No state schooling chief has performed extra to indicate simply how in line he’s with Donald Trump than Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s elected superintendent of public instruction.
Actually, Walters has pursued an agenda—each in coverage and rhetoric—molded so carefully within the MAGA picture that many suspect he’s auditioning for a task in a possible second Trump administration, and that he might be an actual contender for secretary of schooling.
“I’m blissful to assist President Trump in any manner that I can,” Walters stated in an interview with Schooling Week about whether or not he was within the job, his federal insurance policies priorities, and his file in Oklahoma. “My focus is to assist him get elected. His Cupboard choices, that’s as much as him.”
Nonetheless, it’s arduous to think about Walters may have answered questions concerning the gig and his views on federal coverage in a manner that Trump—who famously prizes loyalty in his appointees—would discover extra interesting.
Walters can’t title a Okay-12 subject on which he doesn’t see eye-to-eye with Trump—together with a proposal to make college principals an elected place, which different supporters of the previous president have stated could be arduous to implement. He additionally thinks Trump might be the president who lastly abolishes the U.S. Division of Schooling, a Republican holy grail because the division was based again in 1980.
Walters, who was elected in 2022, endorsed the previous president and pledged to marketing campaign for him in November of final 12 months, when Trump nonetheless confronted credible rivals for the GOP nomination.
And like the previous president, Walters isn’t afraid to be combative. He’s gone after lecturers and even superintendents who he sees as selling a liberal agenda.
He’s additionally required college districts to report on any spending on range, fairness, and inclusion initiatives. And he’s supported a bid in his state to create the primary non secular constitution college and sought to place Trump-approved Bibles in public college school rooms.
His tenure as state chief has been dominated by investigations—together with from Oklahoma’s personal Republican state auditors’ workplace—into his administration of federal pandemic reduction funds. And a gaggle of Republicans within the state legislature over the summer time pushed for Walters’ impeachment over his administration of the state schooling division, spending priorities, and transparency.
Walters spoke with Schooling Week on Oct. 15. The transcript has been edited for size and readability.
Your title typically comes up once I speak to Republicans in Washington about who may be Donald Trump’s schooling secretary. Is {that a} job that you’d be curious about?
I’m blissful to assist President Trump in any manner that I can. I imply, the president has laid forth one of the best schooling agenda the nation has ever seen. Now we have been working in Oklahoma to get indoctrination out of our faculties, combating the lecturers’ unions, getting the Bible again in faculties, getting the pornography out of college.
I like that President Trump’s led to getting us again to understanding American exceptionalism. So, you already know, I’m blissful to assist the president in any manner I can. I’d need to have the ability to assist him in any manner shifting ahead.
So, to be clear, does serving to him embody serving in his administration, doubtlessly as schooling secretary?
My focus is to assist him get elected. You understand, his Cupboard choices, that’s as much as him. That’s his resolution.
So, if it’s not you, is there anyone whose title you wish to recommend?
President Trump may have plenty of good names to select from. I belief him. I believe that he does an amazing job of discovering gifted of us to encompass himself with. I belief the method. I believe that he’s going to have an extremely gifted crew round him.
I believe it’s going to be someone that may step in there day one and utterly dismantle [the U.S. Department of Education].
Talking of that, as a former trainer and state chief, you understand how a lot faculties rely on grants like Title I and state grants for particular schooling. What occurs to them if the division goes away?
Right here’s what we don’t want: We don’t want an company that’s placing forth all these rules and strings on all the cash going to the states. If we wish to preserve a few of these applications, we are able to block-grant them within the states. I consider we should always have a nationwide college selection tax credit score that ought to mirror what we have now right here in Oklahoma, that doesn’t require this gigantic authorities company overseeing it.
In case you take that type of mannequin, you don’t want the equipment of an enormous, monstrous Division of Schooling that continues to trigger extra issues than to be of any help to states.
It’s clear you’re an enormous Trump fan. What do you would like he had gotten achieved in his first time period? You simply talked a couple of tax credit score. That was a proposal that by no means actually acquired off the bottom. Why do you assume he wasn’t in a position to accomplish the whole lot he needed to?
Congress has to behave, you already know? Within the first time period, I noticed President Trump lay out an unbelievable imaginative and prescient and I noticed Congress not transfer the way in which that they need to have on his initiatives.
What I see now’s that the president is extra common than ever. He’s stronger than ever.
