In my previous article I discussed how the Catholic Church in Oklahoma (of which I am a member) has been directly involved in the rise and defense of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters. The article examines in detail the role played by Catholic Conference of Oklahoma executive director Brett Farley—along with others, such as his friend Jason Reese—in putting Walters into position to direct public funds to Catholic schools, and in defending his ever-growing number of misdeeds and failures.
One of the examples of Walters’ misdeeds given in the article is his staunch opposition to submitting required expense and budget reports. This refusal caused the previous Secretary of Education (and Walters’ replacement in the office), Dr. Katherine Curry, to resign after three months. Walters’ reasons for refusing to submit financial information seem obvious to observers: his use of public funds for speaking engagements, media appearances and a horror movie premiere—and his intention to use state funds to hire a staffer to increase such self-promotion—clearly demonstrate he is using his office to benefit himself rather than Oklahoma’s students and parents. Curry’s public resignation therefore created a crisis for Governor Kevin Stitt and the Oklahoma Catholic leadership, both of whom needed someone in the position of Secretary of Education to cover for the significant abdication of duties by their hand-picked Superintendent.
Stitt has responded by appointing Nellie Tayloe Sanders to serve as Secretary of Education. Sanders lacks educational administrative experience or formal experience as a teacher, but she has an affiliation and work history that make her particularly attractive to Oklahoma Catholic leadership: she is a Catholic who works as vice president of philanthropy for a Catholic residential community for neurodiverse and IDD individuals, and—most significantly here—was one of three members of the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board who voted to approve the state-funded St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School.
Sanders’ appointment will benefit Stitt generally, but even more the Oklahoma Catholic leadership specifically, in two very important ways.
First, both Stitt and the Catholic leadership will benefit from having an official in the Department of Education who will presumably engage in actual administrative work. Walters has frequently been criticized by current and former staff for failing to fulfill the tasks for which the Superintendent of Public Instruction is responsible; a former grant writer (whom Walters himself recruited) even told him, “If your physical presence is not required for leadership, then the question arises as to why the position exists with a salary attached to it.” One can reasonably assume, despite her lack of formal professional educational experience, that Sanders was therefore chosen in part to complete heretofore neglected administrative tasks and paperwork, thereby reducing the embarrassment to Walters’ political and religious backers caused by regular news stories regarding his consistent refusal to engage in the majority of the duties of his position. This is not necessarily entirely bad for Oklahoma students and parents, of course; since Walters, as an elected official, cannot be immediately fired, there are ways in which it could be good to have a responsible adult at least “hold down the fort” while the Superintendent spends his workdays cozying up to Moms for Liberty and recording propaganda videos in his SUV.
The flip side of this situation, while highly advantageous for Stitt and the Oklahoma Catholic leadership, is far less beneficial for the people of Oklahoma. Katherine Curry resigned as Secretary of Education because she could not get financial reports from Ryan Walters; Nellie Tayloe Sanders, in contrast, will almost certainly never request such information from Walters, and likewise will not make public any information she does receive. Kevin Stitt doesn’t want further documentation of the fact that the man he’s using in his quest to privatize public education is transparently self-serving and inept; Sanders will scrupulously avoid such exposure in service of the governor who employs both her and her husband. Furthermore, the Catholic leadership will not want to risk derailing the publicly-funded gravy train they are building by alienating Stitt or Walters; Sanders, already demonstrating through her short stint on the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board that she is fully on board that train, will faithfully go along with the program. As they attempted through their then-Attorney General John O’Connor in the (still ongoing) Bridge the Gap Digital Wallet scandal, through Sanders the Catholic leadership will continue providing protection and cover for Walters’ ceaseless misbehavior.
Sanders’ faithfulness to the Oklahoma Catholic leadership is directly tied to the second benefit they will derive from her appointment to Secretary of Education: through Walters and Sanders, the Catholic Church in Oklahoma—which represents a mere eight percent of the state population—will be one of the dominant factors (if not the dominant player) in state funding for public education. With Sanders as Secretary of Education performing almost all state-level administration of public education, and with her receiving directions and suggestions for this administration from Archbishop Paul Coakley, Bishop David Konderla and their henchman Brett Farley, the political and financial needs of the Catholic Church will be top priorities for the Department of Education.
