Oklahoma’s Republican Party and teachers union recently hatched a new plan to sabotage the fight for educational freedom and silence the state Department of Education, but their efforts have failed.
Don’t get me wrong, their efforts were not to silence me, but to silence parents in the fight for school choice in the Sooner State.
Standing up against the education cartel and for students, parents and educational freedom is a great way to get yourself on a political “wanted” poster.
I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not. RINO Republicans in the Oklahoma Legislature recently made a deal with the union to silence my Department of Education. Language in the budget proposal stated, “The Department of Education shall not be burdened or expanded for the purposes of media interviews, public relations activities, or other public outreach.”
My office would have fired its spokesperson and even banned me from sending official emails because I spoke out against wokeness in Oklahoma public schools.
This all happened because the teachers union cartel finally grew tired of our success in working on their agenda. Union lobbyists convinced enough legislators that it was time to block our efforts by any means necessary. Tired of losing the information war about our education system, they put a political bounty on me and my department, which resulted in the legislature issuing a gag order.
From day one, I made it my mission to improve Oklahoma’s school system, with a big goal of shining a spotlight on what’s really going on in our schools while advocating for educational freedom. The talented men and women on my team were extremely successful in this, and it really upset the union lobbyists.
When I took office, parents in the Sooner State were tired of the way our public schools were being run. They were tired of seeing politicians, bureaucrats, and union leaders prioritize “diversity, equity, and inclusion” over real education. They were tired of finding pornographic materials in our school libraries. They were tired of seeing radical progressive ideologies like critical race theory infiltrating our curricula, which degrade the country we love and the founding ideals and values that make our country great.
That’s why I’m running for Superintendent in 2023. With a clear mandate from voters, my team set out to expose what was wrong and expand educational freedom through the expansion of K-12 scholarships and charter schools. And of course, we haven’t been shy about publicly sharing these successes.
And after all, standing up against the education cartel and for students, parents, and educational freedom is a great way to get on a political “wanted” poster.
Governor Kevin Stitt (R) used his line-item veto to remove this targeted language from the budget bill on Friday. But if the Governor had signed it into law, my communications staff would have immediately lost their jobs, and the constituents who gave me this job would no longer be able to represent parents and students. And that is really the biggest problem here.
Speech is a vital part of representative government, at least in a functioning government whose powers are based on the consent of the governed. The hallmark of a republic is that all citizens are created equal by God. No one has the right to impose his or her will on others without their consent. So we communicate with each other. We campaign and give speeches. Of course, we write op-eds and give media interviews to get our messages out there, so we can convince the public that our positions serve to advance the common good.
While some might dismiss parts of this work as merely “political,” it is essential to maintaining a healthy public debate and the relationship between hard-working citizens and the public servants to whom they entrust the responsibilities of government. Of course, to prevent duly elected public officials from carrying out part of that work is to largely deprive them of their voice in the process.
If this attempt to silence parents can happen in one of the most conservative states in America, it can happen anywhere. When you refuse to settle for the status quo or the terrible attitude of “the way it’s always been,” people will target you. They don’t like change, even if it’s good change. I will keep fighting for students and parents, no matter what the union bosses and Republican RINOs in Oklahoma City say or do. We have come too far and the stakes are too high to be turned back and stopped now.
