American public education is changing. And, in many ways, Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters is at the center of it, trying to push for Bibles in schools, new curriculum standards that include dozens of references to Christianity, and an ideology test for teachers coming from “places like California and New York.”

One Oklahoma teacher finds herself at direct odds with Walters and the Department of Education. And a pair of Walters’s former students no longer recognize the teacher they once loved.

This is the first episode of a two-part series from Radio Atlantic.

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