Ryan Matthew Walters (born May 23, 1985) is an American politician who served as the elected Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction from January 2023 to September 2025, and who served as the appointed Oklahoma Secretary of Education from September 2020 to April 2023.
A member of the Republican Party, Walters' political positions have been described as far-right. He is opposed to critical race theory, LGBTQ students' rights, and teachers' unions in Oklahoma, and has been described as "the state's top culture warrior".
His tenure as state superintendent was controversial. He successfully campaigned for the removal of Tulsa Public Schools Superintendent Deborah Gist, appointed far-right activist Chaya Raichik to the Oklahoma Library Advisory Board, and advocated for teaching the Christian Bible in public schools. His response to the death of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old non-binary Owasso High School student, generated national calls for his removal from office in February 2024. He again generated national attention in November 2024 when he requested teachers play a video of him praying for then president-elect Donald Trump and against his critics.
On September 24, 2025, he announced on Fox News @ Night he would resign from office to run the Teacher Freedom Alliance. He officially resigned September 30.
Early life and career Ryan Walters was born on May 23, 1985, in McAlester, Oklahoma. His father was a bank executive while his mother worked at Eastern Oklahoma State College. They both attended Harding University and are members of the North Town Church of Christ, where his father serves as a minister and his mother serves as the elementary education director.
Walters grew up in McAlester and graduated from Harding University in 2010 before returning to teach at McAlester High School in 2012. In 2016, he was a McAlester Teacher of the Year and a finalist for State Teacher of the Year. In 2018, Walters met future governor Kevin Stitt at a tennis tournament and the two became friends. Later that year, he published three articles in the conservative magazine The Federalist. He was also appointed to the Oklahoma Community Service Commission in 2018 by Governor Mary Fallin and Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability in 2019 by Governor Stitt. He resigned from McAlester Public Schools in 2019.
On May 29, 2019, Walters was appointed as the executive director of Oklahoma Achieves, a nonprofit education organization created by the State Chamber of Oklahoma. By March 2020, Oklahoma Achieves transitioned into an independent nonprofit, Every Kid Counts Oklahoma, with Walters as its executive director. Walters resigned from his position at Every Kid Counts Oklahoma the week before his inauguration as Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Oklahoma Secretary of Education On September 10, 2020, Governor Kevin Stitt nominated Walters to be Oklahoma Secretary of Education. He is the youngest education secretary in state history.
On May 2, 2022, The Frontier and Oklahoma Watch reported on a United States Department of Education investigation that found the Bridge the Gap program Walters oversaw was implemented with few safeguards to prevent fraud or abuse and that federal auditors were investigating the distribution of COVID-19 relief money through the program.
On May 11, Oklahoma House of Representatives Democrats called on Governor Stitt to call for Walters' resignation. The governor's office responded, "Secretary Walters is doing a great job fighting for parents' right to be in charge of their child's education and advocating for funding students, not government-controlled systems."
Later in May, Oklahoma newspapers reported that while working as Secretary of Education, Walters remained the executive director of Every Kid Counts Oklahoma, an Oklahoma education-related nonprofit organization. Walters was paid approximately $120,000 a year by Every Kid Counts Oklahoma, compared to his state salary of $40,000. The Frontier and Oklahoma Watch reported that Every Kid Counts Oklahoma was funded by national school privatization advocates and charter school expansion advocates, such as the Walton Family Foundation and another group founded by Charles Koch.
In August 2023, The Oklahoman reported that the state auditor, Cindy Byrd, found, through a state audit that included the Bridge the Gap program, that $1.7 million was spent on various non-educational items, such as kitchen appliances, power tools, furniture, and entertainment. Walters oversaw the Bridge the Gap program at the time of the misappropriation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the misspending of federal funds meant to help Oklahoma children learn at home during the pandemic as part of the $39.9 million Governor's Emergency Education Relief grant.
Walters was reappointed by Governor Stitt as Oklahoma Secretary of Education in 2023. On April 11, 2023, Stitt appointed Katherine Curry to replace Walters, whose reappointment stalled in the Oklahoma Senate after Attorney General Gentner Drummond stated it was illegal for him to hold both the Secretary of Education and State Superintendent positions. Curry resigned after only three months citing the "political environment."
State Superintendent 2022 campaign
Walters ran for Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction in a June 2022 primary as one of four Republican candidates alongside John Cox, William Crozier, and April Grace. He was endorsed in the primary by Governor Kevin Stitt and Texas senator Ted Cruz. He advanced to an August run-off alongside April Grace, which he won with 53% of the vote. While campaigning, Walters promulgated the litter boxes in schools hoax. He defeated the Democratic Party's nominee, Jena Nelson, in the general election. After the campaign, Walters was fined for 14 violations of state campaign finance ethics rules. He contested 13 of the violations.
