Oklahoma's disastrous war on 'woke' teachers offers valuable lesson for Kansas

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Dion Lefler - The Kansas City Star

I don’t often write about Oklahoma. I generally figure we’ve got enough problems of our own without worrying about what’s going on south of our state’s border.

But the epic disaster that’s befallen their school system as its leader battles a “woke mob” — created entirely from political opportunism and his own fevered imagination — offers a perfect don’t-let-this-happen-to-us example for Kansas as we contemplate our education future.

Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters, is a far-right ideologue and a bully who’s opposed to public education in general and is wrecking the state’s school system from the inside out.

What can you say about a superintendent who tweets an image labeled “Student Safety Over Liberal Agenda,” featuring a teenage blonde white girl using a restroom sink while two girls of color lurk menacingly in the mirror?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/oklahoma-disastrous-war-woke-teachers-103000358.html

[enough]

1. Hair-raising details in the article. Worth reading the whole thing.

[UpInArms]

2. oh, I should have suspected this

Before he was elected superintendent, Walters served as Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt’s education secretary.

At the same time, he was making about $120,000 a year as executive director of Every Kid Counts Oklahoma, a group advocating for tax dollars to be diverted to private school education, according to a joint investigation by nonprofit news organizations Oklahoma Watch and The Frontier.

The investigation found that Every Kid Counts Oklahoma received funding from foundations tied to Walmart heirs and Yes Every Kid, Inc., part of the network of political organizations founded and funded by Wichita billionaire Charles Koch.

About a month ago, Oklahoma passed a voucher plan to divert public money to private school tuition, similar to the one the Koch network’s been pushing in Kansas.

In Kansas, the peril to public education was averted when enough rural state senators found the backbone to stand up to Koch’s minions and vote it down, because it would have threatened their schools without providing any viable alternative.

[Ptah]

3. Poster:

[SouthBayDem]

4. Original link not rehosted on yahoo

https://www.kansas.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/dion-lefler/article275922276.html