Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Monday submitted the name of former Sen. Johnny Key as his choice for the job of state education commissioner, overseeing the state's 237 school districts and 18 charter school systems that together serve more than 460,000 students.
Key -- whose employment for the job by the Arkansas Board of Education hinges on a proposed legislative change in the qualifications for the post -- said the job "would be the greatest challenge of my professional career."
"I take it willingly and I take it with excitement," said Key, who is not a traditionally trained educational administrator.
His 1991 bachelor's degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville is in chemical engineering. He is currently associate vice president for university relations for the University of Arkansas System after operating a Mountain Home child care center for several years. He served from 2003 until last July as a Republican member of the Legislature, where he had been on the Senate Education Committee, including a stint as its chairman.
If Key, 46, is ultimately hired by the Arkansas Board of Education and his employment confirmed by the governor, he will replace current Education Commissioner Tony Wood, who has served as commissioner since July 1. Wood was the deputy commissioner and took the top job at the Arkansas Department of Education after the resignation of then-Commissioner Tom Kimbrell, who left to become Bryant School District's superintendent.
Hutchinson said at a news conference Monday that Key initially turned down the governor's request to be considered for the commissioner's position and only changed his mind in the past few days.
"I want to assure you that I haven't been hiding the ball from you," Hutchinson told reporters, noting that there were earlier questions about whether Key would be the commissioner of education and whether the governor was advocating for legislation to change the qualifications for the job.
"Those were not connected," Hutchinson said. "The reason was that Sen. Johnny Key turned me down the first time I asked him. This is something that only came to fruition in the last four or five days. I was delighted that even though he resisted my ... requests for him to be commissioner of education, he finally gave in.
"I know he had a lot of personal considerations, and I know that professionally he was enjoying what he was doing, but I think he sensed the importance of this to the state of Arkansas and to what I was trying to accomplish," the governor said, adding that he is now asking the Legislature to adjust the qualifications for the job.
Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, said Monday that he would ask the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday to approve his Senate Bill 681 to require either the education commissioner or the deputy education commissioner to meet the existing minimum requirements for education commissioner.
The education commissioner is currently required to hold a master's degree from an accredited institution, have 10 years of experience as a teacher, five of which must be of an administrative or supervisory nature, and hold a valid state teacher's license.
"Everybody seems to like that a lot better, and it makes sense for one of them to have that experience," Clark said.
He said that "as long as you have the right people to rely on under you," the credentials for the top official do not have to be so rigid, adding that "it takes a very different skill set to be the top guy. We do need someone there in one of those positions that has that experience, but we need someone else that knows how to move the ball forward."
Another measure by Clark, SB176, would reduce the educational requirement for the education commissioner from a master's degree to a bachelor's degree at an accredited institution and no longer require the appointee to hold a valid state teacher's license.
In addition, the bill would require 10 years of "direct and indirect experience" in the field of education, including as a teacher, administrator or policymaker. It would no longer require 10 years' experience as a teacher, including five in an administrative or supervisory nature.
Clark said he would ask the committee to approve SB681 rather than SB176.
Clark said Mike Hernandez, a former superintendent, is the current deputy education commissioner, "and I would love to see Mike stay."
The nine-member Arkansas Board of Education -- all appointed by Hutchinson's predecessor Mike Beebe -- has the authority to hire the education commissioner, who is then subject to confirmation by the governor. The commissioner serves at the will of the governor.
"There is not anyone more qualified than him in terms of understanding education, understanding the Lake View [school-funding equity] case, and in understanding our history of education in Arkansas," Hutchinson said Monday of Key. "As I talk to people across Arkansas in every venue of education, no one is more respected in education than Johnny Key. He was able to work in a bipartisan way when he was in the Legislature. He is respected by both sides. He is respected as someone who digs into the details of education and understands and has a passion and a love for it."
While much of his time in the Legislature was centered on meeting requirements of the Arkansas Constitution and the State Supreme Court for an equitable and adequate public education system, Key said the focus would now be on educational excellence.
"Our state has invested too much in its history in education for us not to keep moving forward, to set a high bar of expectation," he said, calling for cooperation and collaboration. "We're going to start moving toward talking about excellence. We're going to start putting things in place to bring about excellence in education in our state."
Key said he turned down the commissioner's job in late December, believing his new job for the university system was where he needed to be. But he said he then realized that he shouldn't have turned down the request from the state's chief executive. He said he was happy the governor persisted in his request.
"This is an opportunity to impact so many other people, so many other families," Key said. "My 16-year-old daughter probably put it best ... when she said, 'Won't you have the opportunity to help a lot more people if you go to this other position?' That ultimately swung the pendulum ... I want to help Gov. Hutchinson make an impact on our entire state for K-12 education."
