LAWTON – Republican candidates Robert Franklin and James Taylor each made their pitch to be Oklahoma’s next state superintendent of public instruction in a mostly well-mannered debate held Thursday night at the Cameron University Theatre.
Franklin and Taylor survived the GOP primary in June and will square off in an Aug. 25 runoff election, with the survivor to face Democratic candidate Jeanettie Marshall in November. The debate was moderated by NonDoc’s Tres Savage and KSWO’s Jennah James, and the Lawton Constitution/ Southwest Ledger was among the event’s sponsors.
Franklin was a late entry into the GOP superintendent’s race, recruited to run after retired Bixby Public Schools Superintendent Rob Miller withdrew from the campaign following the unexpected death of his wife. Franklin, who was inducted into the Oklahoma Educators Hall of Fame in 2024, has worked in common education, in CareerTech and in Oklahoma higher education.
He also served on the now-disbanded Statewide Virtual Charter School Board and was one of the two opposing votes in 2023 when that board approved, by a 3-2 vote, to approve the creation of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, an online charter school. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually deadlocked on the legality of that religious school receiving public money, leaving in place an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling saying it was unconstitutional.
Two themes emerged throughout the debate – Franklin believes Oklahoma needs to include teachers as part of any solution toward improving the state’s dismal, bottom-five national ranking in education, while Taylor thinks parents and taxpayers should have more say in what happens in Oklahoma schools.
“Teaching is absolutely such a critical piece of us developing the workforce,” Franklin said. We just don’t have enough long-length, well-trained teachers in front of the young people that we have. This is a crisis and we’re going to have to get out of that.
“It makes me really proud to try and support this work. We are committed to the task. We are hopeful that we can capture the energy and say, ‘When you’re in a hole … as a state, it’s time to stop digging.’ Let’s put a seasoned and tested and certified national leader in that space.”
Taylor is a teacher at Little Axe Public Schools and is making his first run for statewide office after losing four times when challenging U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, for a congressional seat. Taylor also is the pastor of a church and has said his Christian faith will play a central role in his actions in office.
“The next four years will determine if our schools will listen to parents and taxpayers or if they listen to bureaucrats or political activists,” Taylor said. “We can continue to make excuses or we can demand excellence. I choose excellence. We can continue to fund bureaucracy or we can fund the classroom. I choose the classroom.
“We can continue to allow ideology to creep into our schools or we can demand truth and merit and common sense. I choose common sense.”
The only somewhat testy exchange came when Franklin was asked about a 2014 incident during which he has acknowledged grabbing a 12-year-old boy with special needs hard enough to leave scratches on the side of his head. Franklin founded a camp for kids with special needs in 1986 and has been a strong supporter of special education.
Savage asked Franklin what he would do differently today.
“There was an aggressive act that was happening,” Franklin said. “We tried to intervene. It went way too fast. So I was in haste. I wish that I would’ve been able to slow a little bit, but in an earnest attempt to try and keep people safe, we moved quickly. I did scratch behind his ear. It was not intentional. That was on me and I have apologized to the young man. I’ve apologized to his mother. This was 12 years ago, and for that, I’m sorry.
“But here’s what I do want to remind myself and I want to remind other people that the work of dealing with individuals, whether difficulty managing their behaviors and their aggressiveness, it takes … a lot of training, a lot of support and there are educators all across our state who are having to deal with these things day in and day out. Many of our educators have been hurt. Those are difficult situations and sometimes unpredictable about how they unfold. And for that, I’ve kind of owned that and I’ve tried to remind others that the very best thing we can do is get enough train people to try and help the work of the people that are in it and tasked with this kind of responsibility.”
Taylor was given a chance to respond.
“I take it from a different perspective,” he said. “There is a concern because the mother calls it abuse. He calls it an accident. The mother calls it gouges. He calls it scratches, but the two are not compatible.”
Taylor then claimed Franklin had a history of abusive events, noting Franklin had once worked with the Hissom Memorial Center, a state-run institution in Sand Springs for people with special needs that was shut down in the mid-1990s after a federal lawsuit. Franklin began his career in education as a special education teacher at Hissom in the early 1980s but was not a part of the lawsuit.
Franklin interrupted Taylor and said it was “one of the most disrespectful things that you could have ever said.” Franklin said Taylor was far off the topic and that it was “an absolute abdication of the responsibility of a candidate.”
One other notable difference came as the candidates answered a question about a person they would like to see appointed by the next governor to the Oklahoma State Board of Education. Franklin named current Superintendent Lindel Fields, who was appointed to that role by Gov. Kevin Stitt after former Superintendent Ryan Walters resigned last Sept. 30 to take a private-sector job.
Taylor chose Kendra Wesson of Norman, a former member of that board whom Stitt removed in February 2025 as the governor looked to wrest control of the board back from Walters. Wesson now works with Walters, who runs the Teacher Freedom Alliance. ___
Murray Evans has reported in Oklahoma for nearly 40 years, covering subjects including education, tribal affairs, energy and sports. Previously working for The Oklahoman and The Associated Press, Evans has travelled the state to tell the stories of Oklahomans, winning multiple awards in sports and news writing along the way.
He can be reached at murray. evans@swoknews.com.