“Educating” Oklahoma with Jesus

Today we throw a spotlight on the quite frankly grubby little carnival show of raw stupidity that is going on over in Oklahoma. The ring master is of course Christian nationalistic fanatic Ryan Walters, the duly elected Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction since 2023.

A Previous notable hit from this religious huckster within his previous role as Oklahoma Secretary of Education includes this key observation …

• When in that role, it was an utterly farcical shit-show of incompetence, financial mismanagement, and fraud. Scandal after scandal has now been revealed.

Moving on to his current role as Superintendent of Public Instruction, we have these notable highlights … so far …

• He elected to forgo applying for federal grants that provided crucial funding for public school services which support children. With the money gone and the state unable to pick up the tab, services like these will be cut – mental health services, school safety, free and reduced lunch programs, special education, Indian Education, VoAg programs, and reading/math programs for students living in poverty. When questioned about this by lawmakers, he looked them directly in the eye and lied by claiming “hasn’t missed a single deadline for any grant or any program.”. Fact Check: His department hasn’t applied for a single grant and is failing continuing obligations for grants already in the works.
• There are also multiple active situations in the state right now where child predators have been accused of sexual misconduct with children. To date, Mr Walters has not removed the teachers involved from the classroom, nor has he suspended their teaching certificates. He has not even sent in Title IX investigators. That’s his actual job to do that. Instead he has been focused on policing library books.
• We have also seen his recent performative religious theatre last month (June 2024) that involved his directive that every single teacher must teach from the bible within every single classroom or face being fired. (more on that is coming up)

Now we have his latest rather radical move.

The “Committee”

Walters has announced plans to dramatically rewrite social studies standards for state schools. To enable this he has appointed a committee to guide revisions.

Just to source that for you, here is the official announcement that Tyler, an investigative reporter for @NBCNews references in his tweet above.

Who are these people that Mr Walters has appointed?

Within his announcement, as can be seen within the tweet, he has included a mini-bio for each. You can ignore that sugar coated stuff which is propaganda. I’m going to now take you on a reveal tour that exposes who several of them really are.

These three are jaw-dropping appointments …

Dennis Prager : This is the guy who founded PragerU.

• PragerU is not an accredited organization, but instead promotes factually misleading content. Highlights include climate change denial, anti-LGBT, conspiracy theories, and more. It is not about education but instead it is a propaganda outlet that vigorously promotes very blatant disinformation.
• The Wikipedia page for PragerU covers it all rather well.

David Barton  : They highlight him as an author.

• Barton is indeed an author. His history book has been voted “the least credible history book in print“. When it was exposed to be a pack of lies, his Christian Publisher withdrew the book from publication and stopped production, announcing that they had “lost confidence in the book’s details” 
• Mr Barton’s big thing is the promotion of the blatantly false Christian Nationalist claim that the US was founded as a Christian Nation. To achieve this he utilises what is known as pseudo-history. (That’s basically a polite way of saying that he just makes stuff up to establish his narrative)
• However, don’t take my work on any of this, simply checkout his biography on the well-referenced Wikipedia page that covers him. We don’t all get wikipedia pages, only those who are famous (in a good way), or infamous for being total fuckwits merit that distinct honour. You can of course guess which category this lunatic falls into.

Kevin D. Roberts : president of The Heritage Foundation

• Just two words – Project 2025
• He is also a strong conspiracy theorist and promotes whacky and robustly debunked claims, such as the stolen 2020 election claim on the basis of exactly zero credible evidence. He also promotes the deeply absurd lie that liberals “are supporting legislation that abortion can happen until three days after the person’s born.“

The others are also, as you might guess, rather strongly committed to Christian Nationalism. For example Everett Piper, a deeply homophobic individual who actively promotes discrimination, is also the former president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. He is perhaps best known for his outspoken criticism of “political correctness” and the modern campus culture.

This is a committee composed of masters of disinformation and christian nationalistic propaganda proponents who all have a very specific political agenda.

So what exactly will they do?

Strive to be utterly impartial and do what is best for education?

Er … no. If you seriously believed that then I have a bridge you might be interested in buying.

Instead I believe you should now offer your heartfelt congratulations to Oklahoma for becoming the very first state where “alternative facts” becomes the core part of their “education”.

Just to Drive the Point Home

Days after Ryan Walters announced that he had tapped these right-wing religious propagandists to overhaul the state’s social studies curriculum, he wrote an op-ed in the Washington Times with two of them (David Barton and Steve Deace) urging Christians to vote for Trump because “he will end atheism as a state-run religion.“

Here is the link to that : Evangelicals can win the election for Trump – A strategic call to action against ‘woke’ progressives

…His vision to “make America great again” is not just a political slogan but a call to restore America’s Christian heritage since its greatness came from the Christian faith that inspired her. He will end diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He will make sure that we put America first. He will end atheism as a state-run religion. 

… By reinstating a leader who champions our Christian way of life and continues to support judicial appointments that protect our most sacred values, we can ensure that America remains faithful to its divine foundations. 

I had no idea that Atheism was a religion and that it is run by the state.

“Divine foundations” is not a historical thing.

If indeed a lack of religious belief is a religion, then I guess “off” is a TV channel, not collecting stamps is a hobby, and not playing football is a sport. That’s how disconnected from reality these religious extremists actually are.

But Wait

Will Mr Walters and his committee really be able to radically re-write the Oklahoma core curriculum by turning it into very blatant religious propaganda?

In all probability, it will not actually happen.

Mr Walters is fast establishing a track record of “mandating” stuff that fails to actually pan out.

Take for example his recent “mandate” in which he declared every teacher in every class much teach from the bible.

When Superintendent Nick Migliorino got the official memo, he responded as follows…

“I’m just going to cut to the chase on that. Norman Public Schools is not going to have Bibles in our classrooms, and we are not going to require our teachers to teach from the Bible,” Migliorino told the Transcript. “The standards are clear and our curriculum is very clear. And we’re not going to deviate from that. I don’t know. I’m just going to be direct on that one.”

So who has the authority here?

Apparently not Walters …

Boren said Walters likes to talk a big game — but it’s just that.

“He doesn’t even have executive power. I mean, he doesn’t, he doesn’t get to do an executive order that has legal impact on local school districts,” Boren said. “Legally, even though he can print all the paper he wants to, it doesn’t have the backing of the Constitution, doesn’t have the backing of state statute.”

A spokesperson for Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond told News 4 in June that state law “already explicitly allows Bibles in the classroom and enables teachers to use them in instruction” if they choose, but it does not require teachers to use them.

Like any good journalistic outlet, KFOR also reached out to Walters for comment. In response to Migliorino advising that he will be ignoring this, a spokesman for Walters simply replied with more substance free bluster …

“Oh yes they will,”

So yes, we are in full pantomime mode here now. That’s your cue to chime back with “Oh no they won’t“, and you would be right because he has no authority to do such stuff. It’s literally not his job.

It is safe to say that a radically revised curriculum that is blatantly illegal because it mangles constitutional law will also fail.

What is really going on here?

Walters knows his efforts are utterly pointless and will go nowhere, yet he persists in doing this performative religious theatre.

why?

It’s basically all a job interview. What we actually have here is a guy who does not in any way have any interest in helping students. Instead this is him auditioning to be Trump’s Secretary of Education. What we are seeing is a dry run for rolling all this stuff out on a national scale … if Trump wins and then appoints him. That’s the real game plan.

That “if” is the important bit. We need to ensure that “if ” never becomes a reality.