Born in Arkadelphia, Key attended Gurdon High School. After college, he worked for Baxter Health Corp. in Mountain Home. Key was a member of the Baxter County Quorum Court from 1997 to 2002, and then he served three terms, from 2003 to 2009, in the House of Representatives and was in the Senate from 2009 to 2014.
Key and his wife, Shannon, operated child care centers for about 20 years in Mountain Home before giving that up two years ago, in December 2012, and moving to Little Rock, he said.
The Open Arms Learning Center and Noah's Ark Preschool had generated a complaint in 2011 from the Americans United for Separation of Church and State and a review by the Arkansas Department of Human Services for accepting state preschool funds for their program that included daily prayer and Bible lessons.
The Americans United complaint resulted in a new rule being drafted by the Human Services and Education departments to address religious instruction in preschools, according to news accounts. Among other things, the new rule forbid prayer led by a teacher or administrator.
Their son is a student at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Their daughter attends the Arkansas Baptist School System.
Key said Monday that he would work with Wood, who will remain at the agency through the transition, on setting agency priorities for the next several months.
Wood's salary as education commissioner is $228,887.98 a year. Key earns $130,000 in his UA job.
"It would be premature for me to talk in a lot of detail about what the priorities are going to be," Key said, adding that he wants to let the Legislature and the state Education Board to first work through the issues related to his employment.
Key's name is being submitted for the position at a time when the state's standards for math and English/language arts are about to undergo a review by a state committee initiated by the governor and led by Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin. Those Common Core State Standards have been adopted by more than 40 states since 2010, but they, along with accompanying exams, have generated some parent and teacher objections in Arkansas and across the country.
"We're going to support what is in the best interest of Arkansas students, and I look forward to seeing what the task force brings forward as they do that work," Key said.
Still other matters at the forefront of state education issues include the state Education Board vote in January to control the state's largest district, Little Rock School District, and proposed legislation to offer school districts with fewer than 350 students a waiver from forced consolidation if they meet all other standards for operation.
Key said he wasn't prepared yet to take a position on those matters.
Hutchinson's selection of Key was well received Monday.
Brenda Robinson, president of the Arkansas Education Association, the state's largest teacher union, said Key is knowledgeable about education issues.
"I really think his heart is in to making sure that students are successful in K-12," she said.
Rich Nagel, executive director of the Arkansas Education Association, said he isn't concerned about Key's lack of traditional credentials.
"I was particularly pleased with his statement that he wants to pursue excellence in education. That signals a desire to look beyond adequacy," Nagel said.
Former state Sen. John Riggs, D-Little Rock, called the choice "great" and "an outstanding pick by the governor who continues to amaze me with some of the things he is doing."
Riggs, a former member of the Little Rock School Board, is chairman of the board of directors for the Arkansas Virtual Academy, an online charter school that serves students statewide. Key in 2013 led an effort to expand the enrollment cap for the virtual school to 3,000 in kindergarten through 12th grade after the state Education Board rejected moves to increase the size above 500.
Riggs predicted that Key will be "open to doing things differently" as a supporter of public school choice and public/private partnerships. Examples of those partnerships include Teach For America, which provides new college graduates jobs as teachers for two years in low-income communities, and the City Year young-adult corps, a program that provides student support services in high-need schools.
Scott Smith, executive director of the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, which supports rural and charter schools, credited Key not just with his efforts on complying with the Supreme Court orders for educational adequacy. More recently, in 2013, Key "worked just a masterful compromise" on the interdistrict school choice act, Smith said.
Gary Newton, executive director of the Arkansas Learns parent school-choice advocacy organization, called the selection very positive.
"I think there will be an emphasis on public education, not an either/or mentality," Newton said of a Key administration. "There will be an understanding that one size doesn't fit all."
Clark, the legislator, said Key has "wide support from a wide array people" to be the state's education commissioner.
"Behind the scenes he had the support of everybody who was in the know -- the former education commissioners, leaders in the AAEA, leaders in the AEA," Clark said of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators and the teachers organization.
Senate Education Committee Chairman Jane English, R-North Little Rock, said she is "thrilled" about Key's appointment as education commissioner.
"I just think he will do a good job. He is very thoughtful. He understands education. I like working with him. I have always been very very impressed with his knowledge and his willingness to dig and work on education issues," English said.
She said she doesn't mind changing the qualifications for the education commissioner.
"We did it for Shane Broadway. Shane Broadway wasn't that bad," she said. Broadway, the former director of the state Department of Higher Education, was a former Democratic lawmaker.
A Section on 03/03/2015