OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – The Educator Hall of Fame portraits have been put back up at the Department of Education, and they are one of many changes already hitting the state after Ryan Walters’ resignation.
Walter’s time in office as state superintendent has been controversial and ended with the state being 50th in education compared with the rest of the nation.
“During his leadership, Walters delivered the most historic education reforms in history in record time,” is what was stated on his goodbye press release.
But much of his education reforms could get overturned.
So far, the department’s website has been scrubbed of many of the projects that Walters started up.
Using the Wayback Machine, it showed that as of early September, there were links to the PragerU website, links to naturalization tests that teachers had to take, and links to the America First Assessment with PragerU. All of that moved off the website.
“One of the most atrocious, his implementation of Bibles in public schools, specifically the Trump Bible,” said Reverand Dr. Shannon Fleck.
Dr. Fleck has become the Executive Director at Faithful America, and she has long been outspoken about what she calls Walters’s Christian Nationalism.
“We very much need to go back over his tenure with a fine-tooth comb and do a full examination of what was harmful to students and the public in Oklahoma,” said Dr. Fleck.
Already, the portraits showing the Educator Hall of Fame have been added back to the department’s hallway.
Walters said at the time that the Hall of Fame was a nod to “bureaucrats and union leaders”, while parents and children are the ones who should be featured.
It’s unknown what changes could fully come to the department going forward, but it would take the interim to spark it.
“I would say to Mr. Walters to reflect on what you have done, to reflect on the trail of divisiveness and hatred you’ve left in your wake. To reflect on what that has done to the kids of this state, to the parents of this state, and really decide if that’s the kind of leader you want to be going forward,” said Dr. Fleck.
News 4 reached out to what was a spokesperson for Walters, but never heard back.
