Wayne Lewis was named Kentucky's education commissioner in October after serving six months as interim commissioner. In more than 15 years in education, he’s been a teacher, a teacher educator, a university faculty member and a state-level administrator.
Q: What is the most pressing issue facing Kentucky P-12 education?
A. One is persistent and incredibly large achievement gaps. Those gaps not only have not moved, eliminated or decreased, in some cases they’re getting larger. If we continue to do the same thing, the gaps will get bigger. Kentucky has, over the last couple decades, made tremendous progress, but over the last three years progress stalled. We can’t be complacent. We must ensure that as kids exit our system, with a diploma, they are prepared to do something, whether it’s post-secondary education or going into the workforce. When they go straight into the workforce, we have to ensure they are equipped for jobs that pay more than a minimum wage.
Q. What are your top priorities for the coming year? How will your budget at KDE affect those priorities?
A. Addressing the issues I just discussed is my top priority. Budget difficulties make things more challenging, obviously, but that is not a reason to not continue to move forward. Our children deserve more than us saying that because we’re challenged budgetarily we can’t raise achievement, close achievement gaps, or do a better job of preparing them for the workforce or postsecondary education. Money is important. And we will continue to advocate for strategic funding to support this work. And there are things that we can do now that do not require additional funding. So I reject the suggestion that the only reason that we’re not making the progress is lack of funding.
Q. What can be done to move things forward without more money?
A. I’ll give you a couple of examples. In some districts, we have challenges with compliance with the requirements of IDEA and special education law. We also have to ensure that our folks have the training to write good IEPs (Individual Education Plans) and make sure our administrators and teachers are trained to appropriately implement IEPs and understand the requirements of attending to kids’ transitions.
Q. In Kentucky, the commissioner of education wears many hats. What is your most important role as commissioner of education?
A. Serving kids and families. I’ve spent most of my career in education, but I approached this job, first and foremost, like a parent. We all have to work to provide the type of system and opportunities for every Kentucky child that we would want for our own kids. I think about it from this perspective: I wouldn’t accept any less than my child having access to a high-quality, effective teacher. So I shouldn’t be satisfied with an ineffective teacher for any other Kentucky child.
Q. A number of new school board members come on board in January. What do you see as a school board member’s most important role?
A. School boards and their members play an important role as the district’s policy-making body. KSBA provides a tremendous service to school boards in terms of policy development and policy recommendations. Board members have to make sure that they are taking those recommendations and ensuring that those policies work for their district. Many of KSBA’s recommendations are a result of statute change or regulatory change and are required. But there is some room in other policy recommendations. That’s where districts can say, “Given our needs and situation, we might tweak this policy.” I hope boards are having those conversations. The other critically important role for local boards is holding districts accountable, setting high expectations for serving all kids well.
Q. What's the biggest barrier to learning that Kentucky schoolchildren face?
A. One of the biggest issues I see is our unwillingness, sometimes, to put them first, to let adult differences and opinions come before decisions that are in the best interests of kids. If we could put their interests first and not care about whose idea it was or who gets credit, or whether this change would inconvenience me, I think we could make much more improvement than people think.
Q. So is political wrangling part of the problem?
A. Yes, including decisions at the lower levels. At the classroom level, at the school level, at the district level, at the state level. You know, outside of the big P politics where the interests of kids aren’t the first priority. Kids’ interests are usually always a part of the conversations I have with educators and policymakers. But lots of times, it’s not first.
Q. School boards are the charter authorizers. What is the most important thing a school board member needs to consider as they evaluate a charter application?
A. Every part is incredibly important. We advocated hard to make sure that only those things that are really important are in the charter application, so I think everything should be given incredible scrutiny – financials, proposed curriculum, governance, everything. The authorizer is the key to ensuring that charter schools operate and are held accountable. Authorizers are responsible by Kentucky law for ensuring that only the highest-quality charter applications are approved. They’re responsible for continuously monitoring charter performance to make sure charter schools are not just performing the way they need to in the state accountability and assessment system but living up to the specific terms of their charter. In instances where charters are not, it is the local board’s responsibility to not renew charters or to revoke charters. I don’t think there’s any entity more important than the authorizer.
Q. In the last legislative session, funding for the Commonwealth School Improvement Fund, for textbooks, for teacher professional development and for other programs was eliminated. Which funding cuts have impacted students most?
A. I couldn’t pull out just one. The Commonwealth School Improvement Fund is an important source of funding. We went from supporting 24 priority schools to supporting 51 comprehensive support and improvement schools. Now we’re charged with doing that with no state funding, relying on federal funding. So we have twice the number of schools and considerably less money.
Q. What other programs would you point to?
A. Funding to support teacher induction. Not having funding for KTIP (Kentucky Teacher Internship Program) specifically or that we could allocate to districts to develop and implement their own induction and support programs. I don’t know if KTIP will come back, but, regardless, we must continue to invest in and expect all districts to provide induction and support for teachers. Teachers are not finished products when they come out of teacher preparation programs.
Q. What is at the top of your list for the legislative session that begins in January?
A. I’ll be asking the state Board of Education to support legislation that provides greater flexibility to district and school-level leaders to attract and retain high-quality, effective teachers.
We say, and the research supports, that the classroom teacher is the most important school level factor in influencing student achievement. There are certainly things we should be considering, and we will be pushing for on the policy conversation to ensure that we are attracting and retaining high-quality teachers, effective teachers in classrooms. And to ensure that in cases where, and this is a small number of cases, but in cases where teachers are either unwilling or incapable of providing the type of service that our kids need and that our kids deserve, we have to be able to move those teachers out.
Q. What does success as commissioner of education mean to you?
A. Moving the needle on student outcomes is the most important metric for success for me and for the department of education. We have to raise student achievement as measured by our standardized examination scores. We have to close achievement gaps between our most vulnerable populations of students and their peers.
Operational excellence of the department of education also is important as well as continuing to nurture and build partnerships with agencies and stakeholders across the state. But if we create an effective organization and grow and nurture partnerships and we don’t move the needle on student achievement and student transition readiness, then we fail. My goal as commissioner of education is to continue to move the ball forward so we can hand that off to the leadership that follows me and they can continue to move the ball forward.