OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters says he is staying the course on education reform as the new school year begins, emphasizing parental involvement, teacher recruitment, and updated curriculum standards.
In an interview with 2 News Oklahoma, Walters highlighted policies such as merit-based pay for teachers and the recent elimination of end-of-year standardized testing.
WATCH: Walters previews changes for upcoming school year
He also defended newly revised social studies standards that include references to the Bible as a historical document. Despite criticism, Walters said the changes aim to strengthen students’ understanding of American history and improve real-time academic tracking.
School districts are also adjusting to the end of federal lunch subsidies, with Walters maintaining that funding remains available to ensure no child goes hungry.
WALTERS' FOCUS ON TEACHER PAY:
2 NEWS:"So you've been in office for about two years now. You got a couple more years. You've made a lot of big changes with social studies standards and this new benchmark assessment. How will all this come together and move Oklahoma forward to not be at the bottom and move up to hopefully halfway or even to the top?"
STATE SUPERINTENDENT WALTERS: "So let me take you to the approach we took when we came into office. You look at an education system that was at the bottom of every education ranking, and so we came in and said, look, we've got to tackle the biggest problems. So what are some of the biggest problems? Number one, you had to have parents more involved in their kids' education. So school choice was something we did right out of the gate. Parents Rights, transparency around curriculum. These were things we had to do immediately to get parents more involved, have them more at the driver's seat of their kid's education. So we tackled that right out of the gate first few months. The other thing that we did in the first few months was we've got to retain and recruit the most talented teachers in the country, because again, obviously that is going to be crucial to a student's success. We launched the largest signing bonus in the country, $50,000 to move to Oklahoma, and we did that in a very strategic way. We looked at the schools that were struggling the most. We looked at the areas where we were having the hardest time recruiting teachers, and we said, we are going to really target these individuals with a free market approach to recruit these individuals. We then launched a merit pay program so teachers can make up to $100,000 and stay in the classroom."
DISTRICTS PAYING FOR STUDENTS LUNCHES:
2 NEWS: "Have you seen in a change of budget where they're taking money from, like learning resources to put in these meals, or anything like that, where it might not benefit them in the classroom, but for their lunches, anything like that?"
STATE SUPERINTENDENT WALTERS: "They need to allocate them for the kids...We want to make sure, because again, you know, if a kid sit in a classroom and they're hungry, they're not going to be able to be able to learn as well as they can, and that's very, very important. And the funds are there. Taxpayers have been taxed multiple times for this, both federally and locally. We've got to make sure that we're allocating money for the kids."
SOCIAL STUDIES STANDARDS:
2 NEWS: "Let's talk about those standards, the decision. How are you moving forward these districts?
STATE SUPERINTENDENT RYAN WALTERS:"We are looking at history from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. We do live in the greatest country in the history of the world. It is, it. We also look at it with, with, with a with a look where we say, Listen, that doesn't mean you don't talk about all of history. That doesn't mean that you don't talk about things like that. We want our kids to understand that and understand how those types of events happen...."We've put them back in, not to push religion, but to make sure that kids understand American history. When you hear from, you know, from Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence that were endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights."
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