Heiner said his unsuccessful bid for governor was
“an all-in race” and he would “absolutely not” consider running for
office again.
But now the 64-year-old civil engineer from Louisville has re-emerged in public life.
Earlier
this month, Gov. Matt Bevin appointed Heiner – his former political
adversary – as secretary of the Kentucky Education and Workforce
Development Cabinet.
The move is unsurprising in some ways. Heiner
has been among the state’s foremost advocates of charter schools –
which operate outside the confines of traditional public schools. That’s
also a policy Bevin favors.
“Policy-wise, there was not an inch difference between us in the campaign,” Heiner said.
Yet,
despite the title, Heiner’s new role comes with no direct authority
over education. And, having become wealthy from a career in real estate
development, Heiner doesn’t need the job.
In an interview at his
sparsely decorated Frankfort office last week, Heiner said he sees the
cabinet post as an “opportunity to help move the ball ahead faster” on
changes he thinks are long overdue in the state.
“My greatest
civic passion has been education; I just see such opportunity there,”
Heiner said. “…It’s simply time for bold moves and not just gradual
improvements.”
Kentucky Republicans have been emboldened lately
with Bevin’s election and the possibility of the state House of
Representatives coming under GOP control for the first time in decades –
which would open the door to conservative policies like charter
schools.
“Maybe people looking back 20 years from now, people will
say, that’s where Kentucky really leapt forward,” Heiner said. “We’ve
seen states like Indiana and Tennessee, they go through a period where
they really jump forward on systems and helping people. I think we’re at
the point today, and I’m just excited to be a part of it.”
Heiner
made it clear that he has broader aims in his new role than charter
schools – from making sure local workforce training boards are churning
out enough welders and tool-and-dye makers to updating the 1970s-era
computer code that runs the state’s unemployment insurance system.
He
said the Bevin administration wants “greater parental choice” in public
education, and charter schools are “simply one policy that Kentucky
needs to give serious consideration to.”
Education reform advocates applauded Heiner’s appointment to the position.
“I’m
a supporter of high-quality charter schools. I think in that position
Hal is going to be a friend to that movement and going to be
instrumental in helping us make that happen,” said Wayne D. Lewis, an
assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of
Kentucky.
Lewis is also chairman of the Kentucky Charter Schools Association, which Heiner founded before running for governor.
Terry
Brooks, who runs Kentucky Youth Advocates – a nonprofit that lobbies
for kid-friendly policies like subsidized child care – called Heiner’s
appointment “one of the absolute best news stories of the Bevin
election.”
“If you care about vulnerable kids, Hal has a number of
ideas that should give folks hope,” Brooks said. “If you are an
advocate for the K-12 establishment, his appointment should be a real
source of concern.”
From Metro Council to state government
Heiner,
who lives with his wife Sheila on a 46-acre farm outside Middletown,
cut his teeth in politics by winning a seat on Louisville’s Metro
Council in 2002.
A graduate of Atherton High School and the J.B.
Speed School of Engineering at the University of Louisville, Heiner went
on to a successful career in real estate.
He founded Capstone
Realty, which built the Commerce Crossings business park near Interstate
65 and the Gene Snyder Freeway and developed land at River Ridge in
Clark County, Ind.
Heiner’s greatest political accomplishment may
be the race he didn’t win. In 2010, Heiner nearly upset Democrat Greg
Fischer for Louisville Metro mayor despite Democrats’ heavy party
registration advantage in Jefferson County.
It was during that
campaign that Heiner ran a commercial pushing for an end to Jefferson
County Public Schools’ school assignment plan and offered other ideas to
improve the school district – even though Louisville’s mayor has no
authority over schools.
Since then, Heiner has been an outspoken
supporter of charter schools. In a 2013 Point of View editorial on WDRB,
he took aim at teachers’ unions that oppose “any effort” to add such
schools in Kentucky.
“It’s time for all of us to take action and demand a change,” Heiner said at the time.
Heiner
then entered what became a muddy primary campaign earlier this year
with Bevin and then-Commissioner of Agriculture James Comer.
Comer’s
campaign was dogged by allegations that he had abused a girlfriend in
college, and Heiner was criticized for running a TV ad that referenced
those allegations. A Bevin ad depicted Heiner and Comer engaging in a
childish food fight.
Bevin ended up edging Comer by 83 votes.
Political
experts said it’s not surprising that Bevin ended up turning to Heiner
for a prominent appointment even after the messy primary.
