Aug 12, 2025 3:41:25 PM
Ryan Walters has been accused of allegedly watching pornography during a closed-door state board meeting, mismanaging funds, and facing scrutiny in a federal investigation after a damning audit. He has blamed and attacked teachers’ unions, dragged Oklahoma’s schools from 48th to 50th in national rankings, and forced religious ideology into public classrooms. LGBTQIA+ students and teachers have been publicly demonized under his leadership.
A wave of staff resignations has rocked the Department of Education, and even the governor replaced two board members in an effort to check his power. Yet despite it all, Walters remains in charge. How much more damage must he do before Oklahoma’s House Republicans finally hold him accountable?
It’s clear that Oklahoma needs a new way to remove dangerous officials from office when they fail our students. Right now, the only path to removing Ryan Walters is through impeachment by state House Republicans—who hold a supermajority and have so far refused to act.
If we want real accountability and a chance to save our education system, Oklahomans must push for a statewide recall law that empowers voters to remove elected officials who abuse their power. Our children’s future shouldn’t depend on political cowardice.
Being a teacher is hard work; I know because I used to be one. But nothing is harder than being a student from an under-resourced, impoverished community. I’ll never forget the day a transfer student walked into my fifth-grade classroom. Within the first few days, I realized he couldn’t write a complete sentence and was reading at a second-grade level.
The state gave me just seven months to prepare him for standardized tests that required a five-paragraph essay. That day, I went home and cried—not for myself, but for him. At 35 years old, I wept over a child’s future because I knew how grim it looked.
He was in the fifth grade, but his reading level wasn’t even at third grade. And we’ve all heard the statistics: if a young boy can’t read on grade level by third grade, the prison system is already waiting for him.
According to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 23% of Oklahoma’s fourth graders are proficient in reading—well below the national average of 30%. The state’s average reading score was 207, compared to the national score of 214. Just 54% of students reached even a basic reading level, a troubling decline from 66% in 1998.
Achievement gaps remain stark: Black students scored 29 points lower than white students, Hispanic students lagged by 18 points, and economically disadvantaged students trailed their peers by 25 points. These numbers are not just statistics but a warning that our public education system is in crisis.
While Ryan Walters may not be solely responsible for placing Oklahoma in the bottom 10 for education, his reckless leadership has taken us from 48th to 50th. In less than two years, he’s become a symbol of chaos—embroiled in scandal after scandal, from financial mismanagement to culture war theatrics.
Instead of focusing on proven strategies to improve literacy and close achievement gaps, Walters has prioritized partisan attacks, political grandstanding, and pushing extremist ideology into classrooms. His actions don’t reflect the urgency our children’s futures demand.
Even Oklahoma’s Republican governor, a GOP lawmaker, and the Attorney General have acknowledged the damage.
“After months of headlines followed by disappointing NAEP scores this month, it’s clear that our education infrastructure has fallen prey to needless political drama,” Governor Kevin Stitt said.
“There’s a huge laundry list. I’ve got a stack in my office that tall of stuff that I’ve been collecting since he took office,” Rep. Mark McBride (R–Moore) has said. He also added, “There’s just tons of questions, every school district, I don’t know a school district that hasn’t had questions about the funds?– when they’re going to get them, how much they’re going to get.”
Oklahoma Attorney General—now a gubernatorial candidate—Gentner Drummond has voiced his disapproval of Walters’ handling of spending and transparency, describing Walters’ actions as “deeply troubling.”
Yet Republican leadership has fallen short of taking the necessary action to save our children’s future.
Impeach Ryan Walters, and there’s still time for them to act.
This matters because our kids have only one chance to receive a quality education. When leadership fails, it’s not politicians who suffer—it’s children like the young boy who stepped into my fifth-grade classroom, 11 years old and reading at a second-grade level. He didn’t need culture wars or scandals. He needed a system that believed in him and leaders who put his future first.
Every day we allow Ryan Walters to remain in power, we gamble with the lives of Oklahoma’s future. And our children can’t afford for us to wait any longer.
This piece was first published on Black Wall St. Times.
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