Two days after U.S. voters elected former President Donald Trump to a second term, state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters issued a memo listing what he described as the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s priorities under Trump.
Walters directed the memo, with a subject line of “Regarding the Elimination of U.S. Department of Education,” to Oklahoma parents and copied in public school superintendents. He said he would direct “agency resources” to make sure five priorities were championed, including “ending social indoctrination in classrooms” and “stopping illegal immigration’s impact on our schools.”
Walters, who’s been Oklahoma’s state superintendent since January 2023, has been unabashed in his loyalty to Trump, posting numerous videos on social media supporting the former and future president. Walters has spent thousands in taxpayer money to hire outside public-relations firms, who have attempted to raise his national media profile and cast him as an expert on education reform.
Trump said last month, in an interview on Fox News, “We’re going to take the Department of Education (and) close it. I’m gonna close it.”
In his memo, Walters addressed how he believed eliminating the U.S. Department of Education “and moving to block grants would restore authority to states, allowing communities – not Washington bureaucrats – to decide what is best for their children.”
In addition to addressing “social indoctrination” and “illegal immigration,” Walters also said the state would use increased authority over schools to champion parents’ rights, protect patriotism in curriculum and block foreign influence in schools.
“For decades, the U.S. Department of Education has unjustifiably expanded the federal government’s power over American education, and that overreach has squeezed local communities and parents out of control of their own schools,” Walters said in a statement.
Walters has had multiple run-ins with the federal education agency. Walters has sued U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona over recent federal rules changes involving Title IX interpretation, which Walters called “illegal and unconstitutional.” In July, the federal agency issued a report critical of how Walters’ state agency and its management of federal programs and use of funds.
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“Thanks to President Trump, we are going to reverse that trend. By eliminating the federal bureaucracy, money can be efficiently directed to local schools and allow disenfranchised parents to have more direct say over education in their states and communities. Working with President Trump, I will do everything I can to limit the federal overreach into education and return parents their rightful authority over our schools.”
The memo drew immediate criticism from legislators on both sides of the political aisle.
State Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, the outgoing chair of the Oklahoma House of Representatives Appropriations and Budget subcommittee on education and a frequent critic of Walters, said the announcement came off as an attempt by Walters to seek “some attention” from Trump.
Before the Oklahoma State Department of Education begins to react to the policy of the second Trump administration’s education, McBride said, it should probably hear from the Trump administration what, exactly, that policy will be.
“I find it amusing, that not even 48 hours after Trump’s election, Walters is already talking about what the Trump administration is going to do,” McBride said. “Personally, I will wait until the adults in the room – that is, President Trump and his team – decide before I get excited.”
State Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, D-Norman, who’s a member of the House Common Education Committee, called the memo “yet another example of how inept and power hungry” Walters is.
“Not only can he not do the things he proposes, he is obviously doing all of this to catch the eye of the incoming president,” Rosecrants said. “None of this will help our schools move up from the bottom, which is where he’s left our schools, in the almost two years he’s been elected to lead our schools.”
