Democrats, Republicans Face Off In Forum For Superintendent, Barresi No Shows

It's one of the most heated races on our state primary ballot, and Tuesday, most of the candidates vying for State Superintendent faced-off over topic like testing standards and school funding.

There was one surprise question people were asking, however, "Where is the current superintendent?"

State Superintendent Janet Barresi didn't show, and neither did Republican candidate and teacher Brian Kelly, but Republican Joy Hofmeister was there, along with the four Democrats on the ballot.

First on stage were Democrats John Cox, Freda Deskin, Jack Herron and Ivan Holmes. All come with backgrounds in education, ranging from school superintendent to charter school CEO.

Each had time to address the audience on topic of contention like Common Core and how the current administration is handling what they called serious over testing of Oklahoma school testing. They all agreed education needs to be handled by individual school teachers.

On the republican side, Hofmeister spoke about the need for state standards, but that Common Core is just not appropriate and wasn't rolled out correctly.

Most parents in the crowd Tuesday seemed to like what they heard from the candidates.

"Both sides of the table realize there's something that needs to be done. That what's going on right now hasn't been good for public education over the past few years, and we need to just go back to the table and find out some better standards," said parent Karen Matheny.

One of the next forums for this race, for the Republican candidates is June 20th at 11:30 a.m. and will be held at the Summit Club in Tulsa.