It’s wonderful to me how little we’ve heard about schooling from so many within the nationwide media as a result of President Trump’s gained the argument on schooling. His imaginative and prescient has gained the day with voters throughout the nation. And so look, I believe he’s going to come back into workplace full steam forward.
Within the second time period, I actually consider that President Trump would be the president to actually get rid of the Division of Schooling.
I believe you may have the tax credit score, the consideration of, how will we get again to understanding American exceptionalism in our faculties? We wish to have patriotic college students. I believe President Trump has a transparent imaginative and prescient of how to do this. And I believe you, within the second time period, you see all these items achieved.
You’re a former trainer. What do you assume a former trainer, or a former educator, can carry to the secretary position that someone who hadn’t been within the classroom couldn’t?
I cherished instructing. Liked working instantly with youngsters, you already know.
I actually consider that our greatest lecturers ought to make extra [money], however we should always do it primarily based on their efficiency. President Trump has laid these plans out as properly. It’s important to speak about utilizing free market options for schooling. We’ve acquired some nice lecturers within the nation. They need to be making extra money. We must always get out of the socialist system the place all lecturers make the identical.
Do you assume one of the best lecturers don’t make sufficient? Or that every one lecturers don’t make sufficient?
In schooling, we’ve simply continued to throw cash on the downside. And look, cash just isn’t the issue. The issue is, is the place the cash goes. Now we have too many directors. There’s an excessive amount of administrative bloat. There’s an excessive amount of paperwork in schooling. The {dollars} which might be at present being spent in schooling ought to be invested into the classroom. The very best lecturers ought to make more cash. We’ve seen large success with it right here in Oklahoma.
(Notice: Oklahoma’s Instructor Empowerment Program gives funds for districts to make use of to spice up the salaries of lecturers they designate as superior, lead, or grasp lecturers. One other applications to attract lecturers to fill hard-to-staff positions by means of massive signing bonuses. Some lecturers who had been initially authorized for and acquired the additional pay had been later advised they didn’t meet this system’s necessities and would want to return the cash.)
When your title comes up as an schooling secretary, of us do point out a few of the controversies surrounding you, similar to, you helped a tech firm safe a no-bid contract to shortly distribute funding for college provides to households throughout the pandemic, and so they ended up shopping for grills and Christmas timber with the cash. There’s a grand jury investigation.
(Notice: After this interview, information broke that the grand jury discovered Gov. Kevin Stitt and Walters accountable for mishandling the reduction funds, however stopped in need of issuing indictments. The panel’s report didn’t point out Stitt or Walters by title however concluded they’d been “grossly negligent” in permitting pandemic reduction funds meant to assist youngsters study at residence throughout the pandemic to as a substitute be directed to oldsters’ private use. )
While you tackle the lecturers’ union, which have been a power of detriment to each pupil within the nation, and you are taking them on aggressively and instantly, they arrive after you. I’ve confronted all these lies, all these assaults. I’ll proceed to combat for youths. I’ll proceed to combat again in opposition to all of the assaults that come my manner.
[American Federation of Teachers president] Randi Weingarten put my image on the large display at her huge convention this summer time, pointed to me and stated that they’re coming after me this fall. I’m one in every of their high targets within the nation.
(Weingarten did have Walters’ image, together with these of different conservative proponents of personal college selection, on a display behind her on the AFT’s summer time conference in Houston. She didn’t speak about going after him this fall however accused the group of “defunding and destabilizing public faculties.”)
You talked about these points. We had a vendor that was a serious downside, and we held them accountable legally for permitting these issues to occur. (Notice: Stitt sued the seller in query, however that lawsuit was dismissed.)
Is there something on which you disagree with President Trump? As an example, he’s proposed electing college principals, which to many appears unworkable.
No, I’ve cherished the whole lot he’s put out on schooling. We’ve acquired states everywhere in the nation that elect their superintendents. I believe what President Trump’s targeted on, and I adore it, is how will we empower households?
Now we have schooling bureaucrats which might be left-wing, elitist, that assume they know finest for households, and so they have grow to be so radicalized that our households are going, “what’s going on right here? We would like our youngsters to get a great schooling. We would like our youngsters to develop up, have good households, and be capable to go get good jobs, and it’s not occurring, and we don’t perceive.” President Trump has thrown out so many nice concepts to say, “we’ve acquired to be aggressive in shifting the pendulum again and empowering households.”
