The routine offered a helpful reminder of why she’s stayed in the field for 26 years. 

“I look at where these babies have started. Some of them might have known two or three alphabet letters,” said Jarvis, who teaches in the Chickasha district, southwest of Oklahoma City. “Now, looking at their test scores, I’m sending six to first grade on a third grade reading level.”

But when she looks at her paycheck, she doesn’t get the same satisfaction.

Her take-home pay has increased about 17% since 2018, about half the rate of inflation. Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill last month raising teacher salaries by $2,000, but when Jarvis calculated the amount after taxes, it translates into less than $6 a day.

“I definitely don’t do it for the money,” she said, “but that was an eye-opener.” 

Eight years ago, she was part of a massive, nine-day teacher walkout that saw more than 30,000 educators descend on the state capitol to demand increases in education funding. Then-Gov. Mary Fallin had already signed a $6,100 raise, but teachers wanted $10,000 and increases in the education budget. They also saw raises in and .

But since that historic “Red for Ed” movement, teachers like Jarvis say the incremental progress is barely noticeable. Starting teacher pay in the state still hovers near the bottom in the country, while neighboring states have climbed in the rankings. Some districts say they’ll have to come up with to extend the $2,000 increase to non-teaching staff, and teachers are likely to return next year asking for more.

“We have to have substantial increases annually to catch up,” said Shawn Hime, executive director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association and a former assistant state superintendent. He applauds lawmakers for increasing teacher pay 37% since 2018, but high numbers of teachers still either leave the field or for better pay. “We’re all in the same race, and we started a lap behind.”

Districts can pay higher salaries above the state scale, but there are limits. That’s because to avoid large gaps in funding between poor and wealthier communities, the state caps how much they can raise .

“If you’re an equity warrior, in theory, this is like the perfect funding formula,” said Rebecca Sibilia, executive director of EdFund, a nonprofit focusing on school finance. But in a state that’s reluctant to increase taxes, she said, districts are often “forced to decide between hiring more people and giving pay raises.” 

To deliver the 2018 salary increase, the legislature overcame a 75% supermajority threshold to increase taxes. But now, in an election year, some lawmakers who voted for it are “getting hammered” by their opponents as they seek higher office, said Hime, with the school board’s association. 

One of them is Charles McCall, the former House speaker and now a Republican candidate for governor. , Chip Keating, a challenger in the June August GOP primary, accuses McCall of passing “the largest tax increase in Oklahoma history. “That’s why taxes are too high.”

The state needs a long-term plan for funding education, Hime said, but lawmakers’ hands are tied because they can’t obligate money for future years. One former legislator has been arguing that point for years. 

“We have this year-to-year budgeting and that’s got to stop,” said Mark McBride, a Republican who chaired an education appropriations committee in the House. He recalled voting against a previous $2,000 pay raise prior to the walkout because he preferred to support a substantial hike over several years. Educators, he said, “got really irritated with me.”

‘Disrespect crept in’

Pay is not the only reason teachers in Oklahoma leave the classroom. Some advocates say mandates like making struggling readers repeat third grade will force more out.

“This is going to exacerbate our teacher shortage,” said Erika Wright, a community organizer for the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and the founder of the Oklahoma Rural Schools Coalition. “Who the hell wants to teach third grade now?” 

When former state Superintendent Joy Hofmeister was in office, she commissioned a of thousands of teachers who were currently certified but not teaching. While pay was a factor, nearly a quarter said their views rested on “the inability to make decisions related to instruction” and “burdensome standards and curriculum requirements.” 

Rhetoric that teachers found demeaning hasn’t helped either. Former state Superintendent Janet Barresi, Hofmeister’s predecessor, once said she wouldn’t let the “education establishment lose another generation of Oklahoma’s children.” 

She was the first to remove an educators hall of fame display from the state Department of Education building, former Superintendent Ryan Walters repeated when he took office in 2023. He sought to from educators, publicly criticised them in videos from his car and instituted a to weed out applicants from states he deemed too liberal.

“Disrespect crept in,” said Bryan Duke, dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies at the University of Central Oklahoma. “Job creep,” was another factor, he said, as teaching became more complex and behavior problems escalated. “It’s like screaming into the wind. I think many teachers felt that their voices weren’t heard.”  

Lawmakers introduced this year to lower class sizes in the elementary grades, a frequent request from teachers, but it died in committee.

Some years, Jarvis, the Chickasha teacher, has had as many as 28 students in her class. This year, she had 21, but doesn’t have a classroom aide. With about eight more years until retirement, she feels more fortunate than some of her colleagues who work a second job at a nearby steakhouse because the tips are so good.

But she often puts off vacations and big-ticket purchases now that she’s paying health and car insurance for her two sons. Eight years ago, they demonstrated with her at the state capitol. 

“I remember sitting them down and explaining why we were going,” she said. Her youngest made a poster with the names of his teachers. “It was very meaningful to see the kids there.”

Last year, WalletHub, , ranked the state 50th — just above New Mexico — on a mix of criteria including test scores, graduation and teacher certification rates. More recently, a University of Oklahoma researcher zoomed in on the , where the state places 48th overall in math and reading.

The unwelcome attention typically prompts a wave of finger-pointing from politicians and . 

Sometimes, teachers like Sarah Clifford.

