The Eric Metaxas Show - Ryan Walter

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walter is trying to get education back on track by protecting parents rights and hopes to bring God back into out schools 

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m.investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. We'll get you from point A to point B. But if you're looking for point C, well, buddy, you're on your own. But if you'll wait right here in just about two minutes, the bus to point C will be coming right by.

And now here's your Ralph Cramden of the Airways, Eric Mott, Texas. Hey there. Hey, Chris, the show has started. Get ready. You ready? I'm ready. This is very exciting.

I can't say that I'm ready. But you know what? It's too late. Ladies and gentlemen, today, talk about two different subjects. I mean, really dramatically different subjects. In a few minutes, in hour one today.

We're talking to somebody who is an absolute hero. If you need hope that there are things happening in the United States of America, positive things, it's not all a downward slide. We're talking to Ryan Walters. This guy is the superintendent over education in Oklahoma. He is kicking butt and taking name. on a level that I've never seen. He's a young man.

He has taught. He has years of experience as a high school teacher. He was elected to be the superintendent over all the schools in Oklahoma, in the state of Oklahoma. And he's doing the kind of stuff that you couldn't dream of that could this be happening in America? No, no, no, no. We're on a downward slide.

We'll never get it back. Guess what? Wrong. So we're going to talk to him in a couple of minutes. But I am so excited. to think that, and it's not just in Oklahoma that this is happening. We're talking public schools, folks, the public schools in Oklahoma. This is exciting.

Okay, in hour two, we had a guest on. It was kind of weird. I interviewed him yesterday, and I thought, wait a minute, I've interviewed this guy before. Seven years ago, John Burke was my guest. He wrote a book called Imagine Heaven. It's about near-death experiences. tremendously compelling. He has a new book out called Imagine the God of Heaven. That is an hour two. And I'll tell you, I don't know how anyone, if they dare to look at the evidence,

could say that I don't believe in God. I mean, we're at a point now where atheists are running scared. So that's hour two. We're talking to John Burke. Now, Chris, tomorrow, I got my buddy Keith Junta on the program. Keith is like overly humble. He's like one of those friends like, ah, you don't want to hear from me. Oh no. Oh no.

I want to hear from you like crazy. Keith Jinta is coming on tomorrow. Keith has been on the program a few times. He writes a lot of amazing stuff. He just wrote a piece for Intercessors for America. Intercessors for America. That's where I was recently with Dutch Sheets and Michelle Bachman, just a tremendous event, their 50th anniversary.

Keith was there with his wife Jill, whom I've known for, gosh, I've known them for over 33 years. And Keith wrote an amazing piece called, I Stand with Israel. So tomorrow on this program, we're talking about that. He's also been on the program to talk about the ministry, wipe every tier, where they're rescuing women out of sex trafficking. in I always get the country mixed up. I always say Thailand and it's not Thailand, Singapore. In any event, we're going to be talking to him tomorrow.

Tomorrow we're talking to Albin Seder. Everybody knows Albin is also a writer. So he has written a beautiful piece. We're going to talk to him about that tomorrow. And then on Friday, Mitch Album, not Albin, not Album. Mitch Album It sounds like album It sounds like LP album

But no it's Mitch Album He wrote you know Tuesdays with Mori Five people I'll meet in heaven Is that the title Chris? I can't remember I think I think that is And I was saying

Albin Sadar should change his last name to album Because then it would be Albin album That would be a better name And he would say And he would say one more copies of everything because people will confuse him with Mitch Album, who sold 40 million copies of his books. And by the way, I resent that.

As an author, I'm thinking, hey, how about some for me, pal? Like, you need to do that? You need to kind of like, what is that about? So we're going to grill him, Mitch Album. I should also mention next week is Thanksgiving. So set your clocks ahead. Oh, I'm sorry, we already did that. Or behind, behind, ahead, ahead.

fall fall backward. I, every year, I know it happened a week ago, but I'm still having a hard time. I have a very, very, very, very, very, very hard time, you know, looking out the window at 5 p.m. And seeing darkness, darkness falls across the land. The midnight hour is close at hand. I don't like it. I just don't like it. So I think the only result, the only way to do it is just to get up earlier and earlier because

