Ryan Walters professional journey in the realm of education began in a classroom in rural Oklahoma, where he taught history to high school students. 

Now, as the State of Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, he says he relies on that experience as a teacher to inform his decisions and positions he takes on the most contentious issues, like school choice, teacher pay, and the role of teachers unions in education policy, many of which are the focus of the ongoing Texas legislative session. 

Texas’ leaders in education policy may find that they can learn from the perspective and experience of our neighbors to the north and a man that has been at the forefront of those policy debates.

As a teacher, Walters says he put in everything he could to teaching as a profession and that his dedication and effort was quickly noticed. Walters was recognized as a finalist for Oklahoma’s Teacher of the Year award. 

This early recognition, said Walters, resulted in him having access to places, people, and discussions that he was not a part of before where he said big education policy discussions were happening.

“As I went through this process, I was getting into rooms where I had to present to business leaders, association leaders and I began to see through these experiences that, yeah, school choice makes sense, merit pay makes sense,” Walters says. “It was all common sense.” 

It was this belief in common-sense governance, according to Walters, that propelled him to his current role as the top state education official in Oklahoma, similar to Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath, but with a key difference. 

“I’m an elected official,” Walters says. In Texas, Commissioner Morath was appointed by Governor Abbott rather than being elected. But similar to Morath, Walters “oversees the state Department of Education and any policy directed at our public school system.” 

Much like Texas today, in the recent past, some in Oklahoma wanted to implement a school choice program that would allow public school students and parents to choose which school their child would attend rather than it being determined by where they live. Walters believes the program has been an early success. 

“We got it done two years ago,” says Walters. “And what we’ve seen is a dramatic improvement in education outcomes.” 

Oklahoma’s program is a little bit different from what is being proposed in Texas with the Education Savings Account program. Their program provides parents with a $5,000 to $7,500 refundable income tax credit which can be used to help cover tuition, fees, and other education expenses in Oklahoma.

Another trend that Walters noted after the refundable tax credit system was put in place was the increase in parents using the tax credit to pay for homeschool, instead of sending them to a different public or private school. 

“Our homeschooling population has loved it,” Walters says. “It’s really grown a lot.” 

In addition to the rise in homeschooling, Walters says that they have seen notable shifts toward micro-schools and other private schools which he believes cater to diverse learning needs. 

But, and most importantly to Walters, Oklahoma also saw their public schools improve under the new program. According to Walters, over 115 schools in Oklahoma improved their education outcomes from the previous year when the program did not exist. Walters believes those schools started competing more to keep their students. 

“In our first year of implementation, we told all of our F-rated schools, ‘hey, guys, if you don’t get off the F list, your kids are going to leave,’” he says.

Walters explains that schools are not much different from other products or services and they will respond to market incentives just like any other business competing for customers.  

“The best way to deal with that is by saying, parents, if you’re not happy, take your kids somewhere else,” he says. 

Walters sees the competition to improve the education services provided first-hand. “For the first time, we’re hearing schools are doing exit surveys,” he says. “If you are leaving, we want to know why,” some schools are now asking.

Walters says school choice, rather than harming public schools or schools shutting down, is helping them to improve. 

“It’s a complete myth,” he says. “We haven’t seen any of these rural schools that have shut down over this. We haven’t seen teachers lose their jobs over this. What we have seen is an incentive for those schools to improve.” 

He also believes that the changes have allowed more flexibility for public schools to cater to the diverse student needs and the needs of a local area. “If you want to emphasize more of a trade-based learning in your school, you can.

Another issue that came up in Oklahoma that is being discussed here in Texas is the issue of pay for teachers. Part of the solution, according to Walters, is a merit pay system which they have created in Oklahoma. 

“We do merit pay,” he says. “Every district or individual teacher can opt into it and some teachers are able to make over $100,000.”  

Walters believes this pay incentive encourages high-quality teaching and allows Oklahoma’s schools to retain their best teachers. 

In order to qualify, Walters said it was pretty easy. “You show us you are top 10% in the state, show us how you're improving student learning,” and you qualify, he says. 

When it came to the issue of teachers’ unions, how they advocate for their members, and what role the government should play with the teachers unions, Walters was pretty blunt about his perspective.

“The government should not be helping unions collect their union dues,” he says. “There’s no reason for that.” 

Similar to what was taking place in Oklahoma, here in Texas, local and state governments, including school districts, are allowed under the law to deduct dues payments from public employee paychecks for public sector unions. Those deductions are then sent by the government entity to the unions. 

Some argue that this is inappropriate, that whether an employee joins a union is a private matter that should be handled privately between the employee and the organization and that the state should not be involved at all. 

Another issue with this practice, according to the Texas Attorney General, is that the government entity has no way to verify whether the employee consented to those dues being deducted from their paycheck. 

Walters says some teachers had told him, “I didn’t know I was getting dues taken from my paycheck. I did not know this was happening.” 

Because of this, according to Walters, Oklahoma decided to join other states such as Florida and Kentucky and just remove the government from being involved in dues collection altogether.