The head of Oklahoma’s public school system is backing President Donald Trump’s executive order to dismantle the federal Department of Education, saying that Trump will “go down in history as the president that saved education.”

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced a dramatic “reduction in force” of the federal Department of Education and detailed plans to reduce the size of the agency by over 50% from around 4,133 to around 2,183 employees.

Trump has previously said he wants to “close up the Department of Education” entirely and “move education back to the states.”

As Democrats and media outlets sound the alarm that Trump’s changes mean doom for education in America, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is saying that Trump’s move is exactly what students, parents and the entire country need right now.

“This is a historic moment,” he said. “I think President Trump is going to go down in history as the president that saved education and the future of the country.”

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Walters said that rather than helping to implement effective education systems, the Department of Education had long been co-opted by radical teachers’ unions like the American Federation of Teachers, which he said has been pushing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and other leftist ideologies in states, including Oklahoma.

“The disruption of education was the federalization of education and the unionization of education. That’s what got us away from the concept of schools that valued the community, value the family, value the individual,” he said. “You have thousands of bureaucrats that are up there that are pushing a left-wing agenda, the most radical agenda the country has ever seen. They’re teaching kids to hate the country. They’re teaching kids to hate their faith.”

“You can talk to teachers about the types of trainings the feds were requiring them to go to,” he continued. “These were not helping them drive student achievement in their classroom. It was to push a left-wing agenda on kids.”

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The Trump administration announced a dramatic “reduction in force” of the federal Department of Education and detailed plans to reduce the size of the agency by over 50%. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

After taking office in January 2023, Walters said he had to immediately deal with the Biden Department of Education using federal funding as leverage to push concepts like DEI and gender ideology in classrooms.

“I was very sharp in my responses of why are we talking about transgenderism in an Algebra One class? Like there’s no connection between the two, but it shows you how far they were willing to go with their woke ideology, with the strategy to undermine American society, undermine the family unit,” he said.

The result, Walters said, has shown in students’ test scores.  

“All the test scores have shown that they’ve all gotten worse since this disruption occurred,” he explained. “Nearly every society factor has gotten worse. You look at teenage suicide. You look at teenage drug use. You look at the disintegration of the family unit. All of these things coincided in part with the creation of the federal Department of Education and the rise of the teachers’ unions.”  

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Walters said that “all the test scores have shown that they’ve all gotten worse since this disruption occurred.” (iStock | Getty Images)

Walters anticipates that cutting the Education Department will free up huge sums of funds that, instead of paying bureaucrats’ salaries, will instead go straight to students’ education and teachers.

He pointed to cuts he made to the Oklahoma Education Department in which he reduced the state’s bureaucracy by 150 employees, which he claimed saved millions, creating opportunities for tutoring programs and offering more competitive salaries to hire top-talent teachers.  

“You’re going to see that, times a thousand with the federal Department of Education,” he said.

Meanwhile, Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the parents’ rights group Moms for Liberty, assured parents that “your children’s education will not be affected by any of these things.”

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Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the parents’ rights group Moms for Liberty, assured parents that “your children’s education will not be affected by any of these things.” (Fox News Digital )

“Don’t believe the union talking point, fearmongering lies,” Justice said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “Abolishing the Department of Education or dismantling it, cutting back on half the staff, only means more power to the parents, which is why the unions are concerned.”

“Since the creation of the Department of Education, student achievement has only declined,” she said. “We’ve got a real crisis on our hands. I think the fact that the majority of American children are not learning to read is one of the biggest national security threats that we face as a nation.”

“If you’re watching mainstream media or the fake news, as President Trump likes to say, you’re hearing those union fearmongering talking points. They’re saying, ‘Oh, this is going to hurt teachers. This is going to hurt services.’ Nothing could be further from the truth,” she went on. “Every state has a department of education, and I think every state and every state leader should really be looking at this as an opportunity to be able to show what their vision is for education, and then to execute on that vision and really make sure that kids in their states are learning,” said Justice.

Nearly two dozen Democrat attorneys general are currently suing the Trump administration to stop the cuts to the Department of Education. 

Speaking with Fox News, Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, said it is “outrageous” that the Trump administration is “set on gutting the Department of Education.” She claimed that this move amounts to “neglecting our students, and our parents, our communities and… the future of this country.” 

