Clay Horning: What’s Ryan Walters really want, because all he’s doing now is getting ignored?
At Oklahoma Columnist, Clay Horning lays into Oklahoma’s hapless education chief, Ryan Walters.
What’s Ryan Walters’ play?
Is it money and fame?
Is it actually changing the educational infrastructure and curriculum in Oklahoma and beyond?
Is it to be wined and dined by the conservative elite in this country, because if there’s one thing his June 27 directive that Oklahoma school districts make the Bible part of their curriculum beginning in the fifth grade has done is get him booked on conservative media where they fall all over him for attempting to put Jesus and the Ten Commandments into every classroom.
I can’t figure it out because all our state superintendent of public instruction is really doing is managing to embarrass himself at every turn.
If you read my stuff often you may recall some advice I offered state school districts following Walters’ directive.
It went something like this:
Tell him “No.”
Maybe tell him “Hell no.”
Tell him it’s not happening.
That is, school districts across the state should band together, attorneys in tow, media in the room, local and national, and throw down the gauntlet, announcing they have no plans to accede to Walters’ directives, explaining the attorney general says they don’t have to, ditto for the constitutions, state and U.S., and, furthermore, they’re tired of the state superintendent standing in the way of education rather than advocating for it, and if the state legislature doesn’t have the cojones to rein in Walters and his indoctrination team, they certainly do, because they’re the schools, the last line of defense, and defend their students they will. They could even announce, in the face of accreditation threats, they’d like to see him try.
Well, two things about that.
I probably can’t take a whole lot of credit for what’s happened since because the first district to take my advice, Norman Public Schools, did it so fast I’m not sure superintendent Nick Migliorino had the opportunity to see my words before responding to the directive.
And, if I’m honest, the districts do not appear to be banding together, have not organized press conferences and have not dared Walters to threaten their accreditation.
What they are clearly doing, however, is drawing strength from each other and saying no. They’re choosing different ways to say it, but they’re saying it.
Here was Migliorino’s money quote.
“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’re not going to require our teachers to teach from the Bible. The standards are clear and our curriculum is very clear and we’re not going to deviate from that.”
Then he said it again.
“We’re going to follow the law, we’re going to provide a great opportunity for our students, we’re going to do right by our students and right by our teachers and we’re not going to have Bibles in the classroom.”
So take that.
There’s more–lots more. Read the full post here.