Big plans to change the system of school accreditation in the state of Oklahoma, announced by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters earlier this week, will require him to get a majority of lawmakers in the state legislature to vote in favor of the changes.
That may be trickier than it could have been, considering lawmakers’ increasing frustration with a lack of basic information from the Oklahoma State Department of Education, and specifically the office of Superintendent Walters.
[Hear the KRMG In-Depth Report on Walters’ lack of response to lawmakers HERE]
Rep. Mark McBride (R-Moore), who chairs the House Education Budget and Appropriations Committee, tells KRMG it’s become all but impossible to get any relevant information from Walters.
“He won’t send me anything when I ask for stuff,” McBride told KRMG. “If he does send it, he sends it to the Speaker (House Speaker Charles McCall), then the Speaker sends it to me. I mean, what a childish game.”
And McBride has questions, dating all the way back to the ClassWallet scandal Walters was involved in before he even took office as state superintendent (he was Secretary of Education at the time).
Also, before taking office as Superintendent, Walters ran a non-profit called “Every Kid Counts,” and continued using the email associated with that organization after his election.
Requests from State Rep. Rhonda Moore to see those emails, McBride says, have been ignored since the meeting in which the request was made.
“He said in that meeting that he would provide (them),” McBride told KRMG. “Well, we’ve followed up with him multiple times and they will not provide us with those emails. So what’s to hide?”
School districts are inquiring about federal funds they expected to receive, but haven’t, and McBride says Walters refuses to answer inquiries about that money.
“We don’t know what’s going on,” McBride said. “We’re pretty confident there’s really nobody over there (OSDE) with experience on federal grants.”
And when it comes to teachers, Walters has proclaimed the success of bonus programs, and the recruitment of out-of-state teachers.
And yet, McBride tells KRMG, “I’ve got teachers reaching out to me saying ‘hey, I was qualified for the bonus but I didn’t get it, I was wondering why I didn’t get it,’” but McBride can’t answer them.
As for that recruitment program, McBride notes, “he says he recruited all these hundreds of teachers from out of state and everything. I want to know, you know, what states? What were their degrees? I mean it’s not an ‘I gotcha’ question.”
There’s more, and yet McBride stresses that he doesn’t want to get into the weeds on personalities or management styles, he just wants to do his job.
“I’m not saying they’re bad, and Ryan could probably be better - maybe,” he said. “But we’ve got a track record of non-transparency, of not turning over information. My assistant today is working on a list of the things that have been asked for that we haven’t gotten information on.”
Langston concluded his statement by writing that “No Oklahoman can take him (McBride) seriously.”
But the process of coming up with a budget for the next fiscal year definitely will involve McBride’s committee.
And Walters’ plans to completely retool the academic accreditation process for Oklahoma schools goes nowhere without the legislature taking up and passing laws, because as Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has already made clear, it’s the legislature that decides the policies and requirements, not the state superintendent.
“The attorney general has issued a summary,” McBride notes. “He (Walters) can’t write law...his rule-making authority is limited. It’s got to come to the legislature for a vote. So, does this even get taken up?”
In the end, McBride says the bottom line is what’s best for the students.
And in his opinion, the bulk of decisions are best left for communities, parents, and teachers to work out - not the state.
“Local control. That’s a Republican thing, local control. That’s been my thing all along.”
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