We’ve discussed Oklahoma and that state’s recent peculiarities when it comes to running their public education system. It seems the Sooner State can’t stay out of the spotlight.
Recently, The Atlantic reported in a two-part Radio Atlantic podcast that,
“Testing the line between church and school is a recurring American theme. In Pennsylvania in 2004, a school board tried to introduce teaching ‘intelligent design’ as an alternative to evolution. In 2002 in Georgia, a board tried to add a disclaimer to textbooks saying that evolution was ‘a theory, not a fact.’”
“And 2025 is, after all, the 100th anniversary of the Scopes ‘monkey trial,’ when Tennessee put a public-school teacher on trial for teaching evolution.”
“But what’s been happening to American public schools lately is different: more coordinated, more creative, and blanketing the nation. Pressure on what kids learn and read is coming from national parents’ movements, the White House, the Supreme Court. ‘There used to be an idea that you could live in a blue state or a red state and sort of encounter the school system a little differently. That maybe if you opposed school-choice programs, especially private-school-choice programs, that you were a little bit immune from this issue if you lived in, say, New York,’ says Cara Fitzpatrick, author of The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America. Now there’s ‘this pressure coming from the Trump administration to say we’re actually going to get very deeply involved in questions around curriculum and options for children.’”
“We have paid close attention to how conservatives are systematically trying to overhaul the culture at universities. A similar enterprise is unfolding at public schools. …[Oklahoma] state superintendent Ryan Walters [who resigned his position on September 24th – more on that later] recently announced an ideology test for new teachers moving to [the state] from ‘places like California and New York.’ He’s tried to overhaul the curriculum, adding dozens of references to Christianity and the Bible and making students ‘identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results.’ A group of parents, students, and religious leaders has sued. …[T]he Oklahoma Supreme Court issues a temporary stay, pausing the standards while it considers the lawsuit.”
“Walters may eventually lose in court on some of the details. But he’s already succeeded in helping create a new template for what public schools can be. For decades, they’ve been a proving ground for democracy, where people from a community with different views learn to tolerate one another. Walters and a larger conservative movement seem to be trying to redefine public schools as only for an approved type: ‘If you’re going to come into our state,’ he said, ‘don’t come in with these blue-state values.’”
“For a guy in charge of local schools, [then] Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters generates an unusual amount of national news. [Last week] Walters announced a plan to create chapters of Turning Point USA, the conservative organization co-founded by Charlie Kirk, at every Oklahoma high school. Earlier this month, Walters had ordered a moment of silence in honor of the death of Kirk at all Oklahoma public schools, and now the State Department of Education says it’s investigating claims that some districts did not comply. Oklahoma Governo Kevin Stitt, who had previously appointed Walters as his secretary of education, once accused Walters of ‘using kids as political pawns.’ State Democrats have called for an impeachment probe, and some Republicans have signed their own letter asking for an investigation of Walters. Parents, teachers, and religious leaders have sue Walters, the State Department of Education, and the State Board of Education for injecting religion into schools. And this past summer, two school-board members reported that they saw nude women on a television in his office during a board meeting. (Investigators concluded that the incident merely involved an R-rated move randomly playing on a preprogrammed channel.) In the meantime, Oklahoma schools are ranked near the bottom for reading and math scores on the Nation’s Report Card.”
Soon after The Atlantic interviewed Walters for their Radio Atlantic podcast, the embattled Secretary of Education announced his resignation. According to The 74,
“He once called Oklahoma’s teachers union a ‘terrorist organization.’ Now state Superintendent Ryan Walters is threatening to ‘destroy’ teachers unions nationwide.”
“A former small-town history teacher who waged a culture war against educators over issues such as sexually explicit books and criticism of President Donald Trump, Walters announced his resignation [September 24th] to become CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, an anti-union initiative of the Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank.”
“’We will build an army of teachers to defeat the teachers unions once and for all,’ he told Fox News. ‘This fight is going national and we will get our schools back.’”
I’ve never been a big fan of teacher unions, but one has to wonder if Ryan Walters is the right person to lead a fight against the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. It seems the right could find a less controversial figure to lead the union fight. Walters appears to be damaged goods, especially if you pay attention to Oklahoma’s dismal performance in reading and math.
See, that’s the problem with all of this “finger pointing” between liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats. Few on both sides are focused on the bottom line, the overall goal – making sure our kids can define, plan, execute, and evaluate their own learning while becoming expert readers, writers, and problem-solvers.
And the longer the adults argue, the longer our kids suffer.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
Leave a comment