Ryan Walters, responsible for a years-long campaign to suffuse Oklahoma public schools with Christian nationalist and right-wing messages, is out as the state’s education superintendent and headed for the private sector.
Speaking on Fox News late Wednesday, Walters announced that he plans to join the Teacher Freedom Alliance as its chief executive officer. “We’re gonna destroy the teachers’ unions,” Walters said, promising to “build an army of teachers” and take the fight national.
The nonprofit, which is an offshoot of the far-right Freedom Foundation, seeks to lure educators to opt out of their unions. According to the website, the TFA seeks to assist teachers in producing “free, moral, and upright” American citizens. As of Thursday, the organization boasted a small membership of more than 2,700 teachers, compared to the 1.8 million represented by the American Federation of Teachers union.
In March, Walters landed in hot water after he issued multiple news releases about the TFA, potentially violating ethics rules that prohibit state officers from using state resources to promote private interests. State Representative Ellen Pogemiller requested that Oklahoma’s attorney general “clarify the legality” of Walters’s promotions and “investigate the financial ties and contacts” between the public official and the TFA.
Now, it appears that Walters has dropped the pretense and decided to make a buck as Donald Trump’s administration attempts a massive overhaul of the Department of Education.
“Walters fearlessly fights the woke liberal union mob,” the TFA website said. “TFA will take the fight straight to the unions and we will not stop.”
Walters has made outlandish criticisms of the teachers’ unions, referring to them as “terrorist organizations” and even attempting to tie them to actual terror attacks.
His hatred of teachers can be tied directly to his Christian nationalist ideology, which puts him at odds with educators, parents, and the U.S. Constitution. Walters previously pushed teaching the Bible in Oklahoma public schools, and was sued by parents. The Trump fanboy made clear that the only version of the good book that suited his guidelines was Trump’s God Bless the USA Bible, and he later attempted to shove his prayers for President Trump down his students throats.
The post MAGA Official Behind Trump Bibles in Schools Quits to Join Bigger War appeared first on New Republic.
