State superintendent of public instruction candidates Robert Franklin and James Taylor debated Aug. 13 at Cameron University in Lawton. The debate was presented by NonDoc, KSWO and the Lawton Constitution.
Franklin and Taylor will face off in the Republican runoff election Aug. 25. The winner will compete against Democrat Jennettie Marshall in the November general election.
The Frontier used public records, interviews and other documents to fact check some claims the candidates made during the debate.
The full debate is available on YouTube.
Claim:Â Robert Franklin grabbed a child by the ears and pulled him to his face during a 2014 incident at a summer camp for special needs children.
Taylor said:Â “For five years, I was a parent working in special ed, and we had training to deal with people who were out of control and how we needed to restrain them. At no time did they ever tell us to grab someone by their ears and pull them into your face. That was never part of it.”
Franklin admitted that he scratched the child during Thursday’s debate, but disputed Taylor’s characterization of the incident.
“That is an inaccurate statement,” Franklin said. “That did not happen (…) What you are describing is inaccurate.”
Fact check:Â Mostly true
Franklin’s own past descriptions of the incident are similar to what Taylor described. Franklin admitted to scratching the boy in a voicemail to the child’s mother that was posted Aug. 5 by Libs of TikTok.
“He was really, really having a rough day yesterday, and I was the one who — when I got a moment with him and was working with him really, really hard — I got right in his face, got hold of his ears, and my nails got him in the back of the ear,” Franklin said in the recording. “So that is my fault, and I am completely sorry. And that is absolutely not what was intended.”
Franklin released a statement after the voicemail became public in which he said he “pulled” the boy in during an incident where the child was throwing rocks and behaving aggressively.
“In an attempt to intervene to ensure safety and calm the situation, I put myself between him and others, pulled him in and told him to stop. He pulled away and my nail scratched behind his ear, which was the last thing I would have wanted. Alas, I acknowledge and own my actions in this moment and wish it would have resolved differently,” Franklin said.
— Brianna Bailey
Claim:Â A class action lawsuit filed in 1985 against Hissom Memorial Center, a state-run facility for adults and children with developmental disabilities, did not contain allegations of abuse against teachers at the facility. Robert Franklin was a special education teacher at Hissom in the early 1980s.
Rating system
True: A claim that is backed up by factual evidence
Mostly true: A claim that is mostly true but also contains some inaccurate details
Mixed: A claim that contains a combination of accurate and inaccurate or unproven information
True but misleading: A claim that is factually true but omits critical details or context
Mostly false: A claim that is mostly false but also contains some accurate details
False: A claim that has no basis in fact
Franklin said:Â “Those were lawsuits against the state of Oklahoma for not providing community services. This had nothing to do with me or any teachers that were there.”
Fact check:Â Mostly true
It is true that a lawsuit was brought against multiple state agencies and officials for violating 600 residents’ constitutional rights because of abuse, neglect and the use of unnecessary physical and chemical restraints. Instead of rehabilitation programs, the lawsuit said the direct-care staff at Hissom gave residents high doses of tranquilizers, sometimes locking them to chairs and leaving them alone. But the lawsuit did not name any individual teachers as having abused residents, which included minors. Hissom had a contract with Sand Springs Public School District for teachers to run classes at the facility.
The lawsuit did say education programming at the facility violated federal law because it kept residents segregated from the community and provided an unequal education without specialized teaching or services, causing residents to lose the skills that would help them participate in society. There were other lawsuits and reports at the time that alleged that direct-care staff had abused clients.
— Kayla Branch
Claim:Â Franklin was negligent in failing to report abuse at two state facilities where he previously worked.
Taylor said:Â “You were working at (Hissom Memorial Center) and Hissom was shut down by the government because of abuse. (…) Same thing happened at (L.E. Rader Juvenile Detention Center) as well … There seems to be a pattern, a consistency, that is there.”
Taylor went on to say: “Here is the deal: Since 1965, they put into law that everyone, every teacher, has an obligation to report any incident that they see that might be suspected of child abuse. The court paperwork said that the kids would come — this is the court, not me — court paperwork saying that they came into the classroom — your classroom with the smell. The smell. Well, the courts, I guess the courts lied.”
Fact check:Â Mostly false
The Taylor campaign did not provide any documentation about specific instances where Franklin failed to report abuse, and The Frontier could also find no evidence to support this claim.
Franklin told The Frontier that he worked for Sand Springs Public Schools, where he was contracted by the state to provide classes for residents at facilities like Hissom and the L.E. Rader Juvenile Detention Center. He said he worked at Hissom from 1981 to 1987, and at Rader from 1992 to 1999.
Hissom was originally closed in 1994, after a judge sided with a group of parents who filed a lawsuit in 1985 claiming that the care their children received at the facility was inadequate. The case includes hundreds of documents filed over decades, and many of them are unavailable online. But Franklin was not listed as a defendant in the original complaint or mentioned in specific allegations.