To see how this will work, let’s look at the issue of public funding for private religious schools. In both my previous article and one on another site I examine the way in which then-Secretary of Education Ryan Walters directed almost $1.9 million in public funds to five private schools—three of them Catholic; he did this while simultaneously serving as the director of a non-profit created by Brett Farley (a position for which Farley hired Walters only a few months before the funds were distributed). Walters in his political career has repeatedly demonstrated an almost total inability/unwillingness to responsibly handle public funds. If he as a bumbling Secretary of Education—and virulent anti-Catholic—could nonetheless successfully direct a large quantity of public money to Catholic schools, how much more can a professional Catholic fundraiser who now simultaneously serves as Secretary of Education direct funds in this direction?
The way in which Sanders will almost certainly do this is through using the Department of Education to procure grants that she will then distribute—in part or in whole—to Catholic schools. While Ryan Walters has claimed credit for $300 million in federal grants for Oklahoma education (months later, 72 percent of schools say they have yet to receive their allocated funds), former grant writers for the Department of Education claim he has not applied for any grants (the $300 million were arranged by the previous administration) and refuses to meet with grant writers or even provide access to grant-application platforms. This will radically change with professional fundraiser Nellie Tayloe Sanders as Secretary of Education. Sanders will ensure that the Department of Education resumes applying for federal and non-profit grants, and—in full coordination with Oklahoma Catholic leadership—will undoubtedly craft both the grant applications and departmental policies to ensure large percentages of the funds will be distributed to Catholic schools (with enough going to non-Catholic private schools to prevent them from protesting). Not being idiots, the Catholic leadership and Sanders will ensure—at least for the time being—that the largest percentage of state funds go to public school districts, but the percentage going to Catholic and other private schools will notably increase each year.
Such governmental funding will increase exponentially, of course, should the U.S. Supreme Court approve religious public schools like the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School.
As I alluded above, the specific benefits to Oklahoma Catholic leaders of having Sanders as Secretary of Education go beyond direct financial enrichment (although those are, of course, vitally important). In addition to gaining ever-increased access to public funding, the Catholic Church (and other religious institutions) are intent on eliminating any and all government oversight of their activities; even more, the agendas of Catholic integralism and Christian nationalism driving the religious public school movement see the government as simply being an arm of whatever Christian group can seize power. As the Catholic Church in Oklahoma demonstrated in its past close coordination of legal maneuvers between then-Attorney General John O’Connor and Brett Farley, the Catholic leadership will work closely with Sanders to ensure that state educational requirements are congenial to the Catholic political and financial agenda, with no mandatory educational standards or policies which conflict with conservative Catholic doctrines or social mores. In this way the Church will be able to say, as Brett Farley put it in defending the St. Isidore proposal, that it “square(s) with state regulations, federal regulations and operate(s) within the protections that precedent has given us.”
This does not mean the Catholic Church will exempt itself from all standards or requirements—it will make a public show of adhering to those it finds profitable (or at least useful). One example of this will be the issue of required disability services in public schools, which was one of the reasons for which the Church’s initial application for a virtual charter school was rejected. Bishops Coakley and Konderla subsequently said they were starting the St. Isidore school in part to assist children with dyslexia. Why dyslexia specifically? Because Nellie Tayloe Sanders and her son are dyslexic and she now promotes a “pathway to success” for the condition; it was even cited by Stitt as a reason for which he appointed her as Secretary of Education. By focusing on dyslexia not only did the bishops provide a clear inroad for Sanders to move from the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board into state educational administration, but it (along with her experience fundraising for a residential community for adults with special needs) also opens the door for her to potentially draw a third income coordinating special services for the St. Isidore school. Sanders has a vested interest in faithfully serving the Catholic leadership who can channel multiple revenue streams into her bank account.
In the end, Ryan Walters has now largely served the purposes for which Brett Farley, et al, promoted him: he directed public funds to Catholic schools and has committed Oklahoma to supporting a state Catholic school. His primary benefit to the Oklahoma Catholic leadership at this point is to continue engaging in ostentatious self-promotion that distracts public attention away from the ways in which the Church will be using the office of the Secretary of Education to quietly enrich itself and enforce its agenda upon the state educational system.
And I, as an Oklahoman and a Catholic, sigh as I see this situation is likely to continue for at least the next three years.
Image: “Pigs at a Trough” by Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1790 (Source).
