Matt Gunterman July 23rd, 2007
Here’s the thing: radical Republicans and fundamentalist Christians like Governor Ernie Fletcher and State Representative and attorney general candidate Stan Lee don’t care about the kind of education reform that creates an informed citizenry and capable workforce.
Why? Because they both believe that the ultimate role of government is to prepare the world for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. After all, who needs to worry about future prosperity and the preservation of a stable society when it’s all going to end soon in Armageddon?
That’s why Kentucky’s economy is under-performing and that’s why Fletcher has failed our schools: Ernie Fletcher and his minions like Stan Lee believe that superstition and not scientific thought should be the guiding influence behind policy.
That’s why both Fletcher and Lee spend all their time promoting the teaching of Creationism in our schools, the displaying of the Ten Commandments in public places, and the figurative beating up of gays in political discourse: both men are worried about their own eternal destination before they’re concerned about what sort of world they leave behind for the rest of us when they’re gone.
If they want to spend their days fretting over their salvation, that’s fine, but I suggest that they join a religious order and go into the mountains and pray and leave the politics to more serious women and men.
From yesterday’s Herald-Leader:
Education reform going downhill
Make candidates explain how to reverse backward slide
That big whoosh you hear is the air rushing out of education reform.
After 31/2 years of Gov. Ernie Fletcher, Kentucky’s public schools can’t find a commissioner, the Council on Postsecondary Education can’t find a president and the leadership vacuum has swelled into a black hole.
Kentuckians should demand that the candidates for governor, Fletcher and Democrat Steve Beshear, spell out how they plan to pump up education and get progress rolling again.
Not long ago, Kentucky was able to attract nationally respected educators such as Tom Boysen, the first commissioner, and Gordon Davies, CPE’s first president. We now apparently can’t do any better than Barbara Erwin.
The underqualified Erwin bowed out of becoming commissioner after embellishments to her rŽsumŽ and an investigation into her missing personnel file created a stink that couldn’t be ignored.
After witnessing that debacle, the CPE called off its five-month search last week and decided to appoint an interim president until April.
What’s repelling the best and brightest educators isn’t just the possibility of a change in governors. It’s also that Kentucky, with a few exceptions, is no longer seen as a leader in trying to raise education levels. We’ve fallen off the cutting edge back into the backwaters again.
Disappointed at the caliber of candidates for CPE chief, Walter Baker, a respected Republican from Glasgow and CPE board member, put his finger on the problem in an interview with Herald-Leader staff writer Art Jester when he said that “we’ve lost the kind of commitment and determination we had in 1990 with KERA and in 1997 with House Bill 1.”
A General Assembly that in the 1990s enacted the Kentucky Education Reform Act and equally dramatic higher-education reforms has sunk into partisan impotence in the 2000s.
Fletcher has talked a lot about education but has little to show for it. His most tangible mark is appointing a board that failed to carry out its most basic duty: hiring a commissioner.
There are legitimate questions about the board’s ability to carry out the rest of its duties and whether any up-and-coming educator would risk working for this board.
Perhaps that realization is what prompted state school board chairman Keith Travis to talk up appointing a Kentuckian.
The state board no doubt feels stung by the meltdown of its last search and the bad advice it got from its search firm, but nothing less than a national search for a new commissioner is acceptable. Same goes for the CPE. Kentuckians wouldn’t tolerate hiring a Wildcat basketball coach without a national search; surely, we expect as much for those calling the shots in education.
Both boards must take care not to subvert a national search by making it appear that the interim appointee has an inside track, which would also repel candidates.
If state budget director Brad Cowgill wants to be interim CPE president, he should agree not to be a candidate for the permanent post.
No matter how effective the interim appointees may be, they can’t substitute for strong, long-term leadership. Best-case scenario: We lose a year of progress.
Fletcher needs to explain how he would reverse the backsliding of his first term, and Beshear needs to spell out how he’d do better.
