AND it seems he brought PORN into the office, though he feels it wasn't porn because it was just a Jackie Chan movie with some nudity in it ( self-righteous clarification ). ryan walters has a history of authoritarianism, fascism, lying, deception, manipulation and hypocrisy, some might even suggest apostasy, that is typical of self-righteous"christian" nationalist. Fortunately for Oklahoma's children he is leaving them to be raised by their parents as they see fit, not indoctrinated in "christian" nationalism as mandated by the state government. From the New York Times.....
Oklahoma Education Chief Who Promoted Bibles in Schools Will Resign
Ryan Walters, a right-wing educator who drew criticism from across the political spectrum for his efforts to inject religion into public schools, will resign from his post as Oklahoma’s school superintendent.
He will join the Teacher Freedom Alliance, a nonprofit that seeks to limit the influence of teachers’ unions, as its chief executive.
“We’re going to destroy the teachers’ unions,” he said in a Fox News appearance Wednesday. “We have seen the teachers’ unions use money and power to corrupt our schools.”
The resignation is expected to take effect by the end of the month.
Mr. Walters was elected state superintendent in 2022. Throughout his tenure, he staked out conservative positions that often drew national controversy. In June 2024, for example, he issued a directive that all Oklahoma public schools must teach the Bible, including the Ten Commandments.
He recently said that all Oklahoma high schools would have a chapter of Turning Point USA, the right-wing youth group founded by Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated earlier this month. And during his tenure, the state adopted social studies learning standards that echoed President Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
When President Trump was assembling his current cabinet, Mr. Walters was discussed as a possible nominee for secretary of education. He has also indicated interest in running for governor. He was clearly politically ambitious, but consistently drew criticism from liberals and also some conservatives. They worried that his policies blurred the separation of church and state, and injected ideology into the classroom.
He announced this year that Oklahoma would require teacher job candidates from out of state to pass a test meant to screen for what he called “woke indoctrination.”
Mr. Walters, 40, is the son of an Oklahoma minister. He began his career as a celebrated Advanced Placement history and government teacher in his hometown, McAlester, Okla. At the time, he kept his personal beliefs fairly quiet. He ascended into politics after taking a role leading an education nonprofit focused on issues like expanding access to charter schools and private-school vouchers.
In his political career, he has been a champion of a rising movement of younger Christian conservatives who seek to inject religion into public life. He has spoken about his own churchgoing and his belief in traditional family structures. He has also said that he was shaped by the experience of seeing social studies educators across the country push liberal ideas into the classroom, including critiques of the nation’s founding.
His tenure as state superintendent has been rocky, and his policies have regularly put Oklahoma’s schools at the center of the nation’s culture wars.
Mr. Walters promoted prayer in schools and sought to remove classic works of literature from libraries, deeming them pornographic. He supported a plan for a publicly funded religious charter school in Oklahoma, but the Supreme Court rejected the plan earlier this year.
He has also been accused of running a disorganized state education department, and has had trouble holding onto staff.
Most recently, he has had a tense relationship with members of the state Board of Education, the body he leads. The board met without him several weeks ago, after he was accused of having inappropriate material playing on his office television during an official meeting. After an investigation, the Oklahoma County sheriff called the incident “purely an accident,” and said the images were from a Jackie Chan movie.
The organization Mr. Walters is joining, the Teacher Freedom Alliance, was founded this year by the Freedom Foundation, a conservative group that seeks to limit the influence of public sector unions.
Aaron Withe, chief executive of the Freedom Foundation, said Mr. Walters would help raise up a grass-roots movement of teachers hoping to stop paying union dues, in part because of the unions’ support for liberal politics.
He said the Teacher Freedom Alliance would provide its members with liability coverage and access to alternative professional development opportunities aligned with conservative goals, like maintaining stricter classroom discipline.
He declined to name the group’s financial backers.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union, pointed out that education remains the nation’s most heavily unionized profession.
She celebrated Mr. Walters’ resignation as “a good day for Oklahoma’s kids.”
“It’s no surprise that Mr. Walters, after failing on the job, is leaving the state,” she added.
In Oklahoma, many of the battles Mr. Walters waged are not over.
Summer Boismier was teaching high school English in Norman, Okla. in 2022 when a parent complained about her effort to refer students to books that the state had banned, by providing them with a QR code for the Brooklyn Public Library in New York.
Ms. Boismier resigned, and Mr. Walters called for the state Board of Education to revoke her teaching certificate, which the board did last year. Ms. Boismier is suing to have her certification reinstated, and said she hopes to teach again in Oklahoma.
She said Mr. Walters’ leadership had been “symptomatic of a larger coordinated effort to dismantle public education and silence dissent.”
The state law she was accused of violating, HB 1775, limits what educators can teach about race and gender, and is similar to dozens of laws in other states.
Debates over free speech and the school curriculum have become increasingly national in scope. The Trump administration is withholding funding from schools and colleges that have diversity programs that the administration opposes, and it has sought to drive television personalities who are critical of the president off the air.
Dana Goldstein covers education and families for The Times.
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