I need daylight. I like daylight. Am I crazy? Yeah, no, you're right. There's a funny meme out there of somebody going to their car at 4.59 p.m. And it's daylight out in the second that it turns to 5 p.m. It's just like pitch black. And I feel like that's very accurate. Yeah, it's weird. We need to do away with daylight savings time. It feels like some kind of a communist thing. I think the conservatives in Congress need to put their foot down. Anyway, next week we'll be talking about Squanto and Thanksgiving and all that stuff. Today, after this radio, I'm going to get in a car and we're going to drive three and a half hours to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

In a horse and buggy, is that correct? In a golden horse and buggy. No, actually an automobile, a Chevy Tahoe that I purchased 11 years ago. It's our only possession. and we're driving three and a half hours to Lancash, Pennsylvania. Tomorrow night, which is to say Thursday, November 16th, I'm speaking at an event. If you or anyone you know can get there, I know that we can accommodate you. It's a big venue tomorrow night.

Go to my website, Eric Mataxis.com. At Ericmataxis.com, you can see all my speaking engagements coming up. I'm going to be in Pasadena, California in a couple of weeks. We're getting around. But Lancaster, Pennsylvania, tomorrow night. And while before we have to go, I want to remind people of the same old thing that if you want to help us, there's two things you can do. You can share these programs on social media. You have to go to Eric Mataxis.com to sign up for the newsletter.

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If you use the code, Eric at MyStore.com. If you go to MyPillow.com, tons of great stuff. please use the code Eric. Please tell your friends to use the code, Eric. But my books, you know, you can get them anywhere. You can go to Eric Mataxis.com and you can see stuff. But I, if people say, where would you want me to go? I would say I'd want you to go to my store.com.

All my books are there, including the Uncle Mugsy books, the most gorgeously illustrated children's books you've ever seen. I wrote the text. Tim Raglan illustrated them. They are absolutely like airloom level, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous books. They're heavenly books. And Tim Raglan is the genius behind those illustrations. So you have to go to my store.com.

You know, if you put in search metaxis, all this stuff will come up. The Donald, the Caveman books are there. That's Tim's, Tim Raglan's kind of cartoon version stuff. but the Mugsy books are, well, when you see them, you know, people always gasp because they're that beautiful. So my store.com, use the code Eric. Mypillar.com uses the code. Eric, when we come back, we're talking with Ryan Walters and an hour two near-death experiences. For 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider.

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That's an elected office where normal parents can elect a sensible human being to help oversee education. It kind of makes me want to move to Oklahoma. Ryan Walters, welcome to this program. I sure appreciate you. Kevin May, I love the work that you're doing. You know, here in Oklahoma, we're trying to get education back on track by protecting parents' rights, getting a school choice done.

And then honestly, bringing prayer, God back to schools. We've seen this woke agenda being pushed on our schools. It's time to go back to common sense and the type of schools that, frankly, the country had decades ago. It's something to bring it back to that. Well, it's interesting because we're living in a time, I keep saying this, where we've drifted over the decades where many people, they don't get the basics. basics, just to frame it for my audience, is that ladies and gentlemen, you're free. And the

government can't tell you anything, basically. You can raise your kids as you like. Most parents say, well, I'm going to send my kids to the schoolhouse. We're going to hire a teacher to teach my kids what I think they should know. And the teacher's paid by me, paid by my taxes, and the teacher doesn't have the authority to do whatever they like. They're paid by me. So if they get out of line and start teaching insanity or communism or atheistic lunacy or wokeness, I would say, well, you know what, that's not what I'm paying for. It's not what I'm looking for. Goodbye.

Thank you very much. We're at a point now where you have a lot of parents, a lot of Americans that are ignorant. They don't seem to understand that according to not just our traditions, but our founding documents and our laws, the parents have authority over their kids. And we saw it happen. This is what elected Governor Yonkin in Virginia. When you have people that see the government as more important to our kids than parents, which I got to tell you, folks, is amazing and deeply sick.

