As Walters' intransigence continues, school districts should simply tell him 'No' (or 'Hell no')
We all remember the memorandum Ryan Walters — who should probably be referred to as our state’s superintendent-of-public-instruction-in-name-only at this point — put forth back on June 27, the one that began “Effective immediately, all Oklahoma schools are required to incorporate the Bible, which includes the Ten Commandments, as an instructional support into the curriculum …”
Also, if you didn’t know, though attorney general Gentner Drummond first responded by pointing out state law already allows using the Bible in the classroom, he has since told media, in direct reference to Walters’ memorandum, that state law “clearly enshrines” local control of classroom curriculum, to which Walters has responded, simply, school districts within the state “will comply,” as though he gets the final word, the law be damned, not the attorney general, nor the courts, which have already made sport of denying him.
Then, tilting at more windmills and whatever the antithesis of both the Oklahoma and U.S. constitutions would be, Walters made more waves this week, announcing on Tuesday what The Oklahoman’s Murray Evans reported to be “a complete overhaul of Oklahoma’s social studies standards for students” … the new standards of which were to be “developed by a new ‘Executive Review Committee,’” its members including a co-founder of PragerU, an American Enterprise Institute rep and the president of the Heritage Foundation.
Basically, a group of seriously hard-right-wing individuals, none with Oklahoma ties, Walters’ very own personal murderer’s row of Christian Nationalists.
If only it were legal.
A tweet put out by the Oklahoma Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, charged Walters with continuing “to show deference to out-of-state political agitators by appointing them to Oklahoma academic committees.”
The first line of Walters’ responding tweet was, “You are absolutely correct.”
Finally, one more thing before we get to the crux of it.
Here’s a small piece of Evans’ story on the matter.
Democrats in the Oklahoma House of Representatives immediately pounced on Walters' proposal.
“The latest atrocity from OSDE is an affront to the Oklahoma educators who have always developed and refined our social studies standards,” said Rep. John Waldron, of Tulsa, who serves on the House Education Committee. “This ‘carpetbagger curriculum’ would be made up from whole cloth by a panel of out-of-state so-called experts, and would represent a dangerous politicization of our academic process. Simply put, this is un-American and un-Oklahoman.”
Which is just so predictable.
Ryan Walters says he’s going to do something, enforce something or just plain make it happen through the power of his own will and state lawmakers, this time a Democrat, but sometimes Republicans, decry how wrong it is.
Walters does Walters.
Then comes the figurative pulling out of legislative hair.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Here, however, would be a response that is not predictable, should be game-changing, and could happen fairly quickly.
Tell him “No.”
Maybe tell him “Hell no.”
Tell him it’s not happening.
That is, school districts across the state should band together, attorneys in tow, media in the room, local and national, and throw down the gauntlet, announcing they have no plans to accede to Walters’ directives, explaining the attorney general says they don’t have to, ditto for the constitutions, state and U.S., and, furthermore, they’re tired of the state superintendent standing in the way of education rather than advocating for it, and if the state legislature doesn’t have the cojones to rein in Walters and his indoctrination team, they certainly do, because they’re the schools, the last line of defense, and defend their students they will. They could even announce, in the face of accreditation threats, they’d like to see him try.
They could pick the fight.
They could charge the bully.
Though giving Walters the proverbial finger might be all the reason they need and utterly worth it, more factors than they might realize are in their favor.
One, it certainly appears Drummond’s willing to stand in Walters’ way, as would the state supreme court, which tends to be in line with Drummond and the law rather than Christian Nationalism and religious interests taking over schools.
Two, each branch of the legislature needs waking up and this would wake them up, because the parents of students in all those districts are voters and if there’s one thing individual lawmakers, especially Republican lawmakers, are loyal to beyond all else, it’s keeping their job.
To date, the state house and state senate have feebly attempted to keep Walters in line with a subpoena here and a subpoena there and one bill aimed at keeping him from shining his own star with taxpayer funds, a bill — SB 1122 — line-item vetoed by Kevin Stitt, our embarrassing governor.
What they haven’t done is lower the boom on Walters, as legislative bodies investigating or impeaching, or rhetorically with full throats. Instead, their strategy has been not engage and hope he goes away, which has fueled him instead.
A unified stand from statewide school districts would force their hand.
More than that, it would be popular.
Coming together, the districts could first explain that, one, all the curriculum changes Walters wants to put in place NOW are not even functionally possible, for it’s far too late in the game for teaching plans to be thrown to the wayside and entirely reconstructed about a month before school begins for many and, two, they’re done letting Walters push them around in the first place. Indeed, their students are too important.
In so many things, the party that’s willing to be the most extreme, the most difficult, the most recalcitrant, the most insane, winds up with the most power because taking that party on is difficult, hard, and utterly impossible when you’re trying to keep the peace, too.
So ditch the peace and take Walters on.
The law’s on your side and others will join your cause.
You’d be doing your state a great service.