Why we can’t let Walters win (pt. 1)

If you are a registered Republican who supports public education, you need to keep reading. In case you missed it, Oklahoma Secretary of Education Ryan Walters took a break from filming car videos on Thursday to set foot in the building where he’d like to have an office for the next four years. He signed up to speak during the public participation portion of the State Board of Education meeting. 

He used his three minutes to trash Tulsa Public Schools, calling on the SBE to review the accreditation of TPS, and to review their superintendent’s certification. He also took a couple of jabs at the person he wants to replace, Superintendent Hofmeister, who in turn wants to replace his boss, Governor Stitt.

The SBE was already scheduled to discuss the accreditation of TPS. After receiving a recommendation from State Department of Education officials to change the district’s accreditation to “accredited with deficiency,” they decided that they would go even further, all the way to “accredited with warning.” Watching from my office between meetings, it seemed to me that at least one SBE member would have been willing to go all the way to “accredited with probation.”

The difference between these designations matters. The fact that the SBE is willing to go rogue – and that some of the board members are willing to step all the way to the edge of non-accreditation – should alarm all of us. The fact that they blindsided another district (Mustang) with only adds volume to that alarm. Nothing on the agenda indicated that Mustang was going to be receiving any kind of deficiency or warning, but that didn’t stop the SBE from giving them the exact same designation as Tulsa.

I won’t get into the alleged violations of HB 1775 in Tulsa or Mustang. In spite of everything that has been posted to social media since the SBE meeting, I don’t have a good feel for the sequence of events. The SBE didn’t discuss any evidence they reviewed. No representatives from the districts were there to explain what happened or discuss what they have done since the alleged violations. As a superintendent, I understand that there are times you can’t share all the information you have. For the SBE, this would not have been one of those times. 

All we really learned Thursday is that the governor’s chosen candidate for State Superintendent and most of his appointed SBE members want us all to be on notice. If we cross them, they will come after our districts. They will come after our certificates. They don’t even have to have evidence or give you a chance to defend yourself.

It was nothing less than a shot across the bow for all of us.

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Going into June’s Republican primary, I wrote about why I support Dr. April Grace for State Superintendent. As I said then: 

In Oklahoma, the Superintendent of Public Instruction is an elected position. The state constitution lists no qualifiers for the position other than age and residency. As a life-long, fourth-generation Oklahoman, as a 29 year educator, and the son of a retired teacher, I’m looking for the candidate who I believe can help students, help public schools, and help communities thrive over the next four years.

I was nice in the post. I only said positive things. One of the other primary candidates, Dr. John Cox, is a friend and fellow superintendent as well, and I would have happily supported him if he had won. We need an educator with strong leadership experience running education in the state. I was less enamored with the other candidates, but I kept my thoughts on them to myself.

Now that we are headed towards a run-off election on August 23, I want to contrast the candidate I prefer with the alternative. I want to make it clear to educators and to all Oklahomans who support public schools that Ryan Walters is dangerous. He is unprepared. He is a puppet of individuals and groups hell-bent on destroying public schools. As the editorial board for the Stillwater News Press wrote this weekend:

It’s increasingly apparent that the goal for people who have been placed in oversight roles for public education in Oklahoma are deliberately trying to undermine it in the interests of privatization. They’ve sold a bill of goods to parents that they are trying to root out “leftist indoctrination” and “woke” ideologies but the latest action gives further evidence that the game is rigged.

This is why we all need to care. This is why we all need to vote. We have 23 days until the runoff between Dr. Grace and Mr. Walters. We get to choose between someone who supports teachers and school leaders and someone who denigrates the hard work they do. We get to choose between someone with decades of experience and someone who received his position in state government in order to serve the desires of people trying to wreck the hard work of Oklahoma’s educators.

A couple of weeks ago, I started toying around with the idea of a #TopTen list of reasons not to vote for Walters. I haven’t had a prolific blogging month in a while, but this moment probably calls for it. The problem I’m running into is narrowing it down to ten.

Over the next three weeks, I’ll make my case, as one voter, as one educator, and as one life-long Oklahoman who cares deeply about the future of our state and profession. To anyone else with a platform, I implore you to do the same.

We have 23 days.