A single mom of two who relocated from New York, she’s among the thousands in the state who entered the classroom without completing a teacher training program. In 2023, as a new teacher in the Edmond Public Schools outside Oklahoma City, she struggled to write lesson plans and hated teaching math, a subject she disliked as a child. Districts statewide have increasingly depended on emergency certified educators like her to fill vacancies. In 2023-24, the number topped 5,000, state data shows. Since 2022, the state has also allowed schools to hire , who may have no more than a high school diploma.

“We don’t want to demonize any person who is stepping up to be a teacher, regardless of the pathway,” said Bryan Duke, dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies at the University of Central Oklahoma. “But the difference in preparation launches people successfully or unsuccessfully into careers.”

Duke’s program has been part of the solution. In 2024, the university received nearly $2.5 million in from the state for scholarships to help teachers like Clifford complete their certification programs and earn a master’s degree. She graduated with last December after spending nine months instruction so she could “help students feel confident and start to love something that’s hard.” Most of her third graders students who were “on watch” in math ended up on grade level by the end of the year.

“Our state doesn’t look like we’re doing well,” she said. “But if you go inside a classroom with people who have the passion and want to be there, those kids are thriving.”

The data on the state’s decline is undeniable. In the mid-’90s, the state ranked 17th in math and reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. With the 2024 scores, the state had fallen to 48th.

In a , University of Oklahoma researcher Adam Tyner described how Oklahoma missed the “southern surge” that brought academic turnarounds to states like Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. Those states saw improvement after pouring millions of dollars into teacher training, strong curriculum and coaching.

Oklahoma’s results have also affected public opinion. Less than a third of Oklahomans graded their local schools an A or B in from the university’s Oklahoma Center for Education Policy. Two years ago, 41% gave their schools high marks.

At about $12,500, the state’s per-pupil spending is . One reason is because it takes a in the legislature to approve a tax increase. District budgets could take another hit if voters this fall approve on property taxes. 

“If it’s really hard to increase revenues, you have to take away things from other areas,” said Deven Carlson, a public policy researcher at the University of Oklahoma. “It’s going to be hard to improve outcomes, if you think that money matters.”

One possible off-ramp for parents is school choice. Many charter schools their local district schools, data shows, leading to push for expanding the charter sector.

This year, lawmakers took a dual approach to tackling the state’s education challenges. They gave teachers a $2,000 raise — but the is still well below neighboring Texas and Arkansas. Gov. Kevin Stitt also signed a increasing the minimum number of days in the school calendar from 166 to 173. That will make it harder for some districts with four-day weeks to maintain that schedule.

“We’ve lost a lot of instructional days,” said Education Secretary Dan Hamlin. “It’s not the only thing that matters; you need other things, too. But it is a component that’s meaningful.”

‘Art of teaching’

State data shows that 184 districts are in session for 166 days or less, which they can achieve through four-day weeks with longer days. 

shows four-day weeks don’t necessarily improve retention, but districts that don’t adopt them can to nearby ones that do. The model is generally popular with teachers, who trade off longer hours for three-day weekends.

Superintendent Rick Cobb’s experience in the Mid-Del School District, outside Oklahoma City, illustrates the problem. When he became superintendent in 2015, he was “alarmed” that the district had 20 emergency certified teachers, he said. Now 114 either have emergency certifications or are adjunct teachers, according to .

His district, which serves a blue collar community near an Air Force base, never shifted to a four-day week. But others around Mid-Del did, luring away his teachers.

Knowledge of the subject matter generally isn’t a weak spot for emergency certified teachers, he said. But they often lack the skills to manage classrooms and modify lessons for students working at higher and lower levels.

“That’s the art of teaching,” he said.

Mike Simpson, superintendent of the Guthrie Public Schools, north of Oklahoma City, has faced the same challenge. His district, where nearly 60% qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, has lost teachers to districts with four-day weeks. But he never went that route because parents in his district depend on schools not just for education, but also for school meals. 

“If the parents go to work, who’s taking care of those kids? Who’s feeding them?” he asked. “I take that very seriously.”

The small, rural Jennings Public Schools, west of Tulsa, is among those that run four days. It received a waiver from the state to operate a 156-day calendar.

Superintendent Derrick Meador doesn’t struggle to find certified teachers. He had three job openings recently and about 10 applicants for each one. It was the first time in three years he’s had to hire a teacher. Families, he said, support the four-day week and don’t want to lose it. Fewer than 2% of students are chronically absent, and the district performs well academically.

“If we weren’t getting the results that we were, I would have ended it a long time ago,” Meador said. He doesn’t appreciate districts with four-day weeks getting for dragging the state down. “I don’t like being lumped in with other districts. We stand alone on our merits and should be judged accordingly.” 

He hopes the state will continue to allow waivers from the new 173-day requirement, but without it, Jennings will likely have to give up its four-day week.

‘Life experience’

It’s difficult to tie student outcomes to any one education policy, whether that’s the academic calendar or teacher certification. But Dan Goldhaber, director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research at the American Institutes for Research, said if performance is falling, teacher quality “is one of the very first things that I would look toward.”

Oklahoma is certainly not alone in lowering the bar to teach, especially since the pandemic. Goldhaber examined post-COVID outcomes for students in Massachusetts and found that those whose teachers had emergency licenses in math and science than their peers. 

In Texas, a third of teachers were unlicensed in 2023-24. aims to reverse that trend by gradually reducing the share of unlicensed teachers that districts can hire to 5% by 2029.

