One day of news from Ryan Walters captures all of the ignorance, petulance and pettiness of a very small man
To really cover Ryan Walters on the days he leads leads state school board meetings, it may require doing what we used to do for Oklahoma football games at The Norman Transcript.
Three reporters teaming up to produce two stories, one column, two different notepads spanning three whole pages of the sports section with places picked out for everything and pictures, too, before the day even begins.
As it was, The Oklahoman did a heck of a job on the fly, reporting multiple stories out Wednesday concerning Walters malfeasance, abominably poor leadership and pettiness to rival all but Walters’ political hero, who also set fire to himself on Wednesday in just more than half an hour at the invitation of the National Association of Black Journalists.
Read about that if you like, here.
On a related note, a fine Twitter follow is that of Cameron Spradling, the celebrated Oklahoma City attorney who moonlights as a one-man oversight committee of which Walters is the subject.
Wednesday, he did his state a great service by offering up this tweet.
Take a look and you’ll notice four different headlines, all from The Oklahoman, all from Wednesday.
The first reads, “Walters threatens ‘rogue’ school districts that don’t embrace Bible mandate.”
The second, “OSBE takes steps toward revoking Ardmore teacher’s license after Trump assassination post.”
The third, “Ryan Walters calls for study into impact of illegal immigration on Oklahoma schools.”
The fourth, “State Education Department paid legal firm more than $38K in May, public records show.”
The first arrived under the bylines of M. Scott Carter and Murray Evans, dropping at 11:08 a.m. The second, under the byline of Alexia Aston, dropped at 1:49 p.m. The third, also under Aston’s byline, dropped at 11:10 a.m. The fourth, under Evans’ byline, dropped at 6:02 a.m.
Who would have known, Walters’ media day had only just begun.
Let’s go through them.
1). The list of “rogue” districts keeps growing and was reported Wednesday to have reached a dozen: Norman, Moore, Stillwater, Bixby, Deer Creek, Piedmont, Jenks, Broken Arrow*, Collinsville, Owasso, Tulsa.
Broken Arrow.
Largest high school in the state and deep red, too.
Holy $%&#
Also, it should be noted that not one school district has come out to embrace nor even say it will follow Walters’ biblical mandate.
Nonetheless, though attorney general Gentner Drummond has made it clear the districts are not required to follow the curriculum whims of Walters nor the state board, the weak little man is flopping around like a fish on hot cement not having it.
“You’ve seen some rogue administrators making comments to the press and so I wanted to address those,” Walters said. “What we’ve seen some districts, some of our worst acting districts, come out and say, they are not going to teach history. They said they are not going to teach the Bible because they don’t want that … We will not allow it here in the state of Oklahoma.”
He even said those not including the Bible in their curriculum were indoctrinating students, which stratospherically rich.
Also, earlier in the week, during a Fox News appearance, because of course, Walters said, “I’m going to tell these woke administrators, if they’re going to break the law and not teach it, they can go to California …”
Shiver me timbers.
California?
Sounds more like, “Wah, wah, wah, wah.”
2). What happened is somebody created a Facebook post intimating they’d give Donald Trump’s would-be assassin $500 for attempting to “save us” from the ex-president; after which, Alison Scott, an Ardmore teacher, responded “Same, wish they had a better scope.”
True, that’s unfortunate and not advisable, but Scott did not initiate the post, does enjoy the right to free speech and, oh, yeah, Trump is in bed with America’s enemies, has designs on dictatorship, threatens the world order and the last person to be thoughtful and unbiased where Trump’s concerned is Ryan Walters.
For that matter, Walters trivializing the death of Nex Benedict, when he said, “I will never back down to a woke mob, I will never allow our kids or allow a radical agenda to be forced on our kids,” remains more offensive than any throwaway quip between friends on Facebook.
Also, it was the far right-wing group “Libs of TikTok” Twitter account that posted a screen grab of Scott’s Facebook response, which I guess means Walters now, sort of, has his own private police force.
Nice.
Walters said the education department is investigating, which is also rich given he should be the subject of many investigations.
3). The opening of Aston’s story begins like this:
The Oklahoma State Department of Education will issue guidance to public school districts on how to report the impact illegal immigration has had on Oklahoma schools, announced state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters on Wednesday.
During the Oklahoma State Board of Education’s meeting, Walters said it is difficult to know how much illegal immigration is impacting schools. He announced that Oklahoma schools will receive guidance in the coming weeks to help the education department identify the “cost and burden” that illegal immigration has on schools and taxpayers.