And so we need to bring back common sense on this issue. So it is great, as I said, Ryan Walters, to know that you are where you are in Oklahoma moment that you understand this stuff. It's a really, it's a breath of fresh air to think that you're doing that. Well, and you know, you just said that very well. And because of where we are today, 40 or 50 years ago, you might not have needed statues that clarify parents are the rightful overviewers of their kids. God gave kids to a mom and a dad, not the government. So their rights are to be protected in every aspect of their kids' education. You wouldn't have needed that 10 years ago. This is like, this is the most recent insanity. When I, when I heard this,

there are certain things you hear and they just like, they spin you upside down. It's kind of when I heard people say, like, we need to defund the police. I thought, what? Like, that's the dumbest, craziest thing I ever heard. What are you talking about? When people have to assert that parents have rights over the kids, you know how dark things are. I remember I was at some event, Rick DeSantis was talking and saying, like, you know, I'm for, you know, girls in high school, only competing against other girls, and we're all cheering. And I thought, what are we cheering? Like, how crazy that someone needs to say this.

But that's basically where we are. So, of course, I applaud you for this. But it's just, it's kind of amazing that we've drifted so far that we have to assert the most extremely basic things. You know, and, I mean, and frankly, we have to institutionalize these things through right through rules through laws because the reality is we passed a parent's bill of rights here through my board and immediately we had associations the counselors association we had folks from our schools that came out to fight the rule and say well you know I mean really we need to be the ones

making a lot of these decisions you know there's a lot of bad parents out there and really we need to be the ones that make the call of should they be exposed to we're talking about transgenderism talking to kids about changing their sex, and even in a red state like Oklahoma, we had to fight back against these establishment groups that truly believe they own the kids. I mean, that they believe, and I put them on the spot and go, listen, I got four little ones. Do you think there's anyone in this world that loves my kids and understands my kids better than my wife and myself? That is an absurd position that you guys are holding, but, I mean, it is prominent in the left-wing

circles today. Well, the first time I smelled this, I'll never forget, probably maybe 15 years ago, my daughter, we had to take it to a hospital here in New York. And some high-handed nurse figure kind of treated me as the father, kind of like incidental. Like, let me talk to your daughter. And I thought, like, I'm ready to choke somebody who's going to come between me and my child. It is deeply offensive that anybody would even suggest that parents are a threat to their children. I mean, there are parents that are a threat to their children, and all of us would agree that's like, you know, that's when somebody has to intervene. But the idea that people who are confusing our kids on the transgender issue, that they care more about our kids than we do, that they know better than our kids.

Again, this is brand new. and it is, to cut to the chase folks, it's basically communist. In other words, it's basically where the state says, we own your kids. Hitler says, I own your kids. I will teach your kids to love the Nazi state, to love the Fuhr, and if you disagree with your kids on that, I will teach your kids to hate you. That has never come to our shores. It is here now, and Ryan Walters, you're one of the brave folks standing up against us.

So again, God bless you and thank you. Tell us specifically what's going on right now in Oklahoma. So a couple of things we're doing. And again, we put out a rule that said, you have to tell parents about any kind of sexual conversation or transgender conversation. You can't have them with kids. You can talk to a parent, but you're never going to talk to a kid about these things in the state of Oklahoma. And we recently had a superintendent send out an email to parents saying,

actually, you know, still we saw this rule that Ryan Walters pushed through, but we're still going to be the ones that ultimately make the decision of if we're going to tell you first or not. And we let them know, absolutely you will not. You will always tell the parents first. You are not going to sit here and try to do an end around us. But that does show you even in a red state. You have superintendents and woke administrators that are even fighting back against the most common sense rules. So we're going to continue to enforce that.

You've got to protect parents' rights. And the other thing that we're doing, Eric, that I think is so important in what we're seeing in the world today, is we are going to bring God back to school. You know, it started in 1962 where we saw the Supreme Court weaponized the federal government against Christians. They struck down any kind of school prayer, and since then we saw them continue to move and not only drive Christianity from our schools, driving prayer from our schools. They created atheism as a state-sponsored religion. That's really all they want to allow in our schools, and we absolutely have to protect a student's right, to pray in a school, a teacher's right to exercise their free expression of their religious

beliefs. And the other thing is we're going to make sure our kids understand the Judeo-Christian values this country was founded on. And again, this is history. I know the left hates history. They want to pretend like we're enlightened now and that all of American history was evil and racist. But we've got to get back to a point where our kids understand the core principles of our constitution, of our Declaration of Independence of this country, and understand that the founders were very clear. Our Judeo-Christian values were crucial in making this experiment we know as America work. I talk about this all the time.

