[1][2] He attended high school in Polo, Illinois, and worked as a news butcher on trains and as a mule driver in order to earn money for further education, with the aim of becoming a lawyer.

[2] Cooper studied at Cornell University for one year, from 1878 to 1879,[1] and decided to shift his career aspirations from law to education.

He championed the use of teaching techniques that required students to research and discuss topics aloud rather than perform rote memorization.

He also fought against a plan floated by the school board to have a permanently segregated building for teaching of foreign students, arguing that they should instead be integrated into the regular classes as soon as their English skills warranted.

[15] Cooper's progressive approach to education led to some tension within the community, particularly as its more conservative elements gained influence throughout World War I.

Cooper disliked the formalized flag exercises the law called for, saying that to implement it literally would be "perfunctory and tasteless."

The following year, the board rescinded its approval of a series of history textbooks that had been deemed too pro-German, and also fired a high school teacher, Charles Neiderhauser, for an alleged lack of patriotism.

[9] Beginning in 1916, Cooper had pushed for more administrative power for his office, but the school board instead reorganized the system in 1919 to make him just one of six department heads.

A group called the Tax Reduction Council (or TRC) began attacking Cooper both professionally and personally, arguing that he had spent too much money building schools and offering unnecessary classes and extracurricular activities, and calling for him to be replaced by a younger superintendent.

The board decided to hire no new teachers for the 1921–1922 year and laid off some current ones for the first time, and Cooper refused to participate in recommending further budget cuts.

[9] Cooper submitted his resignation on March 17, 1922, effective August 1, though after the board passed further budget cuts, he took an early leave in June,[9] and assistant superintendent Thomas R. Cole succeeded him.

[20] The Frank B. Cooper Scholarship Fund, for "needy and worthy students," was raised by representatives of Seattle public schools after his retirement in 1922.