By Charlie Meadows

I first met Ryan Walters several years ago when he was speaking at an event in Edmond. This history teacher from McAllester, Oklahoma had just moved to the Oklahoma City area and was working for, or soon would be working for, the State Chamber of Commerce. While working there, Governor Stitt appointed him to be Secretary of Education.

I have met two or three young people from McAlester that had Ryan as a history teacher, and they described him as outstanding and inspiring. I believe the first time he came to an OCPAC (Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee) meeting, he brought his two oldest homeschooled children with him. At about 6 or 7 years-old, his oldest son quoted from memory several amendments of the Bill of Rights and then went on to explain the ideas behind those amendments, which was very impressive.

I was in several meetings with him where I realized he understood many of the problems in our government schools which prevents our students from better academic outcomes. Finally, he made the decision to run for State Superintendent of Public Instruction and ended up winning that election.

As an education researcher for the past 35 years or so, I have read many books and listened to many expert speakers regarding our government schools. I taught two years in a homeschool co-operative, and also taught students in two different private schools. I have just recently agreed to serve on a board of directors of a private school. I have also served on committees to determining where to place the cut marks for grading 8th grade history tests, as well as determining some of the final questions for future history tests.

With that brief background in mind, I want to say Ryan Walters absolutely knows what changes need to be made in Oklahoma schools to actually educate our children. What he didn’t know, was how to make those changes in an environment of opposition that would continue to grow once his enemies realized he was politically wounded. Many teachers were opposed to his election, as their union bosses convinced them he was bad. Of course, those teacher unions had their Republican whores that do their bidding in the legislature, and all Democrat lawmakers were also opposed to Walters.

Ryan made many mistakes during his term in office. It was very foolish for him to endorse the Texas carpet bagger that ran against Tom Cole for Congress during the 2024 election cycle. Minor mistakes with Ethics Commission reports were blown out of proportion in the local media. The very liberal Oklahoman newspaper almost ran out of ink in their efforts to destroy Walters. Trying to keep the media out of state school board meetings, or legislators out of executive meetings, even though nothing good could come from their attendance, was foolish. Basically, Ryan lacked the administrative skills to hire good staff at a reasonable wage and the wisdom to keep from giving his opponents continual ammunition to destroy him.

When Governor Stitt began to replace board members with those who would oppose him at nearly every turn, the end was not too far off. I personally don’t believe the governor has much of an idea of what needs to be done to improve education for our students. I believe he got caught up believing all this opposition must know what they are talking about as they were trying to get rid of Ryan.

The more the opposition grew, the more Walters became defensive and thus he often reacted poorly. There were many things he demanded that schools do, and the schools didn’t like the demands. He may have been able to convince some of them toward certain changes, but many – especially the large school districts – dug their heals in and refused to make changes. The opposition grew and finally Superintendent Walters resigned.

In his new position – CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance (TFA) – I believe he will try to build a national organization similar to the Professional Oklahoma Educators (POE) which is a good teacher organization – not a union – that has existed in the state for a number of years. In general, POE provides twice the amount of liability protection for teachers, for half the price, and excellent continuing education for their members. It will be my hope that Ryan will hire an excellent COO (Chief Operating Officer) with the kind of organizational skills to help make his new organization a success. The majority of teachers try to do a good job of educating students, even though the system makes it difficult. But never forget, there are a number of radicalized teachers that are destroyers and should never be allowed to be around students.

Governor Stitt has appointed a replacement with a good deal of Career Tech experience and has put some people around him which hopefully will be helpful. I am very happy the new Superintendent will not run for the position next year.

Governor Stitt has also called for the voters to amend the State Constitution to make it a gubernatorial appointment, rather than an elected position. I believe that will only benefit our students to the degree future governors understand the necessary changes to improve academic performance. A little hint, do not allow the current members of the education establishment to direct reforms. We have been listening to that group of “experts” for several decades and things are not one bit better. We need to seek out the changes presented by knowledgeable reformers.

Regardless of what voters may do to make that change, there will be a least one more State Superintendent elected by the voters. So who should the citizens that want better education for our students vote for? I believe current State Senator Adam Pugh or the former Superintendent of the Bixby Public Schools would be little more than whores for the teacher union bosses. The other announced candidates are not worthy of consideration either.

May I suggest consideration for Dr. Everet Piper, former President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University in Bartlesville. When he was hired for that position, that University was just a few months away from bankruptcy. Over the 16 or so years that he was president, he set that university on sound financial footing, doubled its size, built a quality sports program, and added at least one additional school on its premises – I believe it was called the school of entrepreneurship.

I know Dr. Piper to be a man of excellent integrity, and the kind of wisdom to avoid behavior that might give political enemies grounds to go after him. He inspires people to grow and succeed. His administrative skills would open the door for the right kind of people to work toward improving academic performance for our students. I urge folks that know him to contact him and urge him to run. He almost did four years ago – but Walters had a big head start with the governor and the State Chamber behind him – and he decided not to run.