Oklahoma schools superintendent: Bibles will be in classes despite no money to buy them
Oklahoma schools superintendent: Bibles will be in classes despite no money to buy them
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Ryan Walters announces $3M request to purchase Bibles for Oklahoma schools
Ryan Walters announces a $3 million request to purchase Bibles for Oklahoma schools during OSDE board meeting on Thursday.
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma's top education official is insisting classrooms will all have Bibles by fall, even though the state's Republican-controlled Legislature has no plans to give him the $3 million he requested to buy the books.
Whether that — or state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters' broader attempts to require schools to teach from the Bible — will come to fruition could depend on the outcome of multiple lawsuits pending in Oklahoma courts, one of which will soon have an important hearing.
Without providing specifics, Walters said during a May 16 news conference that his agency has "already been exhausting multiple avenues" to acquire copies of the Bible. His remarks came days after legislative leaders and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announced a deal for the fiscal year 2026 budget, dismissing Walters' $3 million request to buy more Bibles despite slightly increasing funding for the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
'The Legislature can put the money there or not," Walters said. "We're going to have a Bible in every classroom this fall. So that's going to happen. So we're doing that. We've been very straightforward on how we're doing that.'
Conservative lawmakers across the country have been leading an effort to spread religious teachings to public school classrooms, including introducing the Bible into reading lessons and requiring classrooms to display the Ten Commandments.
In Louisiana, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed a law in June 2024 directing every public classroom to post the Ten Commandments. The law was later blocked by a federal judge who declared it unconstitutional, and was also challenged by parents and several civil rights groups. In November 2024, Texas officials proposed a curriculum incorporating teachings from the Bible in schools.
It's not the first time. GOP leaders are calling for religion in public schools.
How Oklahoma school districts responded to Bible mandate
Walters announced his Bible-teaching mandate for public schools in June 2024. Most large Oklahoma school districts have largely ignored the directive during the 2024-25 school year.
Since then, Walters made multiple attempts to spend up to $3 million in taxpayer money from the 2025 fiscal year's budget to purchase so-called "Trump Bibles," endorsed by President Donald Trump, who has received fees for his endorsement. While Walters' attempts to spend millions of dollars on Bibles have met pushback, Walters' agency purchased 532 Trump Bibles for less than $25,000.
Walters said on May 16 that he's had Oklahomans tell him they believe students need to learn how Christian values forged the country's history.
"That is absolutely something that I will continue to fight, till every kid understands that the history of America includes the Bible, includes biblical principles," he said. "I mean, my goodness, you would have to walk around with a blindfold throughout American history to not see that."
A lawsuit over the mandate and the attempt to purchase Bibles is pending in the Oklahoma Supreme Court. As part of that lawsuit, the state's highest civil court paused Walters' most recent effort to buy Bibles.
After the court order, Walters partnered with country music artist Lee Greenwood on a nationwide campaign to encourage donations of Bibles to Oklahoma classrooms. Asked how successful that effort has been, Walters did not offer specifics, saying only "quite a few" Bibles have been donated to the agency.
"This is what's amazing about our state and our country," Walters said. "Once we started to say, 'We want to make sure that our kids understand the role the Bible played in American history,' once we started to get this out, once I started to go and talk to folks, and again, it's Oklahoma parents. It's Oklahoma teachers that say: 'Look, we want this.' We have continued to see the generosity of individuals say, 'Hey, if they're not going to fund it, we'll pony up.'"
Who is Ryan Walters? What to know about Oklahoma's controversial top educator
Oklahoma's new academic standards include religious references
Walters also has infused new Oklahoma social studies academic standards with dozens of references to the Bible and the Christian faith. Those standards took effect earlier this month, when the state Senate and House declined to take action on resolutions that would have disapproved them and sent them back to the state Board of Education.
Those standards, which include 2020 election-denial language slipped in by Walters, are the subject of a lawsuit filed by a group of Oklahoma taxpayers represented by former state Attorney General Mike Hunter. The lawsuit focuses on the methods used by Walters to push the standards through during a February board meeting.
The lawsuit also addresses public concerns voiced by three new board members who said they felt Walters deceived them by making last-minute additions to the standards without notifying them or the public. It contends that board members were not provided enough time to review the revised standards.
They were urged against tabling a vote on the standards after Walters falsely told them a vote had to be taken that day to meet legislative deadlines, when the board had two more months to submit the standards to the Legislature for approval.
Oklahoma County District Judge Brent Dishman has set a hearing on May 22 to consider a request for a temporary restraining order by the plaintiffs, which, if granted, would halt the implementation of the standards.
The timing of that hearing resulted in the monthly state Board of Education meeting, which had been set for May 22, to be moved to May 21. The agenda for that meeting must be posted at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting.
Contributing: Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY
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