Who Do You Want Teaching Your Children?

The State Department of Education says its OK for non-certified “adjunct” individuals to be in the classroom teaching your children. At Monday night’s meeting, the TPS School Board chose not to act on hiring adjuncts for Tulsa schools. Adjuncts are people who do not have the credentials to be professional teachers, or they may be individuals teaching outside their area of qualification, or they may be 21-year-old mayoung people without a college degree who are working toward that goal.

The board made a wise decision to table hiring highly unqualified people to teach Tulsa’s children. There are currently 168 teaching vacancies that need to be filled, but dropping a 21-year-old without even the minimum qualification of a college degree into a classroom is simply giving in to desperation. Would you take your dog to a groomer who had no training or experience? Would you let a 6-year-old repair your car? Would you let a person who had taken a college class in anatomy perform heart surgery? Of course not, but evidently they think anyone can teach.

Is this the way to respect teachers, students and families? No. It’s a slap in the face. It says, “You don’t matter to us. Schools don’t matter to us.” Oklahoma schools rank near the bottom, and our policymakers, governor and Superintendent Ryan Walters seem intent on keeping us there.

Driving Teachers Away

The teacher shortage isn’t new, but Oklahoma’s leadership hasn’t stepped up to stop the teacher drain. In Tulsa, many long-time, professional educators left when former Superintendent Gist implemented a scripted curriculum, stripping teachers and school sites of their autonomy. Professional teachers want to use the best practices that they learn in universities. Good teachers know how to write curriculum and to modify lessons to individual students.

In the past few years in TPS, neighborhood schools were closed, districts realigned, highly paid consultants hired and money mismanaged with criminal activity and administrators getting hidden bonuses. Those actions left many qualified teachers demoralized. Many left in the wake of reforms that did nothing to improve Tulsa school children’s education. However, it did drive credentialed teachers away from the classroom. This was all happening in Tulsa BEFORE the state elected Ryan Walters as superintendent.

Ryan Walters Fiascos

But wait. It gets worse. Jump ahead to State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ Personal Christian Crusade. I don’t know his motivation, but his almost daily antics certainly put his name in the news. Not in a good way.  I only wish that the publicity was for helping school children and supporting teachers. But no. There are too many fiascos to count.

There’s the teacher bonus fiasco where the OSDE paid teachers’ bonuses and then asked them to return the money. Why not just work to give all teachers a raise? That might help with teacher retention.

And then there’s the book banning fiasco. Walters wanted to ban “The Kite Runner” and “The Glass Castle” from high schools, but Edmond Public Schools challenged that idiocy and won. I couldn’t help wondering that Superintendent Walters could be spending his time and energy to implement some kind of digital/AI/social media literacy K-12 curriculum. Wouldn’t that be great? Most parents would support that.

And then there’s the PR guy from Texas that he put on the OSDE payroll (our tax dollars at work) to make social media videos for Walters. Maybe he’s trying to show school children what NOT to do?

And don’t forget about the PragerU fiasco. PragerU is not a university. They make expensive cartoons to promote a radical historical viewpoint that teaches kids things like how helpful slavery was and that slaves benefitted from being bought and sold like animals. Walters has made this available for all schoolteachers in Oklahoma to use.

And Walters has made it clear that he is a superintendent for white, male, heterosexual, Christian students only. All others are unwelcome.

There’s so much mess that it’s hard to keep track. The latest chaotic Walters’ edict is to put Bibles in every classroom and to “teach” the Bible (Which begs the question, which version of the Bible and how?). Walters threatens to strip teachers of their license if they don’t follow his mandate. Last time I checked, the United States didn’t have a state-sponsored religion, and such a mandate is illegal, according to state law.

Would You Want to Teach in Oklahoma?

Back to teachers. Would you want to teach in this state? Tulsa needs to fill 168 teaching positions. School starts in August. What is our state superintendent doing to help the situation? He’s driving credentialed teachers away. Who would want to teach in a state where the pay is low, the OSDE is in disarray, the state superintendent is actively trying to take down public schools, state colleges and universities. Teaching is hard work. I know because I’ve done it. During the pandemic, we found out how important teachers are. Think back on your life and think about who influenced you. Would a teacher be on that list?

Rather than trying to fill the teacher shortage with unqualified warm bodies, Walters needs to stop his hateful rhetoric and work on finding ways to recruit qualified teachers. And, no, that does not mean paying a PR firm to get you time on a national conservative media outlet. That’s a distraction. What is he doing to increase teacher pay, to decrease class sizes, to create community schools, to give teachers support and autonomy?

Teachers are tired. They’re tired of the stress and the lack of respect. It’s not just about money. There are a lot of credentialed teachers in Oklahoma right now who have left the profession. What is Walters doing to get them back?