Oklahoma took a small step in that direction this year when it tightened restrictions on adjunct teachers, who are only required to have “distinguished qualifications in their field,” but not a college degree. Stitt signed that stops schools from hiring adjuncts to teach core content areas in K-5.

that educators with temporary or emergency certifications are more likely than those who are fully certified to leave the profession. But they often take positions that would otherwise be nearly impossible to fill. 

In the Union Public Schools, which serves southeast Tulsa and part of Broken Arrow, several teach at the district’s Innovation Lab, a hub for career and technical education courses. They include Jeremy Weber, a who teaches students the basics of aircraft maintenance. On a recent morning, he showed students how to use safety wire to secure nuts and bolts to parts of a plane.

“That life experience is pretty valuable,” said Kenneth Moore, the district’s executive director of secondary education.

Earlier this month, newly certified teachers with years of life and career experience gathered at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond to celebrate their graduation from the two-year alternative certification program. 

Grabbing refreshments at a pre-graduation reception and posing for pictures with their families and fellow graduates, they talked about wanting to reverse the stigma attached to teachers who take a nontraditional route to the classroom.

They included Cherice McDonald, a teacher in Oklahoma City schools who previously worked in the oil and gas industry, and is now being recruited to work as an assistant principal. 

Melanie Whitekiller Lawrence, a member of the Cherokee Nation, stayed home to raise her four kids before taking a job as a long-term substitute. When she took charge of a fourth grade class in Edmond, she said she “had no idea” there were academic standards in math and reading she was required to teach under state law. She’s come a long way since the days when a colleague in the classroom next door would supply her with ready-made lessons for the week.

Last fall, her colleagues at Chisholm Elementary chose her to represent their school as . 

“Sometimes, I feel like I’m more knowledgeable about current and best practices than my colleagues who have been teaching for a very long time,” she said at the reception. “We’re not just warm bodies.”

OKLAHOMA CITY — Gov. Kevin Stitt has signed into law a yearlong ban on student cellphone use in all Oklahoma public schools.

Oklahoma will join that have implemented similar statewide restrictions. Some school districts in the state .

Stitt signed on Monday to implement the “bell to bell” ban for the 2025-26 school year. The restriction becomes optional for districts in the 2026-27 school year and thereafter.

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While the yearlong ban is in place, each district’s school board must adopt a policy restricting students from using cellphones, laptops, tablets, smart watches, smart headphones and smart glasses from the first bell ringing in the instructional day until final dismissal. The policy must outline disciplinary procedures for enforcing the rule.

School-issued or school-approved devices used for classroom instruction are still allowed under the law. Districts could permit cellphone use for emergencies and for students who need it to monitor a health issue.

Stitt previously urged public schools to find cost-neutral ways to make classrooms cellphone free to reverse a “worrying trend” of distraction, bullying and learning difficulties.

“We’re seeing classrooms across the country struggle with the influx of cellphone use by students,” Stitt said in a statement Tuesday. “That’s why I issued my cellphone free school challenge in the fall. We want kids to be focused and present while they’re with their teachers, and this legislation helps promote an environment conducive to learning.”

Before the 2025 legislative session began, state lawmakers who warned about the negative effect and addictive impact of digital media on youth. They also spoke with Oklahoma educators who said their schools saw better student behavior after banning cellphones.

Meanwhile, , where students and educators spoke favorably about their school rules.

Among the nation’s largest teachers union, 90% of members said they support cellphone restrictions during class time, and 83% favored prohibiting cellphone and personal device usage for the entire school day, according to a .

U.S. adults reported broad support for classroom cellphone restrictions in middle and high schools, but only a third of American adults said they support extending these bans for the whole school day, the .

Support for SB 139 wasn’t overwhelming among Oklahoma lawmakers, either. The state Senate passed the bill with a 30-15 vote, and the House approved it 51-39.

The House also passed a similar school cellphone ban, , that would allow districts to opt out of the policy. SB 139 allows no such option until after a year.

“This will allow teachers to focus entirely on educating our kids while students can concentrate on learning as much as possible,” an author of both bills, Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, said. “After two years of hard work on this issue, I’m thrilled to see this legislation become law, and I’m confident students, parents and teachers will see immediate benefits once the new school year begins.”

HB 1276 is unlikely to advance in the Senate now that SB 139 has the governor’s signature, Seifried said.

The bill’s House author, Rep. Chad Caldwell, R-Enid, called the measure a “try it before you buy it type of policy.”

“I appreciate Gov. Stitt signing SB 139 to remove the distractions of cellphones from our schools and give our kids their childhood back,” Caldwell said Tuesday.

The governor on Monday also signed into law a restriction on virtual school days. Senate Bill 758 will limit districts to using a maximum of two online instruction days per school year.

“Kids learn best in the classroom,” said Sen. Kristen Thompson, R-Edmond, who wrote the bill. “Virtual days have their place in emergencies, but we’ve seen them become a go-to solution in some districts — and that’s not fair to students or families. This bill strikes the right balance by preserving flexibility without compromising the quality of education.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com.

OKLAHOMA CITY — A Multi-County Grand Jury investigation determined Gov. Kevin Stitt’s administration and state Superintendent Ryan Walters carried out “grossly negligent handling” of federal pandemic aid funds, but grand jurors found insufficient evidence for criminal indictments.

