Unpopular even with OK GOP, education chief Ryan Walters steps down to run natl anti teachers union group

So long loser! Trump administration education folks avoided him when they visited the state. He obviously wanted a Trump administration position but got no offers. Ok education is at the bottom nationally. All that hate and bluster for naught.


19thnews.org/2025/09/ryan-walters-scandal-oklahoma-resignation-anti-union/ https://19thnews.org/2025/09/ryan-walters-scandal-oklahoma-resignation-anti-union/

Ryan Walters steps down as Oklahoma schools chief to lead anti-teachers union group
“We will build an army of teachers to defeat the teachers unions once and for all,” he told Fox News. “This fight is going national and we will get our schools back.”


He once called Oklahoma’s teachers union a “terrorist organization.” Now state Superintendent Ryan Walters is threatening to “destroy” teachers unions nationwide.

A former small-town history teacher who waged a culture war against educators over issues such as sexually explicit books and criticism of President Donald Trump, Walters announced his resignation Wednesday night to become CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, an anti-union initiative of the Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank.


“We will build an army of teachers to defeat the teachers unions once and for all,” he told Fox News. “This fight is going national and we will get our schools back.”

Walters was expected to run in the Republican primary for governor next year. But he had increasingly alienated “pretty much everyone” in state leadership, said Deven Carlson, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma. “I do think there was still some grassroots support in pockets of the state, but it wasn’t clear how that was going to translate to the things you might need to win, say, the 2026 governor’s election.”