Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters announced he would step down from his controversial tenure to serve as the head of the conservative group Teacher Freedom Alliance, announcing, “We’re going to destroy the teachers’ unions.”
The announcement from Walters, a conservative Republican who pushed to incorporate Christianity into public schools, caps off a controversial tenure marked by a willingness to embrace culture war issues.
“We have seen the teachers unions use money and power to corrupt our schools, to undermine our schools,” Walters said in a video posted Wednesday by Fox affiliate KOKH. “We are one of the biggest grassroots organizations in the country. We will build an army of teachers to defeat the teachers’ union once and for all.”
As the state’s top education official, Walters generated controversy for ordering schools to incorporate the Bible in curriculum and pushing to require that families prove their U.S. citizenship in order to enroll their children in public schools.
Just days ago, he announced a partnership with Turning Point USA, vowing that high schools in the state would have chapters of Turning Point USA, the conservative group co-founded by conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated earlier this month. Walters said in his announcement video posted to X that “radical leftists with the teachers union dominate classrooms and push woke indoctrination on our kids.” Details of the initiative were not immediately clear.
Walters was sworn in as state superintendent in January 2023, and in his first few months in office, he called for prayer in schools and hanging the Ten Commandments in classrooms, a controversial push for public schools.