OK: Walters Wants Superintendents To Be Elected

Ryan Walters has yet another bad idea he wants to push on his state.

Make school superintendents elected officials.

Why? Of course, elected principals were, at one point, a Trump proposal, and Walters has always been determined to show off his MAGA credentials as a devoted follower of Dear Leader.

Walters also has a laundry list of things that superintendents have done of which he does not approve. One superintendent wouldn't suppress books as Walters demanded. That same district had a fund raiser that involved behavior of which Walters disapproved. Another district had a superintendent resign over a DWI, and another district didn't do a good job of handling sexual abuse allegations. He didn't mention superintendents who dared to defy him over things like Bibles in classrooms or those who ignored his decree that his prayer should be broadcast to all students, but I'm betting he has them in mind, too.

How would electing superintendents fix any of this? Unclear, as Walters tries to connect all of this to his favorite culture panic issues. As he told Fox News:

Even in a conservative state like Oklahoma, where voters have overwhelmingly made clear they want the radical progressive policies of the left out of public schools, we continually see superintendents defying their will, ignoring their concerns, and refusing to take action necessary to improve education outcomes while protecting Oklahoma children.

This is on brand for Walters. It's not just the content, the anti-lefty lather, but the formulation. We're not talking about the rule of law, but the Will of the People, which is perfectly embodied by Ryan Walters. Therefor, his will is the people's will, and must be obeyed. Walters argues, as he always does, not for the Rule of Law, but the Rule of Me.

Like many of Walters's bad ideas, even other Republicans know it's a bad idea. Reported by Alecia Aston and Murray Evans at the Oklahoman:

Rep. Mike Osburn, R-Edmond, a member of the House Appropriations and Budget subcommittee on education, called the suggestion "another example of Ryan Walters’ desire to get clicks instead of improving student outcomes.

"School boards are elected, and they pick the superintendent for their district," Osburn said. "Rather than focusing on outcomes, he’s just trying to sow seeds of conflict with hard-working superintendents, which is simply and unnecessarily disruptive. None of this will bring us up from dead last in the nation in ACT scores and student outcomes. I wish he would focus on the job he was elected to, rather than trying to score political points for who knows what. The voters of Oklahoma and their kids deserve better."

How would this even happen? There's no actual bill in the pipeline yet, though News9 reports that Walters's office says they're writing legislation on how, exactly, this would work and they expect the full text to be released soon.

Walters complains about the "entrenched influence of radical teacher union agendas" and the damned "woke mob" which he thinks somehow pushes superintendents to defy the bright ideas of (some) conservative leaders. It's a bit of a switch from the usual complaint about elections of school board members being dominated by all that union money and influence, and I'm not clear how superintendent elections would, in his mind, escape this pernicious influence.

After you've elected a superintendent based, I reckon, on his political campaigning skills and not his running a school district skills, how does that person work with the duly elected-by-taxpayers school board? Do they still get to hire his staff and assistants, perhaps directing them to thwart him at every turn. And does Walters really believe that voters will elect superintendents based on issues like "Will you pledge to always obey Superintendent Walters" and not issues like "Will you pledge to give our elementary school a new playground" or "Will you pledge to spend more money on the girls' volleyball team."

What kind of power does this give teachers over their boss when he has to be re-elected and they do not? I am thinking that either Walters has not thought this through, or there is another shoe waiting to drop, one that gives properly compliant superintendents new levels of supreme power over their little fiefdoms. Either way, the whole idea invites new levels of chaos and disruption to school districts. Yet some folks say this whole idea is catching on and that lobbying groups are writing model bills.

We'll have to see one of those bills to see just how bad an idea this is, but I'm betting it's somewhere between Spectacularly Bad and Good Lord In Heaven Bad. Let's see what his office cranks out, and which legislator is willing to be his courier.