At the request of Attorney General Gentner Drummond, the grand jury reviewed evidence and heard witness testimony over the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund. The GEER Fund was a $39.9 million aid package from the federal government that Stitt could apply to education-focused programs of his choosing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The grand jury Tuesday, finding the Stitt administration had an “irresponsible, disappointing and indefensible” lack of internal controls over some GEER programs, including one Walters designed.

However, the grand jury said the evidence was insufficient to prove any willful corruption or criminal act.

Spokespeople for Stitt and Walters blamed the failures on a vendor hired to help administer one of the GEER programs, though the grand jury found the state was at fault.

The Governor’s Office also accused the attorney general of weaponizing the grand jury.

“Ultimately, this was an inappropriate and unlawful use of a grand jury, all to pursue a headline in the attorney general’s campaign for governor,” said Abegail Cave, communications director for Stitt.

The report reflects many of the complaints raised in state and federal audits of the GEER Fund. The federal government already in questioned costs.

The Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector’s Office that the state’s poor oversight of GEER initiatives led to the misspending of $1.7 million. State auditors questioned another $6.5 million spent on private school tuition assistance.

Grand jurors said the misspending could have been avoided had the Stitt administration chosen the Oklahoma State Department of Education to administer all of the GEER programs.

Instead, the Governor’s Office relied on two unvetted and unqualified private citizens, including Walters, rather than a state agency with extensive experience in federal grant management, according to the report.

“The evidence shows state officials, though perhaps well-intentioned, disregarded available administrative safeguards in favor of advancing a political and philosophical agenda,” the grand jury stated.

The grand jury recommended the state implement mandatory grant management training for all state agencies with federal funding of at least $10 million and require those agencies to establish written policies for grant management.

It also encouraged the Oklahoma Legislature to enact new laws limiting the delegation of authority over federal funds to private individuals.

State leaders must use available resources and experience “regardless of political and philosophical differences,” grand jurors said.

The Education Department, which state Superintendent Joy Hofmeister led at the time, received $8 million from the GEER Fund and spent all of it appropriately, auditors and grand jurors found.

But prior policy differences between Stitt and the Education Department led the Governor’s Office to rely instead on two school choice non-profit leaders to run key GEER programs funded with millions of federal dollars.

The Governor’s Office did so despite the governor’s then-secretary of state and education, Michael Rogers, advising Stitt to have the Education Department handle all of the GEER programs, according to the grand jury report.

The two chosen school choice advocates were Walters, who at the time was the director of Every Kid Counts Oklahoma (EKCO), and Jennifer Carter, of the American Federation for Children-Oklahoma.

“Evidence was presented that this selection was attributable, in part, to representations made by the EKCO Director (Walters) that EKCO had the staffing and expertise necessary to administer a federal grant program,” the report states. “However, at that time, the EKCO Director was the sole employee of EKCO and had no federal grant experience. Basic due diligence by the State would have uncovered this glaring lack of qualifications.”

The Governor’s Office wanted to use GEER funds to launch a pilot program for private school vouchers, an idea that became the Stay in School Fund, according to the report. Grand jurors found the Stitt administration made an unfounded assumption that the Education Department wouldn’t agree to manage private-school-focused programs.

The administration tapped Carter to run the Stay in School program, which was meant to give $10 million in private school tuition assistance to families experiencing financial hardship because of the pandemic.

However, state auditors found individuals from five private schools received preferential treatment when they were allowed to apply early and received funds in excess of students’ tuition obligations.

More than 1,000 students, accounting for over half of the program’s funds, received Stay in School support despite their families attesting they suffered no financial hardship from the pandemic, according to the state audit. Meanwhile, more than 650 qualifying students from low-income families were rejected because funds ran out.

Evidence presented to the grand jury showed Carter had a spreadsheet with applicants’ personally identifiable information, which the panel said it found concerning.

Even “more disturbing,” grand jurors said, was that the spreadsheet contained information that families didn’t put on their applications, like their political party registration and voting district.

“This indicates that, unbeknownst to families, their information was being collected and processed for purposes other than that for which it was disclosed,” the report states.

Carter did not immediately return a request for comment.

Walters developed and led an $8 million program, called Bridge the Gap Digital Wallet, that offered $1,500 grants for families to spend on education-related costs while their children learned from home, according to the report.

The grand jury, along with federal and state auditors, determined the Bridge the Gap program was rife with misspending because Walters chose not to apply available guardrails on purchases and did not ensure anyone checked the items families bought.

As a result, grant recipients spent $1.7 million on gaming consoles, Christmas trees, doorbell cameras and other non-educational expenses.

Walters has since tried to distance himself from the program and blamed a company managing the program’s online platform for not stopping the improper purchases.

“Superintendent Walters has prioritized carefully and efficiently using taxpayer funds,” Walters’ spokesperson, Dan Isett, said. “Unfortunately in this case, the vendor involved did not adhere to the same standards.”

The grand jury disagreed that any vendors were responsible. The report instead attributed “ill-advised” decisions to Walters and Carter but found the state bears the ultimate responsibility for misuse of funds.

“This mismanagement prevented the most vulnerable Oklahomans from getting help they desperately needed during a global pandemic,” the grand jury stated. “Citizens deserve more from their government.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

OKLAHOMA CITY — Tens of thousands of Oklahoma families applied for private school tax credits within minutes of the program’s launch, potentially consuming the entire $150 million budget after an hour and a half.

