The Erwin Debacle
Having failed to provide the state with an education board that can do the most basic of its assigned work, Gov. Ernie Fletcher should try again. He should ask this board to resign, then appoint one that can do the job.
No challenge is more pressing for Kentucky than the development of a competitive education system. But, with the exception of Gov. Fletcher's merit hiring conspiracy, no recent state government spectacle has been more embarrassing, or depressing, than the board's horribly botched effort to find a replacement for former Education Commissioner Gene Wilhoit.
It leads one to believe the speculation that Gov. Fletcher was focused on appointing a board that would quietly share a right-wing fundamentalist school agenda, not one that could function properly
Having been given the commissioner's job, despite a career marked by destructive controversy -- not to mention unanswered questions about a faulty résumé and an investigation into the disappearance of her most recent personnel file -- Barbara Erwin has quit, blaming too much "scrutiny" and "continued noise by the media."
New entry for her personnel file, if it's ever found: cheap-shot artist.
Board chairman Keith Travis concedes the obvious: that hiring Dr. Erwin was a mistake. But what really wasn't in "our" best interest, as a state, was the board's resort to secrecy -- holding executive sessions to discuss "personal" issues (an exception not mentioned in state open meetings law) and to agree on a set of expectations for Dr. Erwin (as if those should be a state secret).
The only light in Lalaland is the fact that Kevin Noland, a longtime deputy commissioner, will continue as interim head of the Department of Education. He's smart, solid and possessed of institutional memory that goes back to the early days of K-12 reform.
With Mr. Noland in charge, there's no need to rush the undoing of this farce. The board must take the time to find the best possible candidate -- not some stealth conservative from inside Kentucky who, after some presumptively suitable waiting period, will be discovered to have just the right qualities for full-time appointment.
5 comments:
I wonder if Fletcher will promote ID Creationism between now and the election? Does anyone know what Erwin's position on IDC was?
Dan Phelps
See my review of the "Creation Museum" at http://www.ncseweb.org
I don't recall anything in the public record that revealed her take on such things. I've been told she is Republican (unverified)and she had always been in suburban districts near major cities that have tended toward the affluent...and white. I have seen nothing from her on Intelligent Design or Creationism. On the other hand, she had some tendency to tell her boards that her job was to implement whatever they wanted...a rather maleable form of leadership.
My guess is that Richard La Pointe might have been the guy more inclined to take on those topics.
Arizona is a very conservative state with plenty of opportunities to advance fundamentalist ideas such as ID Creationism.
To the best of my knowledge, Dr. Erwin did not associate with groups in our community that expouse this perspective.
The one lawsuit--Hills v. SUSD--grew out of her administration's decision to ban a flyer that included fundamentalist perspectives.
The plaintiff's attorney in Hills came from a conservative organization that handles first amendment church/school cases. She fought the plaintiff all the way to the Supreme Court, which would run counter to any truly held fundamentalist beliefs on her part.
Dr. Erwin would, however, have catered to the wishes of the majority that hired her. If she followed her normal MO, Dr. Erwin would have done whatever was necessary to keep her job long enough to vest in Kentucky's pension system.
What do you think of Penney Sanders as a candidate?
I can't say that I know Penny very well.
We did work together, sorta, on an Office of Educational Accountability (OEA) complaint in the early 90s. Remember when KDE was changing the KIRIS test every year and we didn't have a curriculum that anyone could teach from - only "Transitions" (wasn't that the name of it)? There were lots of concerns and I think someone may have issued an official complaint. At any rate, I testified before the Kentucky Board and cooperated with OEA providing a lot of background information. The KIRIS changes settled down and the test was eventually changed to CATS. (Since then, NCLB messed up CATS and KDE messed that up even further.)
I mostly worked with one of Penny's deputies(Doug ...?). But throughout her 5-year tenure I found Sanders to be tough-minded, smart and relatively fearless.
She has operated effectively at the highest levels in Frankfort and seems to be a woman of character.
At some point, she was a finalist for the top jobs in Alabama and Vermont.
I'm not sure what she's been up to lately. But if she's interested, (and the Ky Bd is locked in on a KY person - which I don't fully understand) she ought to get a chat.
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