Oklahoma lawmakers are allowing a set of newly proposed social studies education standards to take effect without any action. Opposed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, the rules are criticized for focusing on 2020 election denialism and could have been rejected with a resolution. Democrats call the inaction a failure.
Democratic lawmakers say the Senate has failed to hold State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters accountable for trying to dismantle the state education system, again.
Senate Minority Leader Julia Kirt says there is a long list of "questionable decisions" by Walters that the legislature doesn't have control over.
"Two years into Superintendent Ryan Walters' stay here, and we've got a long list of… corruption or borderline corruption, conflicts of interest, questionable decisions that are undermining our teachers — we could go through a pretty good list there," Kirt said. "The legislature doesn't have control of all that."
The education standards, however, are something it can control, but she says Senate Republicans dropped the ball by not rejecting them. That means Oklahoma students next school year will be required to recognize "issues related to the election of 2020 and its outcomes," among a list of other changes.
"I think what I'm seeing is when we finally do get the opportunity to take a stand on something that's clearly gone awry and has been a bad choice by the superintendent, we're not taking that," Kirt said.
That opportunity was Senate Joint Resolution 20, by Sen. Adam Pugh, who chairs the chamber's education committee. The measure would've rejected the proposed standards and returned them to the state board of education for amendment.
Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton says it's true, some of his fellow Republicans and their constituents came to him with concerns about the standards. But after multiple calls with the governor over the weekend, and a caucus meeting with Walters earlier in the week, Paxton says the support for a rejection wasn't there.
"So many of us had already talked to state school board members," he said. "And so we had a very robust discussion. And after that was all over, we just realized there was not enough support within our caucus to move that forward."
Democrats have tried to investigate Walters for possible impeachment multiple times, once with the help of Republicans. Late last year, a public petition was started to try and get it done on behalf of the people. Walters even held a press conference asking for House Republican leadership to impeach him. None of the efforts went anywhere.
House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson says the Republican inaction encourages Walters' behavior.
"They continue to embolden him to – I've said this over and over again – to dismantle our public education system," Munson said. "A state superintendent should be focused on prioritizing our kids and what outcomes are of our education system. And so there's plenty of ways that Republicans could have been holding him accountable, and they just continue to refuse to do it."
The social studies standards set to take effect next year, she said, are just the latest letdown to Oklahomans.
Hilbert dismissed Munson's comments as a fixation of sorts. Then, he suggested that his chamber follow the Senate's lead on the matter.
"Look, the Democrats really love talking about Ryan Walters," Hilbert said. "I've said from the beginning that we weren't going to take action without being in concert with the Senate. Anything that we were going to do, we needed to be on the same page, the House and the Senate."