The state settled a lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Justice over alleged civil rights violations at the Rader Center. That lawsuit also did not name Franklin as a defendant or mention him in specific allegations. The center was closed by the state in 2011.
Franklin told The Frontier that he reported any abuse and other concerns through appropriate channels as needed during his time working at both centers.
— Ari Fife
Claim:Â James Taylor’s campaign has spent little compared to other candidates for statewide office.
Taylor said:Â “I have always been fiscally responsible. My campaign, we are here because we only spent about $7,000 for our campaign. Compare that to the gubernatorial candidates who spend over $70 million.”
Fact check:Â Mostly true
Taylor’s campaign had spent only $7,680 through June 1, according to Oklahoma Ethics Commission filings, a relatively small sum of money for a campaign for statewide office. At the time Taylor made the claim during the Aug. 13 debate, his campaign had only submitted one campaign finance report to the Oklahoma Ethics Commission showing that most of Taylor’s donors gave less than $1,000, and Taylor himself contributed a substantial amount.
However, on Monday night, Taylor’s campaign submitted its second report to the Ethics Commission covering both the primary election and just prior to the runoff. In total as of Aug. 10 — prior to when Taylor made the claim — his campaign has spent $25,683, a still relatively low amount for a statewide office, but more than three times the amount Taylor claimed. The campaign has received $44,707 in contributions, the new report shows.
— Clifton Adcock
Claim:Â The state of Oklahoma has moved away from education reforms implemented under Gov. Henry Bellmon.
Franklin said:Â “Since 1990, we have pulled away from all of the initiatives we tried to put in under Henry Bellmon’s watch. Henry Bellmon reminded us: get class sizes in check, add the professional development supports, support educators wildly and then things can begin to move forward.”
Fact check:Â Mixed
Bellmon signed the sweeping Education Reform Act into law in 1990, which raised teacher pay, increased school funding, expanded early-childhood education and limited class sizes. The law capped classes in kindergarten through sixth grade at 20 students and limited teachers in seventh through 12th grade to 140 students over a six-hour school day. It also established new curriculum standards and testing requirements, alternative teacher certification and other reforms.
The state later backed away from some of those requirements. Funding shortfalls allowed a growing number of school districts to get exemptions from the class-size limits, and by 2018 every district in the state had been exempted from at least some of them.
But major parts of the reforms remain in place. Oklahoma still has class-size laws, a minimum teacher salary schedule, statewide test score standards and alternative teacher certification. The state also expanded public pre-K, making it available to all 4-year-olds in 1998. Franklin’s campaign later clarified his comments to The Frontier, stating “Franklin’s goal would be to prevent ‘pulling away’ and bring Oklahoma back to meeting or more closely aligning with successful standards that we have either not had funding or other ability to sustain.”
— Garrett Yalch
Claim: Franklin claimed that, at a GOP primary debate where candidates were asked to recommend books for students’ summer reading lists, he prefaced his recommendation of a book titled The Separation of Church and Hate by saying he was reading it and that it was not “appropriate for youth or high school students.”
Fact check:Â Mixed
In the primary debate where candidates recommended books for students to read, Franklin brought three books: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein “for little ones,” The Promise of a Pencil by Adam Braun “for high school kiddos” and The Separation of Church and Hate by John Fugelsang. He offered no context about his recommendation of The Separation of Church and Hate beyond saying it was “for my college-age students.”
While Franklin did not mention he was reading the book himself, his campaign said the “for my college-age students” statement implied the book was not appropriate for high school students.
— Kevin Eagleson
Claim:Â Peggs Superintendent John Cox, who placed third in the GOP primary for state superintendent in June, has endorsed Taylor.
Taylor said:Â “Another one who has agreed to help us and to be a part of what we are trying to do is a former candidate, Dr. John Cox, who is supporting and endorsing us, so I am excited for his endorsement as well.”
Fact check: Mostly false
In a Facebook reel Aug. 16, Cox couched his support for Taylor with the phrase “if he wins” multiple times.
“Many of you have seen the post by Taylor’s team concerning an endorsement. Because I believe in your discernment and ability to choose the best person that is left in the face, I do not make blanket endorsements of other candidates in this race,” Cox wrote. “My conversations with Dr. Taylor have always been that if he wins, I will give any support that I can while he is in office. I appreciate his desire to include me in his plans. His acknowledgement of my experience and training is humbling. My goal is to be a resource to both the future governor and the future state superintendent. I have had conversations with Dr. Taylor and if he wins, I will be supportive, a resource and an advocate for our public schools. His discussion with me is that he would like for me to be directly involved with his administration. His message to me is that he would like for me to be directly involved with his administration. Dr. Franklin has messaged me a few times and is appreciative of our open conversation. His message to me is that he was encouraged to run so that either he or John Cox would be in the general election. He has spoken highly of me across the state.”
Neither Cox nor a Taylor campaign spokesperson responded to outreach attempts on the topic Tuesday.
— Tres Savage
