Oklahoma Brings International Teachers in To Help With Critical Teacher Shortage
Working conditions and low pay are among some of the biggest reasons Oklahoma teachers are staying home.
Published Aug. 22 2025, 4:36 p.m. ET
As children across the country return to school in the fall of 2025, students in at least one state will be sitting down in front of educators they've never seen before. In Oklahoma, where a teacher shortage is making it hard for schools to fully open their doors for students, teachers are being brought in from Mexico to help bridge the gap.
These teachers are coming from places like Puebla, Mexico, to teach in Santa Fe South Schools as part of a growing program meant to help fill vacancies.
While these teachers are meant to help stem the tide of Oklahoma's teacher shortages, bringing in the new arrivals does little to address the issues that are keeping people from becoming teachers in the first place, potentially prolonging the teacher crisis.
That being said, it does appear that the state's short-term solution to fill the classrooms is working. Keep reading to learn how they're doing it.
Oklahoma is bringing educators in from Mexico to help with the teacher shortage.
According to local station News9, Oklahoma is combating the state's teacher crisis with a program called Fuel OKC, a non-profit that is helping the city bring qualified teachers in from Mexico to teach for the 2025-2026 school year.
Qualifying teachers are being brought in using an H-1B work visa, and given housing to help them get set up in the area. So far, three teachers have been brought in to teach at Santa Fe South Schools, and they are teaching art, humanities, and math.
The three teachers all hold bachelor's degrees, and they are each fully bilingual as well, which is a requirement for the program. According to a Fuel OKC spokesperson, this decision is having a positive effect in this region specifically due to the demographics of the school.
“The majority of those kids are of Mexican heritage, and research shows that kids do very well when they have teachers that look like them,” the non-profit's CEO told the publication.
One of the problems Fuel OKC says schools in the state are facing is a lack of qualified candidates.
“We know folks aren’t going into teaching in the traditional manner that they used to,” the CEO explained, noting that money and work conditions were some of the top reasons. “This isn’t just an Oklahoma problem; this is a national problem that people aren’t going into teaching.”
It may not be just an Oklahoma problem, but the state does have a unique situation in that the state only had 60.07 teacher per 1,000 students as of 2022-2023, according to data from Scholaroo. This caused Oklahoma to rank 13th out of 50 when it comes to the highest teacher shortages in the country.
What are the questions on the Oklahoma teacher test?
Oklahoma may be looking to add more teachers to the state, but only if they are screened for so-called "radical leftist ideology," according to a different news segment from News9.
A five-question preview of the test that teachers moving from places like New York and California were released by PragerU. It looks like the test will be multiple choice, and the sneak peek contains questions like:
- What are the first three words of the Constitution?
- Why is freedom of religion important to America’s identity?
- What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
- How many U.S. Senators are there?
- Why do some states have more Representatives than others?
According to News9, the rest of the questions will cover topics like constitutional principles, civics, and American history to ensure that teachers entering Oklahoma's classrooms will be aligned with "traditional American values."
The decision to implement these tests is being met with harsh criticism around the country, with some deeming it a loyalty test instead of any sort of determination of a teacher's qualification.