The state received more than 30,000 submissions for the new parental choice tax credits within the first 90 minutes of the application window on Wednesday, according to a news release from Gov. Kevin Stitt.

“It is amazing to see the demand for this program, and I hope the legislature will consider ways to allow more families to apply for this tax credit in the future,” Stitt said in a statement Thursday night.

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About in Oklahoma. More than 150 private schools had registered with the program by Wednesday afternoon so their students could be eligible to apply.

The refundable tax credits offer $5,000 to $7,500 per student to offset the cost of private school tuition and other educational expenses. The amount a family could receive depends on household earnings, and though there’s no maximum income limit, lower-earning families get a larger tax credit.

Little, if any, of the program’s $150 million budget would be left over if all 30,000 applicants qualify for even the lowest tax credit amount possible.

The total budget will rise to $200 million in 2025 and $250 million in 2026.

Families with a household income of $150,000 or less have priority consideration if they apply before Feb. 5. Outside of the priority group, the tax credits are available on a first-come-first-served basis, incentivizing applicants to submit their forms as quickly as possible.

The Oklahoma Tax Commission declined to provide Oklahoma Voice with any metrics this week on the total number of applications received and how many submissions came from the priority group.

The Tax Commission will use its internal records to check applicants’ household income. The agency contracted with a company, Merit International, to assist with verifying school enrollment documents, expense records and vendor applications while also managing the program’s online platform.

Stitt, a self-made millionaire, initially said his family would apply for the tax credits but . Critics of the program, especially Democrats in the state legislature, said Stitt’s comments illustrated their original fears that the tax credits would help only wealthy families whose children already attend private schools.

The governor called the program a “step towards true education freedom.”

“School choice should be for everyone, not just the rich,” he said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

A history teacher and 2016 finalist for Oklahoma teacher of the year, he encouraged vigorous debates on pivotal moments like Roe v. Wade and, closer to home, the forced relocation of Native Americans known as the “Trail of Tears.”

During homecoming week, students gently mocked him on “Dress Like Ryan Walters Days,” sporting his signature slim-fitting suits, skinny ties and color combinations that didn’t always blend well. 

Life-size cut-outs of Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan in his classroom spoke to his conservative values. But if he was a firebrand, none could tell. 

“He made us feel validated. He never told us that we were wrong,” said Starla Edge, who had Walters for homeroom, history club and classes each year she was in school. Having come out as queer in eighth grade, she served as president of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance junior year. But she never felt shunned by her favorite teacher. “I got excited when he went into politics, because I thought, ‘This is my voice.’ ” 

Now Edge barely recognizes the man who was elected Oklahoma’s state superintendent last November. In selfie videos from his car, Walters denounces “woke ideology” and frequently of pushing a radical agenda based on atheism, racial justice and gender identity. In a series of provocative statements, he’s called the state’s teachers union a and dismissed the separation of church and state as a  

The relentless focus helped push the small-town teacher who never ran a school or a district into the national spotlight. In July, he spoke along with other conservative luminaries at a summit in Philadelphia held by the right-wing parent group,  a platform for several GOP presidential hopefuls.

To Edge and many of Walters’s former students and colleagues, the transformation is dizzying. 

“This is not the man that I knew for a large chunk of my life,” she said. 

To supporters in blood-red Oklahoma, however, it’s not Walters who’s changed, but the education system that’s gone off the rails.

“We want our teachers to teach … reading, writing and arithmetic,” said Wade Burleson, a retired Baptist minister who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year and met Walters on the campaign trail. Burleson also wants school prayer and to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom — key tenets of a Walters formed in June. He called the state chief “one of those rare individuals who will do exactly what he said he was going to do.” 

Walters declined interview requests from ����Ӱ��. But as the 38-year old builds his national profile, he’s coming under increasing scrutiny at home. Following his recent threats to take over the and a social media post that sparked bomb threats in a neighboring district, Democrats stepped up calls for his They cite investigations into his handling of COVID relief funds and a “pattern of inflammatory language.”

Even some Republicans think his rhetoric has gone too far. 

“This guy cares more about getting on than he does about doing his job,” said Republican state Rep. Mark McBride, who leads a House education subcommittee. “Someone has whispered in his ear that he could be governor or … secretary of education.”

Religious upbringing

Walters may not have set out to become a culture warrior, but his values and politics, like those of many in McAlester, reflect a deep religious upbringing.

Nestled between an Army munitions plant and a state prison, the former coal mining center some 91 miles south of Tulsa is a town of and more than .

His father was a and his mother worked at . Both remain active in the , where he is a minister and she is elementary education director. Like them, Walters attended Harding University, a conservative Christian college in Searcy, Arkansas. His brother and sister also attended.

In honoring him as an “outstanding young alumnus,” Walters, who is married and has four children under age 10, said he chose the school for its “Christian mission.”

Harding students take mandatory Bible classes and attend chapel daily. Its explicitly forbids same-sex relationships and maintains that “gender identity is given by God and revealed in one’s birth sex.”

It’s an atmosphere that contrasted sharply with the McAlester Walters returned to in 2011.

His eight-year tenure at the high school coincided with greater visibility by the LGBTQ community. In 2015, students at the high school founded a Gay-Straight Alliance. Based on from the Obama administration, the district also set aside a “family” restroom for transgender students to use. 

