Robert Franklin, James Taylor offer different visions in Oklahoma state superintendent run
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (KOKH) — Two longtime educators with two very different paths through education are asking Republican voters for the chance to lead Oklahoma's public schools.
Robert Franklin and James Taylor will face each other in the Aug. 25 Republican runoff for state superintendent.
FOX 25 invited both candidates to sit down with us for a profile ahead of the runoff.
Franklin accepted.
Taylor did not, despite FOX 25 reaching out to three different people with his campaign.
Taylor did recently sit down with our sister station, FOX23 in Tulsa. His comments from that interview are included in this report to give voters a closer look at both candidates and how they say they would approach the job.
Franklin is a former special education teacher who went on to spend decades in school and CareerTech administration.
He had been enjoying a different stage of life, including time with his two grandchildren, when he decided to make his first run for public office.
“Here we are. All of a sudden things flipped upside down, and we made a decision and said, ‘Let's go,’” Franklin said.
Taylor is an 18-year classroom teacher who currently teaches high school U.S. history, government, and current events. He is also a longtime pastor.
Taylor said faith played a central role in his decision to enter the race.
“I didn't really want to do it, but I believe that the hand of God clearly is in this,” Taylor told FOX23.
Taylor said he has been in ministry since 1977 and has spent 18 years in the classroom.
“I've been in ministries since 1977. I've been in the classroom for 18 years, teaching high school, early U.S. history, government, and current events. And to me, like I always say, teaching is teaching," said Taylor. "Whether I'm teaching the Bible or whether I'm teaching the First Amendment, teaching is teaching. And I love what I do.”
Franklin says one teacher changed the direction of his life
As a junior high student, Franklin said his home economics teacher knew he enjoyed babysitting children in the trailer park where he lived and knew he had an uncle with Down syndrome.
She encouraged him to visit a special education program at a nearby elementary school.
“She said, ‘Maybe you could go in and see what that looks like? And write a report for me,’” Franklin recalled.
The assignment ultimately helped Franklin decide what he wanted to do with his life.
“I did. I gave her the report. She was emotional about that. I was emotional about that,” Franklin said. “She said, ‘Did you know you could do this kind of work for a living?’ ... I turned out to be a special education teacher before it was all said and done.”
Franklin later became a junior high assistant principal, high school principal, and associate superintendent in Sand Springs.
He then spent 14 years as an executive at Tulsa Tech, earned his doctorate from Oklahoma State University, and was inducted into the Oklahoma Educators Hall of Fame.
Taylor's career has remained closer to the classroom.
That difference in their résumés has become one of the clearest dividing lines in the runoff.
“Perhaps Oklahoma would say it's time to try that specialty and that kind of experience rather than watching an experiment,” Franklin said.
When FOX25 asked Franklin directly about Taylor's qualifications, he was even more pointed.
“I just don't think we take another chance on an unseasoned, untested education leader in this space when we are ranked 50th in the nation,” Franklin said. “We cannot take that chance. Not today, and not for this position.”
Taylor makes a different argument about what qualifies someone to be state superintendent.
He says his experience as a current classroom teacher gives him firsthand knowledge of what students and teachers need and says his focus would be on basic academic skills.
“My task is to get our kids reading, and that's going to start this fall because of what the legislatures did in bringing back phonics and cursive and no social promotion,” Taylor told FOX23. “They can't just move up to the next grade because it's the next year. They have to pass the grade, and so those things are what we're going to be focusing on: is getting our kids able to read and to write.”
Taylor said he believes students should be reading at grade level even earlier than state law requires.
“The legislatures say they need to be at grade level in third grade. I say first grade,” Taylor said. “Let's get them. Actually, we can get them started in kindergarten. It'd be great, but first grade they should be reading at grade level in first grade because then, if they can read, their whole life is transformed.”
He also says teachers need to begin the school year prepared and equipped to handle both academics and discipline.
“Making sure that our teachers have everything that they need to be successful, dealing with what they need to do with disciplinary process. How do they find out? How to where do they go? Who do they send them to? All these things,” Taylor said. “All those things that teachers need to be able to do right off the bat.”
Taylor has also drawn attention for comments about what he said he had been told was happening inside public schools.
At a July event in Tulsa, Taylor repeated a claim about students identifying as animals and litter boxes being provided at schools.
“I was told, and I still can't believe this is true, but in our great state that there are furries in schools that have set up litter boxes for kids to use on campus,” Taylor said at the event.
There is no credible evidence Oklahoma schools are providing litter boxes for students who identify as animals.
When FOX23 later asked Taylor directly whether he believes there are Oklahoma school districts where students are urinating or defecating in litter boxes, Taylor said he does not.
“Absolutely not,” Taylor said.
Taylor said his earlier comments had been distorted and that he had been responding to a question he was asked about “furries and the litter box.”
“What I said is, I cannot believe that that is going on in this great state of ours, and if it is, that's mental illness and needs to be treated as such,” Taylor told FOX23. “But according to what people are saying, I'm saying there's litter boxes all over the place. That's not what I said.”
Franklin says he wants the next state superintendent to keep the focus on supporting the people working in Oklahoma classrooms.
“I don't have a political agenda,” Franklin said.
“We get in there, and we do the work. We stay focused on students and the outcomes. We work on our teachers. Support them,” he said. “Teachers are the solution. They are not the problem.”
Franklin says one of his priorities would be rebuilding Oklahoma's teacher workforce and reducing the state's reliance on emergency and alternatively certified educators.
“Number one is that we have much less dependency on emergency certified and alternatively certified educators. That we can rebuild this pipeline,” Franklin said.
He said doing that will require bringing together tribal leaders, higher education, CareerTech, parents and business leaders.
“We have got to rebuild the teacher workforce,” Franklin said. “We have never seen this kind of crisis before.”
Franklin also wants stricter class-size limits and continued efforts to improve reading.
Faith is part of both candidates' lives, but they talk differently about its place in public education.
Taylor, a pastor, said prayer was central not only to his decision to run but to his belief that he advanced to the runoff.
“We are where we are, by the hand of God. That's as simple as that,” Taylor told FOX23. “I'm not no great brilliant political mind or any of that stuff. It's just, but we started with God, we carried God through, and we're continuing with God.”
Taylor has also addressed former State Superintendent Ryan Walters' push to put Bibles in classrooms.
Taylor said Bibles themselves are not