I wrote a book called If You Can Keep It About This Very Issue. And I myself didn't quite understand how it worked until I wrote that book. And when you understand it, you think, my goodness, I drank the Kool-Aid. I thought that secular is somehow neutral. No, ladies and gentlemen, there is no way you get all the values. values we have in the West, liberty, the protection of minorities, all of that stuff is biblical. There's no way around it. It's not my opinion. The abolition of slavery came because of serious Christians. The civil rights movement came out of the churches. All the stuff that we say, well,

we like this stuff comes out of scripture. It comes out of Christians bringing those things into the public sphere, into our founding documents. There's no way around that. And so teaching that in public schools was normative until, as you just said, Ryan Walters, 1962, you could see the shift. And they started to pretend, let's be clear, they started to pretend that you could have this good stuff without God. Ladies and gentlemen, you can't do that. It's like saying you get a physics without math.

You cannot do physics without math. You cannot do liberty and America without these founding ideas. You don't have to like the founding ideas. You don't have to be a Christian, but you have to be aware of the history behind it. And again, I wrote about it in my book, if you can keep it, because I saw it. This is like, this needs to be understood by every American or we're dead. We're going to go to a break. We're talking to Ryan Walters.

He is fighting wokeness in schools in Oklahoma. We thank God for him. We'll be right back at The Irkman, Texas show. Or listen to the world. To happiness through love and charity. Why you think he's talking straight to you and me. Well, we're doing mighty fine, I do suppose. First streak of lightning and cars and fancy clothes.

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click on the radio podcast specials to receive this amazing offer of only 2998 on the six piece set from my pillow towels just go to my pillow.com click on the radio podcast specials and enter promo code Eric or call 800 978 3057. That's my pillow.com promo code Eric. Mypillow.com promo code Eric or call 800 978 3057. I use these towels. They work. I promise you. Folks, welcome back. We're talking to Ryan Walters. Ryan, Ryan, where can we find you online or is there a place if people want to see what you're doing? Right. Yeah, the website's Ryan Walters for Oklahoma.com. I'm very active on Twitter at Ryan Walters Super on Twitter and Facebook.

So please, you know, follow us, follow the work. We are fighting back here in Oklahoma. We are leading the way of getting religious liberty back in school, putting parents as the rightful placeholders of their kids' education in place. And frankly, fighting back on a woke agenda. that Joe Biden has partnered with teachers unions to drive into the reddest of states in this country. We have to stand up. We have to stand for our faith and fight back against the most radical agenda the country's ever seen. Well, and again, things have to get this bad before people wake up because we kind of always thought, like, oh, everything's fine.

It's like when I was a kid, no, ladies and gentlemen, we've been asleep at the wheel and we have drifted far, far, far away from the main road. And we need to get back and it's going to take some time, some navigating. And thanks to folks like you, Ryan Walters, we're doing some of that. But it is very dramatic to me, you know, when you were talking earlier about there's been an agenda. And again, folks, you need to trace this intellectually. Everybody can understand this, that if you take God out of the picture and you say, we're going to take God out of the picture, what follows is a nightmare. What follows is human beings are not made in the image of God.

There's no right or wrong. the idea of liberty is just something we made up. All of this stuff follows from atheism. So what you have is a woke agenda pretending that you could be against racism and be an atheist. But if you're an atheist, you don't believe that God made us equal in his image. You believe that we evolved randomly out of the primordial soup. And therefore, maybe some races are, you know, more equal than others. So they're gaslighting us.

They're pretending that the secular view can give us all the stuff that we like. and we have to be real clear. We have to understand that it can't. And that's why I'm just excited, Ryan, that you in Oklahoma needs to happen around the country are pushing back. And you know, and you see it in they don't want a fair exchange of ideas. The radical left knows they don't win that battle, right? And this is why, again, you know, you've seen the success of so many conservatives, you know, now in talk radio or, you know, writing books, things like this. And again, your success to speak for themselves.

But you know what? There's logic to it. It makes sense. People connect with it. And so one of the things we did here in Oklahoma, we have launched and made Prager University available in every school in the state and for every parent to make it available. And again, it's guess what? It's a different perspective.

