Once again our incorrigible new governor is showing his characteristically sound but cautious judgment, this time when it comes to the most important issue facing this state or any other: education.
After due deliberation, Counselor and Governor Hutchinson has announced his choice as Arkansas's new commissioner of education: Johnny Key, a former state senator but, far more relevant, a man with a lifelong interest and impressive career in running schools. What he's not is a member in good standing of the state's encrusted educational establishment, which is given to enshrining paper credentials rather than entertaining new ideas and embracing innovative reforms.
The governor's choosing a real reformer--instead of some educantist who only pays lip service to reform--speaks well not only of Mr. Key but of Mr. Hutchinson himself and how he operates, for he proceeded to weigh the pros and cons in his lawyer-like way, and methodically winnow the field of possible commissioners before announcing his choice Monday. If the Guv keeps this up, who knows, he might wind up giving even lawyers a good name.
For now Johnny Key is getting only rave reviews like this one. His forthcoming appointment has drawn applause from just about every segment of the state's educational community. From defenders of the status-ever-quo like the president of the state's biggest teachers' union, the Arkansas Education Association, to John Riggs, a former state senator from Little Rock who's anything but a former voice for educational reform.
Mr. Riggs has just been heard from again, this time cheering the state's take-over of Little Rock's long and thoroughly mismanaged school district, which badly needed taking over. Other respected voices have chimed in to praise Johnny Key, too, like Gary Newton of Arkansas Learns, perhaps the state's leading advocate of school choice for families that want something better from their kids' schools than the same old inertia.
With this wide range of support, Mr. Key's confirmation as Arkansas' next commissioner of education should be assured, right? But not so fast. There's a little thing called the law of the land, or rather the law of the state, now standing in the way of that happy result. Just as it did when the previous governor--Mike Beebe--chose a good old boy and long-time legislator, a veteran of the familiar go-along-to-get-along school, and one who had been his running mate at that, as the state's director of higher education.
But what, Mike Beebe worry? Law. shmaw. He simply made Shane Broadway interim director of the Department of Higher Education till the law could be changed and these small technical difficulties, like legally specified qualifications, swept aside. But that wasn't easy, the law being the law.
So poor Mr. Broadway was left to twist in the wind, cast into a kind of legal limbo even though Governor Mike Beebe and his pals tried to ignore the clear letter of the law for the longest time.
At one point just about the whole roster of presidents of the state's public colleges and universities was recruited to cheer Mr. Broadway's appointment, And they did--without a dissenter to be seen. So much for independent minds in academic ranks. It was all a fairly tawdry spectacle. But how expect academic bureaucrats to stand up and object to the appointment of someone who might determine where their school's next appropriation would be coming from? Courage is not exactly the hallmark of academic administrators. Then or now.
But eventually Shane Broadway wound up just where he belonged--as a lobbyist for a state university. Which was only fitting, since his true calling has long been that of lobbyist, not educator. Not so with Johnny Key, who's a real educator.
That's why the governor is to be respected for choosing to put the law first, and only second appoint Mr. Key the state's next commissioner of education. He should make a fine one, too, but in due time. When the law has been properly followed, step by step.
Editorial on 03/04/2015