Oklahoma schools superintendent says new tutoring program takes free market approach to education

Oklahoma state schools superintendent Ryan Walters says that a new tutoring program launched in his home state takes a free market approach to education. 

"When we introduced the broadest, most expansive tutoring program in the country, what we said was, 'we want to, first of all, recruit the best and brightest tutors and we want to make sure they're incentivized to actually get the performance of the students greatly increased,'" Walters said on the Thursday edition of the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. 

Earlier this month, Walters announced a comprehensive tutoring program for Oklahoma students that involves community volunteers, partnership with Varsity Tutors for Schools, and competitive salaries for the tutors. 

"If we pay for performance, two things are going to happen," Walters said. "The first is going to be, you're not going to have people that sign up who aren't really dedicated to student improvement. I mean, if your pay is based on how well the children do, if you're a person that's not going to put much effort into it, you're not going to sign up for that gig."

"So first of all, you're going to get high quality folks who want to do it," he continued. "Number two, you're going to continue to have that drive and that [laser focus] ... on how kids are performing."

Walters referred to this method as disrupting the education system. 

"We're doing tutoring programs that pay for performance. We're paying teachers based on student outcomes. We are disrupting a system," he said.