It actually is based in facts. There's no left-wing ideology. I know Eric, the left has lost their minds here. And it just goes to show you, just showing students, you know, a five-minute, ten-minute video, about Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Christopher Columbus, to really flesh out a fact-based understanding of these people who have been incredibly influential in American history, the left doesn't want it.

They don't, not even five minutes do they want kids exposed. And we're going to continue to make sure we get good curriculum in front of our kids. We just recently told our math book textbook publishers that, guess what, we expect you to teach math. If there's any kind of CRT, social emotional learning, or any more of this left-wing nonsense, in there, you're not going to work in the state of Oklahoma. And we had eight textbook publishers pull out of the process. I'm going, well, you know what? If that standard's too high for you,

go out to California, go out to New York. You're not going to work in the state and stick word problems in front of kids in a math class and tell them that they might be racist due to the color of their skin. It's absurd. We're going to focus on the basics. And this is where you notice that from the attacks that we're getting here in Oklahoma, we're right over the target. The left wing wants to fully control what's being said to your kids and they want it to be indoctrination. They don't want there to be a factually based discussion. I was just in Illinois in Chicago. I spoke at an Illinois Family Institute event, and Dr. Erwin Lutzer was there.

He has written about the rise of the Nazis. Obviously, I've written about that. But somebody asked a question, and I couldn't really answer the question because, you know, I don't know everything there is to know about what happened in the early days of the Nazis in Germany. but Erwin Lutzer was there and he said that in the textbooks, when the Nazis took power, they would embed in the math problems this Nazi ideology. You know, and they would kind of be indoctrinating the kids through math. This is what is happening in America today.

In other words, you're asking teachers just to teach, you know, teach that kid to play piano, teach him how to do math, teach him how to do a little science, teach him how to. like basic stuff, but they have an ideology, and that's what they're pushing. They're using education to push ideology. They care about the ideology more than they do about the basics. Now, I've got to ask you, Ryan, I mean, you know, for folks who don't live in Oklahoma, I tell most people you really should homeschool your kids. Sam Sorbo.

People want resources. Go to samsorbo.com. But it seems to me in a place like Oklahoma, there is hope for the public schools because of folks like you. you. And look, you know, and I heard that just a few weeks ago, you know, as I'm traveling around the state, I have folks that say, look, I've actually put my kids back in public school because of the work that you're doing here. I know that you're fighting back against this woke agenda. And this is what we've got to do. Look, we have the best homeschool law in the country, by the way.

We fully encourage parents, if you're able, we want you to homeschool your kids, the government, we're not going to track you. We're not going to ask a bunch of quets. We're not going to make you turn in data to us. No, we want family units. to be protected and encouraged, to be the most influential part of a kid's life other than their faith and the role that that plays. And so what we do, and I tell our team this, everything we do should be to strengthen the family unit. We absolutely, if you can homeschool your kids, we want to allow you to do that. We want you to choose a private school or a Christian school, if that's what meets the needs of your child best. And we want to make sure if you send your kids to a public school, they're not facing any kind of woke indoctrination.

there's no teachers union bullying you around i've been really clear in the state we just recruited eric over 900 teachers to the state of oklahoma some of the best and brightest in the country and we told those teachers hey the union's not going to bully you here hang out hang on one second this is exciting news folks i'm talking to ryan walters we'll be right back i don't know where we've been could you tell me where we are again and jesus is my only friend Welcome back. We're talking about education in America with Ryan Walters. He is the Oklahoma State Superintendent overschools. And Ryan, just what a blessing. What a tremendous blessing to think that in the state of Oklahoma, they've got someone like you on the job in this. We need this

around the country. So you were just talking about the issue of homeschooling versus, you know, public school. There are places like Oklahoma, it seems to me, where you can fight to do what's right in the public schools. A lot of the states around the country, I would say it's mostly a lost cause. I guess maybe it depends on the county or it depends on things. What is your sense of what's possible? Hey, look, you know, that's what we've done. We have been very aggressive here. Get parents' rights protected. Drive left-wing indoctrination out of our schools. Drive the teachers' unions out of our schools. I mean, I've been really clear on this. They are these tip of the spear for this left-wing ideology. I don't want them in our schools. And so we've been able to recruit teachers from all

over the country here that are good, conservative folks that want to come in and teach kids the basics without indoctrination. We've put in free market principles like merit pay for teachers. We have that here. We've put in merit pay for tutoring, for kids that have fallen behind. Guess what? We pay tutors based on the results of the kids. And so in doing this, what we have is, we have recruited good conservative folks that actually believe in exceptionalism in the classroom. And so we've continued to push back and fight back in a way as putting our schools on a trajectory to be successful while protecting parents' rights, while making sure parents are at the center of all decision making. Other states can do this. But guess what?