“To able
to move beyond politics and into problem-solving speaks volumes for
both gentlemen,” said Republican Larry Bisig, a political media
consultant in Louisville.
Republican strategist Scott Jennings, of
RunSwitch PR in Louisville, said it’s hard to imagine Bevin finding
anyone “more well-versed or well identified” with education and
workforce issues than Heiner.
“For Bevin, it’s one of those great
gifts because Heiner is somebody you can send to a meeting who can
engender instant credibility for your administration and your policy
agenda,” he said.
Limited role
In addition
to charter schools, Brooks said he would expect Heiner to push policies
like overhauling the state’s “badly broken accountability and assessment
system” and tying teacher pay to student performance, especially in
low-performing schools.
But education policy is more insulated from politics in Kentucky than other states, including those Heiner wants to emulate.
In
Indiana, the state schools superintendent is elected by voters. In
Tennessee, the governor appoints the education commissioner.
But
Kentucky’s top K-12 official, Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt,
answers to the state Board of Education, whose members are appointed by
the governor. The board’s staggered terms mean that Bevin won’t get to
appoint a majority of its 11 voting seats until 2018.
The Kentucky
Department of Education – which oversees the state’s 1,200 public
schools – is attached to Heiner’s cabinet but managed by Pruitt.
Heiner’s predecessors have had little involvement in K-12 policy.
He
succeeds Thomas Zawacki, a former Toyota executive picked by former
Gov. Steve Beshear for his “deep understanding of the skills employers
need to build successful businesses.”
Joseph U. Meyer, who served
as secretary of education and workforce development under Beshear from
2009-2013, said the position may be a platform, but carries no
decision-making authority over education policy.
“By no stretch of
the imagination is there a supervisory hierarchy there,” Meyer said.
“Secretaries don’t have the authority to dictate policy because (the
laws) created by the General Assembly made for boards that are
independent.”
Looking for a “stronger connection”
Despite
those limitations, Heiner said he’s looking for “a much stronger
connection and interaction” with agencies like the Department of
Education than his predecessors.
And he said Kentucky would be better served if the governor’s administration played a more active role.
“If
you look at states that have leapt forward – that, say, provided some
more specialized forms of education for children who are not well-served
in the system today – it’s often been executive branch involvement
where an elected official is willing to go out there on a limb and say,
we really should move in this direction – at their own political peril,”
Heiner said. “And I think we have a governor who is willing to do
that.”
Heiner also sees himself as a “convener” to coordinate
education and workforce training functions that are “splintered” across
different areas of state government.
The Kentucky Higher Education
Assistance Authority, which administers college financial aid, is
overseen by the finance cabinet, for example.
“We need a
coordinating group to make sure that what we’re doing in K-12 matches up
with what universities need, what community colleges need – and
ultimately what employers need so Kentuckians can get a great job,”
Heiner said. “I see this cabinet’s role as pulling those pieces
together.”
Pruitt, the Kentucky education commissioner, said he’s
already met with Heiner for over an hour and welcomes his involvement in
the Department of Education.
“There’s obviously things that are
pretty clearly in my court… but I want to be as collaborative as
possible,” Pruitt said. “Certainly having he and the governor on board
with initiatives we want to do will give them more authority, so I
certainly plan on working with him as much as possible.”
Heiner
added that, while he is interested in “big ideas” like requiring college
credits or industrial certifications for high school graduates, any
“significant improvements in education” will have to be adopted by the
state General Assembly.
Brooks, of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said
it’s important not to overlook the impact Heiner could have as the
messenger for Bevin’s education policies.
“You cannot possibly
minimize the power of a strong public voice,” Brooks said. “We have not
had a person in authority talking about these issues for a long time.”
Alan
DeYoung, an education policy professor at the University of Kentucky
and charter schools opponent, views Heiner’s appointment as a “public
relations” move by Bevin.
He said Heiner and Bevin understate
Kentucky’s progress in education over the last two decades, which has
actually been “exponential.”
“I have a sense that they are just
trying to project Kentucky as so far behind on education that this
(charter schools) is just logically going to come,” he said.
DeYoung
said it’s a good thing said that Kentucky education policy is more
insulated from elected officials – and quick changes based on elections –
than in other states.
“We ought to fine-tune what we were doing
before and continue in that tradition instead of throwing everything out
and starting with a new model for schools,” he said.
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