Kentucky's next education commissioner should be a leader who will stay true to the goals of the Kentucky Education Reform Act, encourage consistency in directives from the Department of Education and put children and their academic achievement first.

Those were some of the suggestions made during Saturday's quarterly meeting of the KSBA Board of Directors.  The ideas came in response to a request from Keith Travis, chairman of the Kentucky Board of Education who also is a former KSBA board and Marshall County school board member.  Travis asked KSBA Governmental Relations Director Alicia Sells to collect input from the association's leadership as the state board begins the process of searching for Gene Wilhoit's replacement.  He is leaving at the end of the month to become chief executive officer of the national Council of Chief State School Officers in Washington, D.C.
 

Here are some of the other comments KSBA leaders offered about characteristics they would like to see in the man or woman chosen to succeed Wilhoit:

• We must stay the course to proficiency.  If we try to do something different with a new commissioner, where will we end up? 

• It's time to place emphasis on a person who will keep us moving to better things and away from things that give us nothing. We are starting to make progress.  New person needs to stay focused on this progress.
• We should stay the course, but we need someone with fire in the belly.  Need someone who is more than a paper pusher.  Needs a revolutionary spirit for an evolutionary process.
• The next commissioner has responsibilities to many constituents.  He (or she) must be a consensus builder because he must work with legislature and school people. We'd like him (or her) to be a school person who knows what's going on in the public schools.
• Needs to be someone who will maintain the connection beyond post secondary education, but also someone to push the universities on teacher quality.
• Not enough information being shared by the state board of education to local boards.  We don't get any information from them.  We often have to learn about things in the newspaper or have to go get the information ourselves. 
• Needs to be someone who is out there in the schools, seen, known as someone who is out front, in the schools.  Wilhoit was unafraid to voice his opinion when he had differences with other leaders about what was needed by schools.
• We need a strong leader who is accessible, has an appreciation for diversity, with solid education credentials.  We need someone who is not afraid to seek input from education players outside of Frankfort, but also who is as comfortable sitting on the floor of a classroom reading to children as he is sitting in the governor's office talking about issues.