The office that sets accreditation, publishes the report cards, and moves the money that reaches classrooms is open, and it is being decided in an August runoff almost nobody is watching.

Lindel Fields, appointed state superintendent by Governor Stitt, is not seeking election. That left a seven-candidate Republican primary on June 16 that split about as evenly as a seven-candidate primary can. On unofficial results, Robert Franklin took 22.6 percent and James Taylor 19.7, followed by John Cox at 18.4, Toni Hasenbeck at 16.6, Adam Pugh at 11.5, Debra Herlihy at 9.4, and William Crozier at 1.8.

Franklin and Taylor go to the August 25 runoff. The winner faces Democrat Jennettie Marshall, who took her primary with 57.7 percent over Craig McVay, in the general election on November 3.

Read those percentages honestly and they say something uncomfortable: more than three-fifths of Republican primary voters preferred someone who is no longer running. Neither finalist arrives with a mandate. Both arrive with an opportunity, and the runoff electorate that grants it will be a fraction of a fraction.

This paper's view is that the last several years of this office were spent on the wrong argument. The state superintendency is not a national culture-war platform, and the years it was treated as one produced a great deal of coverage and very little movement in the numbers that matter to a parent. Oklahoma reading and math results did not improve because the office was loud.

So the questions worth putting to Franklin and Taylor are narrow and answerable, and a candidate's discomfort with them is itself informative.

What is the plan for early reading instruction, specifically, and how will it be measured in three years rather than asserted in one.

Of every new dollar the Legislature appropriates to common education, what share reaches a classroom, and how will that be reported so a taxpayer can check it.

Of every new dollar the Legislature appropriates to common education, what share reaches a classroom, and how will that be reported so a taxpayer can check it.

What actually happens to a district that fails accreditation — what has happened, in the last five years, to any of them.

How many staff does the office employ, doing what, and has that number gone up or down.

And the one that separates a manager from a candidate: name a fight you do not intend to have.

Runoff turnout in August will be low, which means the individual vote is worth more than it will be in November. Early voting details and sample ballots come from the county election board, and both finalists have public records worth twenty minutes of reading before the 25th.