The union's going to come after you. We've been sued by, I don't know, a dozen atheist groups, you know, for talking about religion, heaven forbid. But you've got to stand firm. The people of Oklahoma are behind us. I hear from parents every day that are so happy with the changes we've made. And guess what? We're now recruiting and finding these great teachers that go, listen, we agree completely, but we've been bullied and intimidated by a teacher's union.

And I've told them, I will stand in the way between you and a teacher's union, atheists, lawyers, and any kind of attack from the Biden administration that comes our way, we're going to stand with parents, we're going to stand for our faith, we're going to stand for our kids. Well, are there any other states where you say anything like this happening? and you said that you are elected in Oklahoma. You are the state superintendent over all the schools in Oklahoma, and you're elected. So common sense people, parents can elect someone like you in Oklahoma.

Is there anything like this around the country? Yeah, I was actually just with some of my colleagues in Iowa with Governor Kim Reynolds, and I was there with the commissioner from Florida, from Arkansas. They are two of the best out there. South Carolina is doing a lot of this great work. as well. So we do have a core group of some really great conservative education leaders that are out there, you know, fighting back. And, you know, this is what we continue to, you know, I was able to tell Oklahoma's story up there in Iowa and say, look, here's how we're leading on this. You know,

again, I mean, the left has come at me. They tried to impeach me, didn't go anywhere. They sue me every week. I tell them, I'm not going to back down. They show up at my board meetings, yelling and screaming. But the reality is, is we are in line with parents. We are in line with Oklahoma values and frankly just American values. But what you're saying the left is used to bullying and intimidating and threatening and getting their way, even in red states. We have to have elected officials that stand firm. We got to get the rhinos out of office, get true believers in there who believe in American exceptionalism, who believes in these Judeo-Christian values that the country was founded on. And let's go fight and win this war. It is a war. It is a spiritual war for the future

of this country and for our kids. We have to win this one. Look, I could not agree with you more. It's shocking and thrilling to hear someone like you understand where we are and what we need to do. It gives me hope for America. I hope it gives my audience hope for America. This is vital. This is central. Now, you mentioned the teachers' unions.

They are the enemy of children. They're the enemy of American parents. How did it get to where the teachers' union became the enemies? of American values, of families, of parents. It's just madness. How did that happen? Right. The teachers' unions, and this is the thing that they try to hide in red states what their goals are.

One of the things we did in Oklahoma is we just put together a montage of the things they say at their national conference. The teachers' union, what they ultimately want is power and money. That's all they care about. Power and money and driving a left-wing Marxist agenda. You look at the donations from the teachers. You look at the political donations. You look at the races they play in. They spent millions of dollars against me.

They want to break down the family. They want to destroy our school system and our traditional values. And so all they do is take money from teachers, bully and intimidate them into joining. And then they use those dollars to politically intimidate legislators and also folks in positions like mine. And again, just so your audience can kind of see this, what they had done previously in Red State like Oklahoma, we've got a, you know, a. conservative legislature, they passed laws banning critical race theory and things like that

that I was pushing for. But before me, we had a Democrat state superintendent who just refused to enforce those laws. If you control the state education agency, you can ban critical race theory. You can say boys can't go in girls' bathrooms. But if you have a Democrat at the head of these entities or just a rhino, they just won't enforce it. It's very much the George Soros playbook. Hey, controlled district attorney. So you can pass whatever laws you want. We just won't enforce them, they have taken the same track with education, which is why you continue to see movement, but not action, to actually change schools. That's one of the things we've done, Eric, hey, teachers, we tell them, we pulled teaching certificates from teachers who have openly said,

we're going to keep teaching critical race theory. What are you going to do about it? We said, well, you're not going to teach here in our state then. School districts have pushed it. We said, we're not going to credit you then. You won't be a school anymore. So that's where you've got to use the powers that have been given over to an education agency, and say, when we say no critical race through you in Oklahoma, we mean it. You're not going to do it. You can't have our kids. Well, what it takes is leadership, and by God's grace, you are leading in the way that we need to lead.