Tenure One of Walters's first acts in office was to instruct the Oklahoma Department of Education to revoke the teaching licenses of two Oklahoma teachers who had been critical of HB 1775, a law that limits teaching concepts around race and gender.
In April 2023, the Oklahoma Attorney General's office under Gentner Drummond issued an opinion stating that HB 1775 does not grant authority to the State Board of Education "to make administrative rules without proper direction from the state Legislature"; as a result, Walters's "rules regarding pornography in library books, sex education, parents' rights and inappropriate materials" were unenforceable. Drummond said that he was not "taking a stance" on Walters's rules. Ryan Kiesel said after asking Walters to show them the pornographic material Walters claims schools have, Walters emailed and had staff members hand-deliver copies of explicit materials to lawmakers' offices, though he never said from what schools the materials originated.
In September 2023, Walters announced that the state would cooperate with conservative media group PragerU to provide curriculum to Oklahoma schools, a policy similar to one recently adopted in Florida. Oklahoma Democrats criticized the curriculum as "whitewashing history". Walters was featured in a PragerU video on their website acknowledging the partnership. After the announcement, The Black Wall Street Times, a Tulsa-based African American newspaper, requested an interview with Walters, but was told by an Oklahoma Department of Education spokesperson that they were barred from interviews due to tweets by the paper's editor-in-chief. He also launched an investigation into Western Heights Public Schools for hiring a principal who is a drag performer in their free time.
In 2024, Walters attempted to reject the American Library Association's standards for information literacy. Walters had called the current standards "woke". The ALA, which works with the Oklahoma Library Association and the American Association of School Librarians, said it "remains focused on ensuring that our current information literacy standards meet academic rigor and that we continue to strive to make Oklahoma a top 10 state in literacy". He has also accused librarians of promoting pornography, but has not cited any instances of them having done so.
In January 2024, Walters appointed far-right Libs of TikTok account owner Chaya Raichik to a statewide library advisory board, prompting bipartisan criticism. Walters's decision also resulted in protests from a number of parents, educators, and lawmakers who believed Raichik endangered students and teachers.
In November 2024, Walters announced that he had established a Department of Religious Freedom and Patriotism within the Oklahoma Department of Education, saying that it would "oversee the investigation of abuses to individual religious freedom or displays of patriotism." He mandated that all students watch a video of his announcement and that a copy be sent to their parents; however, Attorney General Drummond responded that Walters lacked that legal authority.
In 2025, after Governor Stitt opposed the Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction's proposed mandate to request the citizenship status of children enrolling in public school, Walters responded that he is part of a so-called deep state conspiracy against Trump, of whom Walters is highly supportive. Oklahoma governor rejects proposal asking parents to provide immigration status when enrolling children. February 25, 2025. Seda Sevencan. Anadolu Agency. Stitt also fired three members of the Oklahoma State Department of Education over poor NAEP test scores and "needless political drama." Stitt ousts 3 members of Oklahoma State Board of Education, criticizes board's 'political drama'. February 11, 2025. Oklahoma Voice. Nuria Martinez-Keel
Walters filed a amicus curiae in support of St. Isidore in the United States Supreme Court case Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond.
A NAEP study released during Walters's tenure in 2025 found Oklahoma ranked 47th in fourth-grade reading, 48th in eighth-grade reading, 44th in fourth-grade math, and 45th in eighth-grade math.
In February 2025, Walters met with the Oklahoma Board of Education and promoted a new social studies syllabus—introduced hours prior—that instructed students to: "Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results" by examining "the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities and in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of 'bellwether county' trends". The Board accepted the syllabus after Walters falsely told the Board that they needed to approve it that day, otherwise legislative deadlines would be missed. The syllabus was implemented in April 2025 after Oklahoma lawmakers declined to block it. The Associated Press reported that the syllabus content introduced by Walters effectively called for the "study of conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election" despite "no evidence of any discrepancies that could have changed the results" of the 2020 election.
In July 2025, Walters announced an "anti-woke test" developed in partnership with PragerU that teachers moving to Oklahoma from blue states would be required to take in order to ensure they will not teach what he described as "leftist propaganda".
On August 18, 2025, Walters announced that teaching applicants from California and New York would be subject to 50-question ideology tests administered by PragerU, ostensibly to protect Oklahoma from "radical leftist ideology". PragerU's CEO told CNN that one topic on the exam would be "gender ideology". Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers teachers' union, described the exam as a "MAGA loyalty test" and said it would exacerbate Oklahoma's teacher shortage.