OKLAHOMA CITY — State Superintendent Ryan Walters will submit his letter of resignation from elected office on Tuesday, his senior adviser confirmed, bringing to an end a short but highly scrutinized tenure that divided even his fellow Republicans.
Matt Langston, who also served as Walters’ campaign manager, confirmed the state superintendent will formally step down the day before he is set to begin his new role Wednesday leading an anti-teacher-union nonprofit. His resignation will prompt Gov. Kevin Stitt to appoint a replacement to finish the final 15 months of his term.
Rather than launching a campaign for higher office, as many Oklahomans expected Walters to do, he announced last week that he would step down to become the CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, an organization he said would “destroy the teachers’ unions.”
Walters’ office did not return requests for an interview in his final days in office, but others who spoke with Oklahoma Voice and issued public statements gave mixed reviews of his performance as the state’s public education leader.
The state’s largest teacher union, the Oklahoma Education Association, which Walters once called a terrorist organization, said he will be remembered for “plunging Oklahoma education into its darkest days.”
“We must leave this divisiveness behind and work together as a team with parents and communities by listening to and supporting our students and education professionals,” the union wrote in a statement. “Our public schools can once again become a source of pride and promise for every community in our state.”
Multiple parties and happy hours in Oklahoma City bars and restaurants celebrated his coming resignation, as Democrats and other critics of Walters’ sang the Ray Charles tune “Hit the Road Jack.”
Even among Republicans and in deep-red rural communities, some conservatives said support for Walters has not been unanimous.
In southwest Oklahoma, the chairman of the Stephens County Republican Party, Leon Farris, said he’s unsure his community would reelect Walters if he ran for state superintendent again.
Walters won Stephens County in dominating fashion in the 2022 General Election with 68% of the vote.
Although Walters still has supporters in the area, Farris said some Republicans became disillusioned with the superintendent’s frequent media appearances, believing “he was just running for the next office.”
“We’ve got people that think Ryan hung the moon and are sad to see him go,” Farris said. “We’ve got people that are very disappointed in his performance and are glad he’s gone.”
Local school district leaders, whom Farris described as widely respected conservatives in Stephens County, complained of frequent headaches dealing with Walters’ administration at the Oklahoma State Department of Education, he said.
Not everyone enjoyed seeing Walters at the center of every firestorm, Farris said, but voters in the area still supported his efforts to bring the Bible into public school classrooms, to empower parents, and to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“That message resonated with Republicans,” Farris said. “Maybe his methodology didn’t resonate as much with everybody as he had hoped it would.”
Walters’ widespread name recognition didn’t always translate into voter support, said the state’s former Republican Party chairman, A.J. Ferate.
Ferate said he heard Walters’ name constantly while knocking on doors for Republican candidates two years ago, far more often than he heard mentions of taxes or abortion issues.
For voters statewide, particularly in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa areas, the question “How do you feel about Ryan Walters?” seemed to have become a litmus test for other political candidates, he said. Rather than expressing policy differences with Walters, voters seemed concerned with the “combative approach” that he brought to elected office.
Ferate, an Oklahoma City attorney, doubted that those concerns have dissipated.
“I don’t think that it’s gone away,” he said.
However, in northeast Oklahoma, Walters has remained “very popular” among Osage County Republicans, said Jeff Clymer, the county’s GOP chairman.
Some local Republican Party members believed Walters pushed the envelope too much while others didn’t think he went far enough, Clymer said, but many in the community agreed that the state superintendent was too often unfairly attacked.
Walters would have been well received as a candidate for reelection, Clymer said. It’s less clear what level of support Walters would have in Osage County if he joined the 2026 race for governor.
“The most I heard was he should stay where he is and complete the job,” Clymer said. “It won’t matter now, but that’s what I’ve heard in the past.”
Walters gained national attention for his efforts to require public schools to teach biblical stories and for his order that every district’s classroom keep a copy of the Bible. He spent his 33-month tenure in office under constant media attention as he attacked perceived liberal influence and “transgender ideology” while seeking to give religion a greater role in public education.
His resignation prompted a flood of enthusiasm from local and national organizations advocating for church-state separation and LGBTQ+ rights.
“We’re excited for parents in Oklahoma, who no longer have to deal with Walters’ gross politicization of their children’s education,” said Lauren Powell, of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights advocacy group. “We sincerely hope their next superintendent will be more focused on educational outcomes than culture wars.”
However, some expressed excitement not over Walters’ departure, but because of what he aims to do next.
The head of the Oklahoma Republican Party, Charity Linch, celebrated that his new position with the Teacher Freedom Alliance means a “new weapon of words has been unleashed on the liberal machine in education.”
“Oklahoma will miss him in the state role,” Linch wrote on social media. “Giants must be slain. Davids must go. We are with you, Ryan!”
Walters’ new organization bills itself as a conservative alternative to teacher union membership.
In a news release announcing his hiring, Walters said the organization will “arm teachers with the tools, support, and freedom they need, without forcing them to give up their values.”
“For decades, union bosses have poisoned our schools with politics and propaganda while abandoning parents, students, and good teachers,” he said. “That ends today. We’re going to expose them, fight them, and take back our classrooms.”