Brenda Calahan, a retired art teacher who served as the GSA’s first adviser, said many in the community didn’t welcome the developments.

“It was rough for those kids,” she said. 

Members of the wrestling team one of the club’s founding members, setting up a point system for everything from slashing his tires to killing him, said Debra McDaniel, his mother. He left soccer practice one day to find screws stuck in the tires of his car.

The principal at the time told Calahan to remove students’ LGBTQ-themed artwork from a display case near the front of the school. Some students petitioned the school board to disband the club, which still operates today.

Edge remembers overhearing a “few grumpy teachers” complain about the gender-neutral bathroom. Not Walters. Other staff members, she added, made crude references to the GSA, mocking it as “gay shits allowed.” But Walters, she said, “would have shut that down.”

‘There was no black or white’

That view is widely held among former students at McAlester, where Walters taught three Advanced Placement courses — U.S. history, world history and government — and also coached boys basketball and girls tennis.

Former students interviewed by ����Ӱ�� admired his approachability and sense of fun. When Edge struggled to grasp the finer points of Islam during his AP World History class, for example, he offered to lend her his own copy of the Quran. For another class, he took students to McAlester City Hall, where they took over for the day, playing the roles of mayor and department heads. In a mock council meeting, they voted in favor of allowing residents to own a potbelly pig as a pet.

“When we got done, I was pushing that we needed to do it again,” said Mayor John Browne, a Democrat who is now roundly critical of Walters. “When I found out that he was going to be running [for superintendent], I thought, ‘He’ll be good.’ ” 

During classroom debates — with desks pushed to either side of class — Walters critiqued each side’s argument and expected students to back up their claims with evidence.

Shane Hood, another former student, remembers a classroom discussion of the Indian Removal Act, which President Andrew Jackson signed in 1830. Students split over whether the law was racially motivated and unjust or actually benefited Native Amerians. While giving students their say, Hood said, Walters held firmly that white expansionism caused the suffering and death of tribes as they traveled 1,200 miles to what would later become Oklahoma.

“He was much more nuanced,” said Hood, who, like Edge, took all three of Walters’s AP courses. He now attends Oklahoma State University in Stillwater and credits Walters with inspiring him to study political science. “In his classroom, there was no black and white. It was all shades of gray. Now it’s, ‘I’m right and you’re wrong.’”

That reticence in the classroom stood out in a town where 74% of voters chose former President Donald Trump in 2016. Some teachers, Hood remembers, wore MAGA hats in the classroom and let student slurs like “libtard” go unchallenged. But not Walters. Some students even questioned if he was a “closeted Democrat,” Edge said.

Tennis and politics

If his students were ignorant of Walters’s private views, that was intentional, according to those who know him. “No one knew if he was a Democrat or a Republican, and that’s why they loved him so much,” said Chad Waller, a friend and former head coach of the girls tennis team.

After tournaments, Waller remembers the young educator grading papers past midnight. Walters, he said, gets a “bad rap.”

“The man eats, sleeps and breathes education,” he said.

But it was tennis that paved the way for his friend’s foray into politics.

In 2018, Kevin Stitt, a mortgage company owner, became the GOP nominee for governor. At a tennis tournament that year, Walters met Stitt, who was cheering on his .

“We kind of struck up a friendship,” in the Harding alumni video. After his victory, Stitt invited him to be part of an education working group that advised the incoming administration. 

That year, Walters got busy shoring up his conservative bona fides. With no visible prior record of writing for national publications, he gave full-throated voice to views he’d long kept out of the classroom. In for The Federalist, an influential conservative journal known for its vetting of federal judicial nominees, he warned of “runaway district courts” that would “undermine the will of the people.” Foreshadowing some of his future positions, he criticized the establishing a right to gay marriage, saying it demonstrates why justices shouldn’t have final say on constitutional matters.

A year later, he landed a job running Oklahoma Achieves, the education arm of the State Chamber, a commerce organization that, like Stitt, supports school choice. more than doubled his teacher’s salary. As superintendent, he makes over $124,000.

His rise did not go unnoticed. 

“This random, unknown, fresh-faced teacher from McAlester all of a sudden popped into the State Chamber spotlight,” said Erika Wright, founder of the Oklahoma Rural Schools Coalition, a nonprofit that opposes private school choice. “That is the moment where I first questioned ‘Who is this guy, and what’s the bigger plan?’ ”

‘Isn’t that a woke idea?’

At the time, those with more left-leaning views said they could still find common ground with Walters.

In 2019, Rep. Jacob Rosecrants of Norman, a Democrat and former Oklahoma City Schools teacher, began drafting to preserve a “play-based” teaching approach in early-childhood classrooms. He and Walters agreed on the value of recess and hands-on learning.

“He didn’t spout the far-right talking points he does now,” Rosecrants said. Progress on the bill stalled in 2020, and by the time they spoke of it again the following year, Stitt had appointed Walters as his education secretary. 

This time, Walters seemed skeptical. “I could hear his tone change, and he began to ask questions … like, ‘Isn’t that a woke idea?’ or ‘How is this not indoctrination?’ ” Rosecrants said. “Why? Because the words ‘social and emotional learning’ were in my bill.” 

What happened? The pandemic, for one. The long closures that followed lockdowns in March 2020 mobilized parents, particularly those on the right. School board meetings became battlegrounds over decisions to keep schools closed and kids tied to their laptops. The timing coincided with a right-wing backlash over many aspects of classroom life. Many parents began demanding restrictions on everything from library books on gender and sexual issues to the teaching of racial discrimination in U.S. history. 