We've got one segment coming up after this. You just got 30 seconds left in this segment. Let me just ask you real quick. I think the next president in Congress need to defund the federal Department of Education. What business does the federal government have telling us how to educate our kids? I agree 100%. Everything the federal government has done in education has, has worse, has made much worse our educational academic products. And you've seen that and continue to move forward. They are the ones who push Common Core. They're the ones who push critical race theory. They are the ones that intimidated parents from attending school board meetings. We need to fund the Department of Education. You need to close its doors. President Reagan said he wanted to do it. President Trump said he wanted to do it. It's time to actually slam the door shut on an agency for. full of left-wing bureaucrats that are pushing a woke agenda. It needs to be done.

We'll be right back. Final segment with Ryan Walters. Don't go away. Folks, if you've been listening, I'm talking to Ryan Walters. His background, I didn't give it to you. He taught eight years as a high school teacher in his hometown in McAllister, Oklahoma. My sister-in-law, Joanne, my brother-in-law, Drew Merns.

They were in McAllister for a number of years. Ryan Walters taught AP courses in world history, U.S. government and U.S. history. Honestly, Ryan, you know, you get this stuff on a level as we've been talking, but you've been a teacher. You are a parent of four kids. You were named in 2016, a teacher of the year finalist. You really care about this.

And you're right there in the middle of it. fighting. It's a tremendous encouragement. Before we talk about the religious charter schools, that concept, tell us again how people can find you. Yeah, I'm on Twitter at Ryan Walters, S-U-P-T on Twitter there. S-U-P-T for superintendent. Ryan Walters, S-U-P-T, got it. Yes, sir. And then Ryan Walters for Oklahoma.com. Ryan Walters for Oklahoma.com, because I think educators around the country need to know what you're doing in the two minutes we have left. Tell us about the idea of a religious charter school.

That's a great concept. So, you know, I want to say, you know, we've got to block the left-wing indoctrination from getting into our schools, but we have to play offense. The left knows this is the final stage of their war for our country. They control the schools. They already control corporate media. They control pop culture. They control higher ed. All we've got left is our faith institutions, and we're fighting back in K-J.

12. And what we have to do is put good curriculum in there. It's why I talked about Prager you. We're working on making sure we're actually telling the story of America to our kids. And the other thing that we've got to do to play offense is we have got to get more charter schools, religious schools as options to parents. So we are the first state in the country to allow a religious charter school to be formed here in Oklahoma. And we have come under tremendous attack from legal groups, from some of our fellow Republicans over this. And I'm a true believer in, we have got to provide more options for kids. If a parent wants to send their kid to a Christian school or a school that is of the religious faith or background, I want them to have the ability to do so,

not just for people of good income, but I want students in poverty, students from different backgrounds to be able to go to these type of schools, because again, the more options we have for our kids, the better. And the other thing is, do you think that these religious schools are going to do a much better job of making sure that our kids understand the Judeo-Christian values of our country. They're going to understand the founding there. They're not going to have the union presence in these schools. They're not going to be able to be as taken over by these left-wing ideologues as a lot of our other schools. So I believe it's time to play offense. Let's allow religious institutions to start charter schools. Let's get school choice done for every student. And let's continue to move our education

system to where it needs to be for the future of the country. Well, listen, this is just all to my ears. I hope it's an encouragement to those who listen to this program or watch us on Rumble because we need to know good things are happening in the midst of the battle. This is the battle, folks. And this is just something that I mentioned earlier that I wrote a book called If You Can Keep It. It wasn't until late in life that I really understood how it's just utterly central to who we are as an American people that faith is, it's indispensable. When you get When you take faith or God out of the equation, you can never have self-government and liberty and all the things that we think are so wonderful. And I've had so many people say to me, I wish I could get that book in every high school in America.

And I said, you know, not because I wrote it, but I think to myself, like, once you understand this, it changes everything. You kind of think, oh, now I get it. Now I understand why this is appropriate and why we did this for over 200 years and we stopped doing it. Ryan Walters, honestly, just a joy and an encouragement to talk to you. Got to have you back. Thank you so much. Just terrific.