The Oklahoma State Capital

Last week, in the aftermath of Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ vindication, as it became clear that yet again the Roadrunner had escaped Wile E. Coyote’s latest entrapment attempt, the corporate media, the Democrat partisans in the legislature, the “Republican” educrats who dominate the House of Representatives, and the anti-Walters board members recently appointed by Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt had few options but to fall back to their latest talking point: “Yeah, but still, Oklahoma ranks next-to-last in education, so Ryan Walters is still bad.”

It’s a dangerous self-own — dangerous because these are this state’s foremost leaders in media and education policy — and it either demonstrates that they are, in fact, among the least intelligent in our society, or that they have an absolute contempt for the common man, whom they appear to expect will naively accept this particular sophistry.

So, Oklahoma actually 50th in education?

And, if so, how is it a self-own?

For the purposes of brevity — believe it or not — perhaps we can delve deeper into the many interesting aspects of state-to-state comparison, especially in education, at a future date. But just to make the point about the importance of being cautious before awarding too much gravitas to any particular ranking, it’s important to note that Oklahoma edged out New Mexico to place next-to-last in the latest education ranking to be published by — wait for it — WalletHub. Yes, that’s right. The now-oft-repeated statistic touted by so many state leaders originates from a website whose method of monetization appears to be creating click-bait lists for the purpose of earning affiliate commissions from the resulting web traffic. It’s known as the “listicle business,” and the site specifically states that it does not guarantee the accuracy of the information it publishes.

Now, that’s not necessarily disqualifying of the study. But as always, a thoughtful person will analyze the specifics before attempting to advocate a specific outcome based on the study. Here’s just one example: the WalletHub study grades the number of school shootings experienced by a state since 2000.

If we are to follow the logic of the Walters haters, Walters — who has been in office for 31 months — must be impeached and removed from office based on a study that measures circumstances from when Walters himself was probably a high school sophomore.

Of course, that’s obviously not the suggestion of a serious person. From test scores to attendance, the WalletHub measurements are most likely capturing the impact on Oklahoma’s 700,000 students of policies long implemented and in place before Walters took the job.

Those factors most notably include the impact of the nation’s reaction to COVID — a frenzied overreaction that greatly impacted an entire generation of students and whose consequences we have only begun to realize.

Then there’s the “too many cooks in the kitchen” conundrum, by which the teachers unions, education bureaucrats and administrators’ associations, and vast dark-money interests came together to purge legislative conservatives — replacing them with countless education-industry-connected legislators, from teachers to administrators and board members, to those related to them, who represent their interests first, putting them ahead of the people’s interests.

This generation of legislators has opened the floodgates on education funding, washing the system out with unending money — money that is remarkably reverse-correlated with performance: the more money, the worse the performance.

While the educrats may have viewed this over-representation as a benefit, it has been a detriment, as every one of those legislators potentially wants to make their mark on the education system. Just try reading Title 70 — the education title — of Oklahoma statutes. You are sure to conclude the following: It’s a Frankenstein’s monster of law upon law, stepping on each other, as the aimless, directionless educrats in the legislature pass amend and re-amend the same set of laws, sometimes even in the same legislative year. One can only imagine the challenge faced by those at the Department of Education who have to figure out which version of the newly passed laws they must follow — knowing all the while that, no matter which course of action they take, the biased corporate media and the anti-Walters legislators are waiting to pounce as was so well demonstrate a few months back as the Department attempted to follow a new law allocating funds for school security, only to be punished by the media and legislature.

Then there’s Stitt — the governor who decided to do his part to dash in and “fix” the system, declaring that the current status quo was too political, thus appointing new board members. Only now does he hopefully realize that his appointees are perhaps the most political appointees in the history of the board, embarrassing themselves and the state by taking what was a misunderstanding, the Great Department of Education Porn Panic of 2025 — one that could have been easily solved in a few minutes by having a grown up conversation with Walters — and instead going to the media and setting off one of the most embarrassing and controversial incidents in the history of the board. And as of now, they are still on that board.

And if we are to assign responsibility and determine the person most responsible for the current status quo, it’s the only Democrat to hold statewide office in this state since 2011, having put in eight long years of leading the Department of Education, thus being the one who is most directly responsible for the current situation: Walters’ predecessor, Joy Hofmeister.

It was Hofmeister who oversaw the system’s reaction to COVID — the foremost challenge faced by this generation of students — but, and, also notably, who took what had been a department, under her predecessor, that at the very least was driven and motivated to improve outcomes, and returned it to a milquetoast status quo of mediocrity. At some future date, I would like to use this column to share my specific observations of where the Republicans lost their drive for improving the public education system — and Hofmeister was a major factor in that.

As Walters entered the department, he was, from day one, hamstrung by legislators — including House Speaker Charles McCall’s right-hand man on education, and patient zero of Walters Derangement Syndrome: Mark McBride.

Those legislators repeatedly passed legislation tying Walters to the federal funding programs engaged in by his Democrat predecessor, Hofmeister, with the Biden administration. Democrat legislators had to be pinching themselves with excitement over the fact that Democrat policies were still guiding the education department, even though the people of Oklahoma had elected a Republican officeholder.

In the battle between the people of Oklahoma, and their conservative values as represented by Walters, and the leftist policies on education as represented by the massive public-education bureaucracies — with their unions, associations, and vendors making bank — the clueless governor and his embarrassing board members, the leftists in the Oklahoma legislature, and a partisan media whose bias has resulted in countless hours of almost uniformly negative coverage, the latter has, time and again, carried the day.

And thus, as they eagerly cite the WalletHub “study,” it’s important to realize: this, this is a self-own.