Social-emotional learning — a decades-old practice associated with teaching kids resilience, empathy and self-control — got caught up in the fight. Some conservatives criticized its  and called it “l” and “too intrusive.”

Oklahoma was not immune. In 2021, it became one of the first states in the country to pass a law prohibiting teachers from offering lessons that suggest students should feel guilt or anguish because of their race. The following year, Stitt signed the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which forbids transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports.

With his young daughter Violet smiling and giving a thumbs up beside him, Walters made one of his earliest to celebrate the law’s passage. “We are not going to fall prey to the far left,” he said.

Making the culture war personal

His November election as state superintendent allowed him to step outside Stitt’s shadow. Many hoped taking control of the department of education would mark a turn to more substantive matters, particularly in a state that saw in student performance nationally following the pandemic.

But if anything, Walters doubled down on his rhetoric.

He a teacher’s license after she protested the state’s divisive concepts law by giving students a link to banned books from the Brooklyn Public Library. She later resigned and is for defamation. More recently, he pressured the Western Heights district to who performs as a drag queen on nights and weekends and launched an into its hiring practices. 

While other GOP education chiefs occasionally wade into the culture wars, Walters spends most of his time there. He’s established a “granular-level focus” on specific districts, and that makes his sharp rhetoric seem personal, said Deven Carlson, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma.

In with conservative talk show host Steve Deace, Walters acknowledged taking the host’s advice to make his campaign “a referendum on groomers.” Typically used to describe sexual predators, the term is often employed by conservatives to describe anyone who supports LGBTQ inclusion — potentially minimizing real threats of child sexual abuse, experts say, while demonizing non-heterosexuals.

In May, he portraying teachers unions as a threat to children’s safety because of their liberal views on LGBTQ issues. 

For Walters, the fight is existential. “The forces that you all are fighting … want to destroy our society,” he said at the recent Moms for Liberty event in Philadelphia. “They want to destroy your family, and they want to destroy America as we know it.”

‘Let’s not tie it to skin color’

The rhetoric has many in McAlester wondering how well they actually knew the man who taught and coached their children for so many years.

Stacy Gorley Williams said her son, Vinny, who played small forward for McAlester High’s basketball team, thought Walters “walked on water.”

Walters’s wife Katie, a therapist, worked for Williams at a nonprofit providing mental health services, and the two often sat together during games. Williams, who chairs the county’s Democratic party and was a charter member of a local LGBTQ advocacy group, said if Walters had given her the impression that he was biased, she wouldn’t have let Vinny play for him.

“I have zero tolerance for people who don’t accept diversity,” she said. 

The questions only compound when it comes to Walters’s handling of his area of expertise: U.S. history.

In July, during a Republican meeting at a library in Norman, he appeared to suggest that one of the most shameful events in the state’s history, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, was not racially motivated. A white mob destroyed the thriving Black business district of Greenwood. The violence led to the deaths of an estimated 300 Black people, an episode that was suppressed in Oklahoma for decades. 

An audience member suggested the state’s divisive concepts law put teachers in a tough spot: How can they discuss the Tulsa massacre without running afoul of its tricky requirement to shield students from distress?

As a teacher, Walters served that in 2018 confirmed the episode’s place in state , calling it one of many examples of “rising racial tensions” in the 20th century. At the Norman meeting, he insisted the massacre should be taught, but through the lens of individual responsibility. 

“Let’s not tie it to skin color,” he said.

He later called the violence “racist” and “evil,” and said the media twisted his words.

Remembering how skillfully Walters handled the lesson on the Trail of Tears, not flinching from its racial dimensions, Hood, his former student, often wonders if Walters believes what he says.

“It’s too much of a transformation in my opinion to be natural,” he said.

Ryan Walters is not who you think he is.

Branding and performing

For his part, Walters rejects the notion that he’s changed. Responding to a debate question , he said, “The reality is my students didn’t know what my political background was.”

“I didn’t tell them what to think,” he said of his time in the classroom. “I challenged them to think.”

Regardless of his actual views, many of them — like his support for funding a religious charter school with public funds — go down well in a state where two-thirds of Republican voters favor candidates who talk about God and Christianity, according to a poll last fall. 

Some see his tactics, like the car videos and steady stream of audacious statements, as elements of brand building and securing a base — perhaps in anticipation of a  gubernatorial run when Stitt leaves office in 2026.

“He’s very ambitious, and I think that’s what took over,” said Rosecrants, the Democratic representative. “It leads me to believe that all of this is for a bigger purpose.”

Rick Hess, director of Education Policy Studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, compared Walters to another high-profile state leader with national aspirations — Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Last year, Newsom paid for in seven red states promoting California as a sanctuary for those seeking an abortion.

“For an elected chief in blue and red states, unfortunately, the incentives are there to become a performer,” Hess said. “Walters is responding to the incentives, no matter how unhealthy they may be.”

But with his star on the rise, Walters faces at home. The state ethics commission fined him for failing to report campaign contributions, including one from the conservative 1776 Project PAC. And two audits criticized of a federally funded program to help poor families while he was secretary of education. Over $650,000 in federal relief funds went toward TVs, arcade games and furniture instead of curriculum and tutoring. The Republican state auditor’s office and the FBI are also .