“The reality is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have let the border become overrun,” Walters said. “We have this rush of illegal immigrants across the border. We have a fentanyl crisis where fentanyl is pouring into the states [and] pouring into our schools.”
Two thoughts.
One, Jesus.
Two, Republicans, instructed by Trump, killed their own immigration bill negotiated by Oklahoma Republican senator James Lankford, but who cares about facts, certainly not Ryan Walters.
Also, should anybody care, border crossings are presently lower than they were when Trump gave up his coup attempt.
So, just another attention grab from Walters having nothing to do with educating Oklahoma students, but of course he’s never been about educating Oklahoma’s students, only shining his own star.
4). The last headline is kind of priceless because it reminds us of the very real exodus that has plagued Walters’ education department, which for a spell left the department with zero working attorneys, who are required for the state agency to do its work.
There doesn’t appear to be anything particularly scandalous about the work the outside attorneys have been doing and may continue to be doing, even while the $38,000 spent only covers the month of May.
Mostly, it’s just a reminder that Walters can’t help but alienate even the true believers in his department who want to do his bidding, not to mention everybody else, as I previously wrote about here.
So …
That’s just one day of stories concerning our embarrassing state superintendent of public instruction … only it’s not really, because there were a couple more biggies, one of which Evans — an old sportswriter who’s doing an outrageously terrific job covering Walters and education in the state — also got to Wednesday.
5). Bixby superintendent Rob Miller is mad as hell and has endured all he can take from Walters after Walters responded to Miller’s claim the Bixby district, and others, have yet to receive their share of Title I funding, which the state board is in charge of dispersing.
“It’s nearly August, and #oklaed schools have yet to receive Title I allocations from @OSDE for FY25, which started July 1,” began a three-part tweet from Miller on July 27.
He went on to explain the districts, prior to Walters’ election, used to receive guidance toward the Title I funding they were scheduled to receive by May.
Title 1, explained Miller, “is a federal program that assists low-income students with challenges in reading or math who risk falling behind.”
“The talent drain at the @OSDE and the absence of leadership and accountability are directly responsible for this situation. Maybe @RyanWaltersSupt can take a break from his travel and media events, stop by the office (if he remembers where it is), and help us out,” Miller also tweeted.
Walters responded during Wednesday’s post board meeting media session.
“He’s a liar, he’s really a true embarrassment, he knows every year when he gets Title I funds in,” Walters said. “We’re dealing with all kind of financial problems with his district that we’re happy to address right now. So Rob’s a clown and a liar.”
Miller was not impressed.
“NEVER again disparage or slander my ethics, integrity, or character in public without evidence,” he wrote. “I wore a Marine Officer's uniform while you still crawled in diapers. You're supposed to be a leader. Act like one.
Miller added in a following tweet, “Let me set the record straight — Bixby Schools is not experiencing any financial problems and has a clean audit. [Walters is] lying and apparently stuck in middle school.”
You’ve got to love it when responsible men and women of real repute righteously tear into Walters with the truth after weeks and months (and months and months and months) of Walters lying about them.
6). You can read Evans’ story about it here, but the gist of it is Walters and the state board of education, by refusing legislators’ entry into their executive session, are absolutely flouting the instructions of attorney general Drummond.
Previously, an assistant attorney general, in a letter to Walters, made clear state senator Mary Boren, a Democrat, should have entry into the board’s executive session, while Drummond issued a declarative statement:
“Any member of the Legislature appointed as a member of a committee of either house of the Legislature or joint committee thereof shall be permitted to attend any executive session authorized by the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act of any state agency, board or commission whenever the jurisdiction of such committee includes the actions of the public body involved.”
Instead, Boren, nor rep. Jacob Rosencrants, also a Democrat, nor rep. Mike Osburn, a Republican, were given access.
Instead, they were allowed into just a portion of one of two scheduled executive sessions to plead their case to be there, before being escorted out.
Later, in an apparent violation of the state’s open meetings act, the board killed its second scheduled executive session, carrying out what had scheduled to be part of it in open session.
Boren is considering suing Walters and the board, the attorney general ought to be steaming mad for being ignored (again) and, because he is who he is, Walters told the media this afterward.
“I’ve got some left wing Democrats like Mary that want to come in and make it where we can’t remove pedophiles from the classroom,” he said, which is, of course, a lie, not to mention slander.
It’s a lot of ignorance, assholery and beyond the pale embarrassment of our state packed into one day from Ryan Walters, but he pulled it off.
Goodness, what a dick.
What will it take to get rid of this buffoon?
Masterful writing, sir! Thank you!