'Anti-woke' school boss let homeschooling grants be blown on big screen TVs and Pokémon merch: audit

Oklahoma's firebrand "anti-woke" state superintendent has come under fire after a state audit revealed that a nonprofit homeschooling program he was appointed to oversee in 2021 blew massive amounts of public money on things that have nothing to do with children's education, reported The Daily Beast.

Ryan Walters, who was then head of the nonprofit Every Oklahoma Kid Counts, was put in charge of the Bridge the Gap program designed to use COVID funds to help families navigate education during the pandemic. It aimed to disperse $1,500 grants to 5,000 families to spend to specific retailers, the Beast reported.

"Every other state established parameters on what the recipients could buy and reported no inappropriate purchases. But not Oklahoma," reported the Beast.

Walters failed to set controls on the digital wallet system which would limit what the money could be spent on.

“Proper system controls were offered by the digital wallet vendor to limit the families’ purchases to education-related items but those controls were declined by the individual placed in charge of the BTG program,” wrote Oklahoma Auditor Cindy Byrd a scathing report, adding, “Almost 20% of the total purchases were spent on items not related to educational learning.”

Among the items purchased by the program: "Big screen TVs. Washing Machines. Kitchen appliances. Power tools. A 'classic Pokemon video cabinet.'"

There were other problems with the program, per the report, including which families got the money: "The audit determined that there was 'a deliberate operation to give selected private schools and individuals preferential treatment by allowing early access for application submission prior to the date this program was offered to the general public.'" the Beast reported.

All of this comes as Walters, who ran for state superintendent a year later and has vowed to purge wokeness from public schools and even proposed ordering all Oklahoma teachers to undergo religion-based "patriotic education," is set to speak at the Philadelphia convention of Moms for Liberty, an extremist group tied to far-right militias and the QAnon movement.