In a podcast with 1776 Project PAC founder Ryan Girdusky,  the attacks against him “absurd.” Dan Isett, department spokesman, said the Democrats’ calls for an “represent a direct threat to our democracy.”

Supporters say outrage from the left proves he’s been effective. “This is a man of principle. Has he made mistakes? Possibly,” said Burleson, the retired minister. “But when you are attacked by people unjustly, there’s a tendency to come out strong.” 

Confrontation in Tulsa

This summer, he took his most aggressive stance yet against Oklahoma’s largest school system, the 33,000-student Tulsa district, and its former leader Deborah Gist.

He threatened a state takeover after Tulsa officials reprimanded a Moms for Liberty-backed board member who He later accused Gist of failure to disclose how much the district was spending on , which she’d described as a ”closely-held core value.”

To prevent the hostile action, she Aug. 22. The state board accredited the district, but “with deficiencies,” noting low academic performance and poor financial oversight. fell even more than . But students in the state’s second-largest district, Oklahoma City, lost just as much ground in math, and rank lower than Tulsa overall. 

The intensity of the fight worries observers in other districts, who see in Tulsa a harbinger of where the growing toxicity in education might lead nationally. “We’re now seeing partisan politics become retaliatory politics,” said Susan Enfield, superintendent of the Washoe County schools in Reno, Nevada. “This is ego-driven, reckless leadership.”

As the state board deliberated the Tulsa district’s future, events at the nearby Union Public Schools demonstrated how incendiary Oklahoma’s education politics had become. The district received bomb threats six days in a row after Walters from a far-right account featuring a local elementary school librarian. The threats continued well into September.

The librarian’s original TikTok video seemed to poke fun at Walters, saying her “radical liberal agenda is teaching kids to love books and be kind.” 

Walters, who once got a kick out of reading his about his tight pants and patchy beard, apparently didn’t see the humor.

“Woke ideology is real and I am here to stop it,” he wrote.

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation has provided financial support to Every Kids Counts Oklahoma and its predecessor Oklahoma Achieves, and currently provides support to ����Ӱ��. Ryan Walters led both state advocacy groups.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond last week withdrew his predecessor’s supporting an application for a Catholic virtual charter school, saying he was uncomfortable advising the charter board to violate the state constitution’s ban on funding religious schools. Approval of such a school could “create a slippery slope” and require the state to spend public dollars on charter schools “whose tenets are diametrically opposed” to the beliefs of many Oklahomans, to Rebecca Wilkinson, executive director of the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board. 

Wilkinson had no comment on the withdrawal of the opinion. But Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, a policy organization, said representatives from the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City plan to meet with her before the board’s March 14 board meeting to discuss “procedural questions.”

Gov. Kevin Stitt and state Superintendent Ryan Walters disagree with Drummond’s suggestion that the ultimate authority on whether the state can allow a religious charter school is the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices are considering whether to hear a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals case that focuses on whether charter schools are public or private. Drummond said he hopes they do. In the meantime, even if the state’s virtual charter board approves the application, a legal challenge is likely to follow.

“We would certainly give very serious consideration to filing litigation if the application is approved, in consultation with affected Oklahoma taxpayers, parents, educators and others,” Alex Luchenitser, associate vice president and associate legal director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in an email to ����Ӱ��.

Kenneth Upton, Americans United’s senior litigation counsel, urged the charter board during its Feb. 14 meeting to reject the application for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. As public schools, he said, charters are subject to the First Amendment and, therefore, must “be neutral on issues of religion.”

He summarized the question raised in , the 4th Circuit case from North Carolina. 

In that case, the that charter schools act on behalf of the state, just like traditional schools. But the Leland, North Carolina, charter school argues that because it’s a nonprofit, it should have the flexibility to adopt a dress code requiring girls to wear skirts. Families sued over the rule, saying it violated girls’ civil rights.

“Even if charter schools were private entities instead of public schools, they still are state actors under U.S. Supreme Court precedent,” Upton said.

That means, he said, that charters can’t teach religion, sponsor prayer, discriminate based on religion or require students to take part in religious activities. 

The Supreme Court is waiting on the Biden administration’s opinion on the case before deciding whether to hear it. To Aaron Streett, Charter Day School’s attorney, that’s encouraging.

“It indicates that the court views this as an important case that may merit further review,” he said. “Given that the court denies 99% of petitions outright, the court’s expression of interest here is a positive sign.”

filed an amicus brief stressing the gravity of the decision before the court.

“The question presented in this case … warrants this court’s attention because it may dictate whether such schools can continue to exist,” they wrote. 

The opinion from U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar is expected in the spring.

For now, it’s unclear whether the virtual charter board in Oklahoma will proceed with a vote on the archdiocese’s application. If it does, just three politically appointed board members will make the decision. Two seats are vacant.

Walters, a non-voting board member, said he believes “parents should have the choice to send their children to schools of faith.”

Stitt said he stands by former Attorney General John O’Connor’s December opinion, which suggested that recent Supreme Court rulings on school choice provide a legal foundation for a religious charter school.

In Friday, Stitt said he disagrees with Drummond’s interpretation of the law and “100%” supports the charter application. 

“I think that’s great, just like if the Jewish community wants to set up a charter school, or the Muslim community,” he said. “I’ve got friends across all walks of faith.”