Ryan Walters is a scumbag and Oklahoma teachers deserve better

Plus a LANDMARK victory for educators in 15 states

Happy 2025! For some of us, we’ve already had two full days in the classroom, while for others you’re gearing up to return to classes tomorrow. I don’t know about you, but I like to set goals at the start of the new year, and this year they include things like saving more money, reading more books, and actually sending out my Substack newsletters every other week. So let’s get into the first one of 2025!

Current Events & Strikes

• Oklahoma scumbag Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, posted a video to his Twitter account this week claiming that teachers and our unions are to blame for what happened in New Orleans. Yes, he is claiming that our unions are running “terrorist training camps” in schools. I know it’s hard to believe, so here’s the minute long video to watch yourself. Ryan is a wannabe MAGA darling best known for mandating that Bibles be in every classroom. He was also overlooked for a Trump Cabinet position and is now desperate to prove that he’s just as MAGA as the rest of them. He’s also rumored to be starting a Governor campaign for Oklahoma and is trying to rile up the MAGA base for the Republican primary. He’s currently my #1 arch nemesis, so stay tuned for a deep dive on him, coming soon.

• On December 21st, the Senate finally voted to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset, two laws that seriously impacted educators and other public employees in 15+ states across the country. These laws decreased the amount of money a teacher could receive from Social Security if they had paid into from jobs other than teaching, just because they also had access to a pension. This is a historic victory that both NEA and AFT (and many other public sector unions) have been fighting for decades. President Biden is expected to sign the bills into law today, Sunday January 5th. I’ll be sure to post an update video to my TikTok and Instagram when he does.

Teacher Pay Scale

Thanks to Ryan Walters becoming my top arch nemesis this week, I started to investigate teacher salaries in Oklahoma and wow, was I SHOCKED. For those that don’t know, many states have a minimum teacher salary or pay scale, and districts cannot go lower than that. They can, however, pay much more than the minimum if they want and many do in order to be competitive.

In states with collective bargaining and strong unions, a minimum salary doesn’t really mean much - for example, the minimum teacher salary in New Jersey is $18,500. Yes, I’m being serious! For those who aren’t in NJ, let me tell you that absolutely no teacher has a salary that low - many districts have starting salaries at or close to $60,000 if not higher, and that’s because we have very strong unions and collective bargaining.

Unfortunately, it’s a different story in Oklahoma. They not only have a minimum teacher salary, but in fact a full minimum teacher pay scale, and it is horrifying.

A first year teacher with a Bachelor’s Degree doesn’t even make $40,000, which really shows you how little Ryan Walters and the state legislators value education. A first year teacher’s take home pay is probably somewhere around $25-30k, or less than $2,500 a month. While cost of living is lower in Oklahoma than many other places, these teacher salaries are substantially lower, even with cost of living factored in. If you’d like to see me do a video where I break down the salaries vs cost of living for Oklahoma, New Jersey, and other states, drop a comment to let me know.

While I made the point earlier that no district in New Jersey pays the minimum salary to teachers, that’s not the case in Oklahoma. In fact, it seems like many districts use this pay scale. While I could not find a list for the 24-25 school year, here’s a list of the districts who were using this pay scale last year.

It’s upsetting to see how many teachers in this state are not being paid what they deserve, and to add insult to injury, Ryan Walters is on social media accusing teachers of running terrorist training camps. He is using a horrible tragedy and 14 lives lost to further his own political career, and using rhetoric that is intended to sow fear and hatred towards educators, unions, and public schools.

I know it is easy for many of us in strong blue union states to sit back and say “what a shame, but that would never happen here”, but you are wrong. Whether you live in New Jersey, New York, California, Washington, or any other strong union state - we are all only an election or two away from becoming an Oklahoma, Texas, or Florida. So if you haven’t yet made a goal or resolution for 2025, let it be this: Get more involved with your union. Attend local meetings, go to statewide conferences, run to be a building rep. Whatever you do, no matter how small it might feel, you are working to protect public education from people like Ryan. If you need help figuring out how to be more involved, send me a message!