One of the first things Ryan Walters did after becoming Oklahoma’s state schools superintendent was to commission, at taxpayer expense, a video attacking teachers unions. The video, played at an Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting and posted on YouTube, featured National Education Association President Becky Pringle shouting at a boisterous convention session. “We will say ‘gay.’ We will say ‘trans,'” Pringle screamed. “We will say the words that validate our students and their families — words that encourage them to walk in their authenticity, to love themselves fully, to become who they are meant to be.”
“Parents will be in charge of our education system, not these woke teachers unions,” Walters intoned solemnly on the video.
“It was incendiary,” one Oklahoma teacher said, noting sound bites in the video asserting that pedophiles should be called “minor-attracted persons” and should not be judged for wanting to have sex with a 5-year-old. “He’s comparing NEA, other unions, OEA, whatever, with people who have pedophilia tendencies,” the teacher said.