First Assessment aims to advance President Trump’s education agenda over the objections of teachers unions that call it a “huge turnoff” to applicants.

Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters, laid out his goals in a series of media interviews. “We refuse to let” Governor Gavin Newsom “turn Oklahoma into the same dumpster fire California has become,” he said Wednesday on Fox News Channel.

The test, Mr. Walters said, “keeps away woke, indoctrinated” teachers. “We want great teachers. We do not allow any kind of CRT being pushed on the kids. DEI. Transgenderism. We don’t do that here in Oklahoma. Our focus will be on reading, math, history, science.”

Mr. Trump carried Oklahoma with 66 percent of the vote in November, more than doubling Vice President Kamala Harris’s 32 percent. It makes sense that the Sooner State would be at the forefront of implementing the six executive orders on education that the president issued in April rolling back changes by Presidents Obama and Biden.

Improving the education system looks to be just what Americans want. Last month, Phi Delta Kappan’s 57th annual survey on public schools found just 13 percent of respondents gave the nation’s public schools an A or B rating, half what it was in 2004.

On Sunday, the Oklahoma Department of Education shared some of the 50 multiple-choice questions with the press. They asked applicants to identify “the first three words of the Constitution” and “the importance of freedom of religion.”

Other questions asked why “some states have more representatives than others,” the number of senators, and “the two parts of the U.S. Congress.” These covered areas that school children would have been expected to know in generations past, never mind their instructors.

Tuesday night on CNN, the opinion editor of Newsweek, Batya Ungar-Sargon, told CNN that applicants are also asked “which chromosome pairs determine biological sex.” The journalist, who long identified as a liberal, said “these are all great questions,” and asked, “Shouldn’t a teacher have to be able to answer” them?

The test will be administered starting this week, providing fresh grist for the culture war over classrooms. Other states will be watching, using Oklahoma’s moves as a test case for how they choose to follow or fight Mr. Trump’s directives.

The Oklahoma-based nonprofit Prager University designed the new test, and the president of the Oklahoma Education Association, Cari Elledge, objected to its involvement. She told USA Today in July that it’s “partisan” and “not an educational authority,” and called Mr. Walters’s test “a political stunt.”

Teachers from California and New York will also be asked if they agree with Oklahoma’s American history standards, also designed with input from Prager. The president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, voiced her objections to the screening in a statement on Tuesday.

“This MAGA loyalty test,” Ms. Weingarten said, “will be yet another turnoff for teachers in a state already struggling with a huge shortage.” She alleged that Mr. Walters “appears to be trying out for MAGA in chief,” and suggested his “priority should be educating students.” The superintendent, of course, believes that’s what he’s doing.

Mr. Walters locks horns with the left often, challenging their agenda. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court split, four to four, on his proposal for a religious charter school, letting stand a ruling against it by Oklahoma’s high court. In August, however, the Nine rejected a lawsuit against provisions such as Bible instruction in schools.

“Teachers in this country,” Ms. Weingarten said, “are patriotic.” Americans can hope that that holds true in blue states and red states alike. It’s a good place to start the effort to improve schools and arm the next generation of citizens with the tools they’ll need to thrive. 

With all this wrangling, Oklahoma is fulfilling its role among America’s “laboratories of democracy,” as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, Louis Brandeis, described states. The White House has now set the stage for them to try different ideas about education.