Superintendent Walters discusses current state of education in Oklahoma with 7News

LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) – Twelve short years ago, Oklahoma’s education system was 17th in the country. In 2023, our state ranks 50th in school quality and 31st in safety. That’s according to WalletHub’s 2023 States with the Best & Worst School Systems.

Friday, in a conversation with Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters, he said getting back to basics is the answer to changing that number for the better.

One way he sees that happening is with his new accreditation plan and getting rid of what he calls leftest ideologies and not allowing anything but the basics in the classroom.

“This is why getting back to a focus in academics and getting back to the basics should be a very common sense approach that everybody can agree on,” said Walters. “Those are conversations that should take place at home. If you want to have conversations with kids about different topics around sexuality, that’s for you to do at home, but at school, we’re going to talk about math, we’re going to talk about reading.”

Walters went on to explain how discipline in the classroom has affected the teaching profession.

”We have allowed discipline to get out of hand in our schools. We’re expecting teachers to go into classrooms that are unruly, where we are not giving them the support they need,” Walters explained. “That’s why my administration put out a discipline memo and a plan about two months ago where we have told all the schools here are the expectations and guidelines.”

The superintendent says that undisciplined students lead to a learning environment with a lack of focus.

“When kids continuously interrupt the academic learning environment, when they’re violent towards their teachers or their staff, those children have to be removed from that classroom and the supports have to be given to that teacher and then that individual kid, to help them, correct those behaviors. But we cannot send, but look, we’ve got to get back on track with discipline in the classroom. You cannot expect a teacher to come into a classroom like that and be able to turn that classroom around.”

Walters also believes one solution is to change or add a new curriculum.

It is a promotion of American values, of some of the people who had a tremendous impact on American history,” Walters claimed. “There is no left-wing indoctrination in it, its going to go through historical events and shoot straight and cause kids to think and say, ‘Listen kids we want you to know these incredible people in our history.’”

Walters is extremely optimistic about supporting a state-sanctioned Catholic charter school even though there is a lawsuit to stop the action. He didn’t seem at all deterred when faced with Article 11.5 of the Oklahoma constitution which spells out the illegality of that support.

“What we have seen are Christians who have come forward and said we want to start a school,” explained Walters. “The Catholic Church has had very successful private schools, they want to open a charter school. They can serve more students, there is a desire for it from folks from the community speak out wanting so we are proud that we are going to be the first state in the country with a religious charter school and we are going to continue to fight for religious freedom.”

Walters also spoke out against “Critical Race Theory” and what he calls “woke indoctrination” which is defined as an alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.

You will be able to see the interview in its entirety in the near future.

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