Police in New Mexico said a 13-year-old boy has been charged with murder, took an 11-year-old into custody and are searching for a 15-year-old boy in connection with the deadly hit-and-run of a bicyclist that was recorded on video from inside a stolen car and circulated on social media.

Albuquerque police said the 13-year-old and 15-year-old have both been charged with an open count of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, leaving the scene of an accident involving great bodily harm or death and unlawful possession of a handgun by a person.

Authorities believe the 13-year-old was the driver of the car that killed 63-year-old physicist Scott Dwight Habermehl, who was fatally struck at around 4:40 a.m. on May 29, 2024, as he was biking to his job at Sandia National Laboratories. 

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The 15-year-old and an 11-year-old boy, who is too young to be charged with murder, are believed to have been passengers in car, police said. 

“The boys videotaped the crash from inside the car as the driver swerved from the southbound lane on Moon St. onto a dedicated bike lane and struck Habermehl,” a Monday police statement said. The kids in the car saw the flashing light on the bicycle and audio of the recording indicated they planned to hit the bicyclist.”

Video of the crash was recorded from inside the car and circulated on social media. Detectives received a tip about the video being posted to social media. A middle school principal also reported to Albuquerque Public Schools police that a student reported the same video of the crash.

In the recording, a voice believed to be the 13-year-old driver is heard saying that he was about to hit the bicyclist before accelerating the car, authorities said. He is then heard saying, “Just bump him, brash,” police said. 

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Scott Dwight Habermehl, 63, was killed in 2024 when he was struck by a stolen vehicle being driven by a teen boy while he was bicycling to work, police said. 

“Like bump him?” the driver asks. 

“Yeah, just bump him. Go like…15…20,” another passenger said. 

“There were loud sounds, including metal flexing, as the momentum of the crash carried Habermehl and his bicycle on top, and off, the passenger side of the vehicle,” police said. 

The 11-year-old, who was allegedly waving a handgun at the time of the crime, will be put in the custody of the state’s Children, Youth & Families Department and evaluated. A little over a week after the fatal crash, police had arrested him on an unrelated felony warrant, according to law enforcement.

Detectives are working with prosecutors and state social workers “to determine what charges he may face and whether he can be held on those charges,” according to the police statement.

The case echoes a similar hit-and-run in Las Vegas that killed a retired police chief who was bicycling as the teen suspects laughed.

Malaysia’s government gave final approval for a Texas-based company to resume the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 more than a decade after the airplane’s disappearance. 

Terms and conditions of a “no-find, no fee” contract have been agreed upon with Ocean Infinity to launch a seabed search operation at a new 5,800-square-mile site, according to Transport Minister Anthony Loke. The company will be paid $70 million only if wreckage is discovered. 

“The government is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the passengers of flight MH370,” Loke said in a statement. 

The 2014 disappearance remains one of the most vexing mysteries in aviation. The Boeing 777 took off from Kuala Lumpur headed to Beijing on March 8, 2014, and disappeared around 90 seconds after leaving Malaysian airspace with all 239 of its passengers seemingly gone without a trace. Satellite data showed the plane turned from its flight path and headed south to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed. 

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Ocean Infinity declined comment when reached by Fox News Digital Thursday morning. It told Fox News last year that it hoped “to narrow the search area down to one in which success becomes potentially achievable.” 

An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues to MH370’s location, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing, although CEO Oliver Punkett earlier this year reportedly said the company had improved its technology since then. 

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Ocean Infinity became best known for its work trying to locate wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean in 2014 with 239 passengers on board.  (Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Loke said his ministry will ink a contract with Ocean Infinity soon but didn’t provide details on the terms. The firm reportedly sent a search vessel to the site and indicated in December that January-April is the best period for the search. 

“While the next of kin of the passengers and crew on board attempt to rebuild our lives, the threat to global aviation safety remains a live issue,” Voice370, a group of relatives of passengers from MH370, previously said in a statement. 

Co-Pilot, Flying Officer Marc Smith looks out as he turns his Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion aircraft at low level in bad weather while searching for missing Malaysia Airways Flight MH370 on March 24, 2014, off the southwest coast of Perth, Australia.  (Richard Wainwright/Pool/Getty Images)

“As long as we remain in the dark about what happened to MH370, we will never be able to prevent a similar tragedy. Accordingly, we believe that it is a matter of paramount importance that the search for MH370 is carried out to its completion.” 

Fox News’ Greg Palkot, Peter Aitken and the Associated Press contributed to this report.