Education hall of famer Robert Franklin joins Oklahoma state superintendent race

OKLAHOMA CITY — A longtime educator, administrator and former state board leader is the latest candidate to enter the race for Oklahoma state superintendent.

Robert Franklin, a Republican from Sand Springs, joins four GOP candidates and two Democrats running to lead the Oklahoma State Department of Education and the state’s top school board.

Franklin, a 2024 inductee in the Oklahoma Educators Hall of Fame, said it’s crucial to have an experienced education leader in the superintendent role, especially as the Trump administration seeks to give states even more authority over public schools.

He said he’s been considering running for the past two years but instead chose to support former Bixby Public Schools Superintendent Rob Miller in the race.

Miller, a Republican, campaigned for a year but withdrew his candidacy Feb. 25 after his wife died unexpectedly. Franklin said Miller then encouraged him to run.

“My wife and daughter, we had a late-night conversation with lots of tears and lots of prayer and finally coalesced and said, ‘OK, then let’s go make a hard run here for eight weeks, and we’ll see if there’s enough energy and coalition to push an educator, a certified educator, an experienced educator, to sit in that seat,’” Franklin told Oklahoma Voice.

If elected, Franklin said he would focus on supporting teachers and school staff, lowering class sizes, and partnering with businesses and industry. 

Franklin spent the first 29 years of his career in Sand Springs Public Schools as a special education teacher, principal and district administrator. He then joined Tulsa Technology Center, later becoming associate superintendent of student affairs.

In 2024, he retired from Tulsa Tech and started teaching education courses at the University of Oklahoma’s Tulsa campus.

He stepped down that same year from the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, which has since dropped the word “virtual” from its name. Franklin served on that state board from 2018 to 2024, including four years as chair, participating in key votes that prompted reforms at Epic Charter School and that considered whether to open the nation’s first religious charter school.

Franklin was one of two board members who voted against opening a religious charter school in Oklahoma. Although he was outnumbered in the vote, the Oklahoma Supreme Court later rejected the concept as unconstitutional, a decision the U.S. Supreme Court upheld.

The Court rulings were “vindicating,” Franklin said. Although the political mainstream in Oklahoma supported opening publicly funded religious schools, Franklin said he abided by the Constitution.  

“If you’re in a leadership position, you have to separate yourself from those that are pulling you in certain directions,” he said. “I have no obligation to any constituency other than to teachers and students and families.”

He is expected to face Peggs Public Schools Superintendent John Cox, Ana Davine Landsaw, state Rep. Toni Hasenbeck and state Sen. Adam Pugh in the Republican primary.

Former Tulsa Board of Education member Jennettie Marshall and former El Reno Public Schools Superintendent Craig McVay are running for the Democratic nomination.

Candidate filing for statewide offices, including superintendent, runs from Wednesday through Friday this week at the state Capitol.