State-Journal.com - Education Reform: Failed searches for commissioner, president don't bode well

Is education reform in Kentucky " pre-school through graduate school " dead?
If it's not ready for the morticians, it's definitely on life support.
Consider:
The Kentucky State Board of Education spends months and $50,000 searching for a new commissioner of the Department of Education and comes up with the superintendent of a suburban Chicago school district, Barbara Erwin.
Erwin has never administered a statewide public school system, hasn't administered a local school system beyond a medium-sized city's.
Her resume is full of inaccuracies and exaggerations. She's controversial in all the places she previously worked, and her personnel file mysteriously disappears in Illinois just as she is preparing to retire and take the Kentucky job.
To everyone's relief, Erwin resigns before she ever sets foot in her new office, citing all the media attention she receives.
Is this the best the nation has to offer Kentucky's schools?
Within days of the Erwin debacle, the Council on Postsecondary Education announces its nationwide search for a new president has turned up no one worthy of the job. That's after months of searching at a cost of $70,000.
And this is a job that is supposed to be the top of the heap in Kentucky higher education at a time when Kentucky is aiming at becoming a nationally-ranked center of academic research and distinguished scholarship equal to the nation's best public universities.
Some critics contend the problem is with the Council and Board of Education, both filled with appointees of Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who aren't wedded to education reform and therefore aren't interested in the best educators to take these top jobs.
I think the main problem is that the caliber of people who were education commissioner since KERA was enacted in 1990 and Council president since it was created in 1997 take at look at Kentucky in 2007 and walk away from what they perceive to be an impossible challenge.
Many of the innovative programs in KERA are gone for lack of funding. We can pay for $30 million new high schools but not incentive rewards for successful teachers in the school.
And those teachers are faced with meeting KERA benchmarks and federal No Child Left Behind benchmarks at the same time the General Assembly isn't even keeping up with their retirement system payments.
As for higher education, state colleges and universities at least have been able to raise tuition and fees over the last five years to offset falling state budget appropriations. Local school systems can't do that unless they raise taxes and the public won't support higher taxes.
The governor and General Assembly would rather borrow more than $400 million to build pretty new buildings on campuses all over the state than use the same amount to match private donations for the defunct Bucks for Brains program.
Pretty buildings generate votes. Endowed chairs in academic disciplines most legislators can't even spell don't pay off on election day.
As for the Council and its presidency, powerful legislators aligned with regional universities and powerful presidents at the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville have succeeded in undermining both on important functions.
So, do we nail the lid of education reform in Kentucky?
Not necessarily. With determination and leadership, there is still a chance to bring life back to the patient.
Fletcher and his Democratic opponent in November, Steve Beshear, have the opportunity in the weeks ahead to reinvigorate the education reform movement, to lay out concrete ways they will meet the funding demands of pre-school programs and graduate school programs, all the while restoring the innovative reform features that have fallen away for lack of money.
Voters must demand to know how each candidate will stop the swift erosion of education reform that nearly brought Barbara Erwin to Frankfort and hasn't brought anyone of quality to lead Kentucky's public higher education system.
If Fletcher and Beshear fall short, then call for the hearse.