Expressing no regrets regarding his time leading Kentucky’s schools, outgoing Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis doubled-down on a parting message to both his supporters and his critics: Put kids first.
“Even,” he said, “when that means making decisions that inconvenience adults or cause us to have to do things in ways that we haven’t traditionally done them.”
In an exclusive interview with The Courier Journal, Lewis said the message was not directed at any specific group.
But among those surely on the receiving end are the state’s public school educators and the groups that represent them, the Kentucky Education Association and KY 120 United.
With those groups’ full backing, newly elected Gov. Andy Beshear cleaned house last week at the Kentucky Board of Education, prompting Lewis’ swift resignation.
Lewis, who is leaving the state for another job, didn’t complain about the process surrounding his ouster. And he wished the new board, comprised entirely of Beshear appointees, good fortune as it moves forward.
But as for how he became — in the minds of many Kentucky teachers — a symbol for an anti-public school agenda, Lewis on Tuesday remained baffled.
“People would ask me the same question, ‘Why do people think you don’t like public schools or public education?’” Lewis said.
“And I gave them the same answer I gave you: ‘I can’t tell you. I don’t know.’”
A misunderstood figure?
Lewis said his support for public education was “well documented,” both through his career and his personal choices.
“I became a public school teacher,” he said. “I’ve served public schools as a higher ed faculty member, as a program administrator. My wife’s a public school educator. My kid attends public schools.
“It’s really kind of silly that anybody would be able to kind of critique or lecture me about support of public schools.”
Yet it was his name — and the pledge to remove him — that Beshear used to gin up votes during this year’s governor’s race against incumbent Gov. Matt Bevin. Beshear had just three specific campaign promises: rescind Bevin’s Medicaid work requirements; restore felony voting rights; and fire Wayne Lewis.
In the end, Beshear’s strategy worked.
Lewis on Tuesday declined to comment on the outcome of the election.
But he maintained his record was misconstrued — portrayed one way by his critics, and viewed an entirely opposite way by those who got to know him during his 11 years in Kentucky.
“Every time I get the opportunity to actually talk with people, or they hear me speak, or I’m in the same place with them, or they read something that I actually wrote,” he said, ” … they will generally come up to me in large numbers and say, ‘Oh, you’re not who I thought you were.’”
Not all would agree, however, that Lewis is misunderstood.
A policy adviser for former Gov. Matt Bevin before taking the top job at the Kentucky Department of Education, Lewis’ record of advocating for charter schools catalyzed critics early on.
His decision, just two weeks into his job as commissioner, to press for the takeover of the state’s largest district, Jefferson County Public Schools, drew further ire from those who believed Lewis was playing politics on behalf of Bevin — the state’s controversial leader who had already rankled Kentucky’s public school educators.
Though much of the criticism against Lewis was homegrown, his roughly 20-month tenure at the education department — and how teachers came to perceive him — was undoubtedly also influenced by national events, including a growing backlash against charter schools and a wave of teacher activism, particularly in Republican-controlled states.
Despite the political cost, Lewis continued pushing for charter funding.
Lawmakers never delivered.
Without the money to pay for them, no charter schools have opened in Kentucky.
On Tuesday, Lewis appeared to concede.
“Is there a future for charter schools in Kentucky? I have no idea,” he told The Courier Journal.
“In terms of whether there should be: Frankly, I’m indifferent.”
Charter school criticism ‘not reasonable’
When it comes to charters, and Lewis’ role in propping up the publicly funded but privately managed schools, he again said he has been greatly misunderstood.
Yes, he has advocated for charters, he said. But that advocacy has been only “one piece, one policy that I’ve advocated for.”
He has devoted much more time and effort over his career to other issues, including early childhood education and career and technical education, he said.
Charter advocacy “hasn’t been even close to a sizable portion of the work that I’ve done in government, yet it is primarily what people talk about,” Lewis said. “That’s not reasonable, neither does it match up with with reality.”
Still, Lewis said, parents should be given a choice when it comes to their children’s education. Charter schools “are just one way to do that,” he said.
“I say this as a parent: You don’t care what kind of tag is on the school. You want your kid to go to a great school. And it’s our responsibility to make sure parents have those types of options.”
The belief that families should have choice is ingrained in Lewis, a native New Orleanian, whose family enrolled him in Catholic schools rather than traditional neighborhood schools.
“I’m positive there were professionals (at the neighborhood schools) who worked really hard and did everything they could to get kids prepared,” he said. “But the truth is, had I had no other option but to attend my neighborhood schools based on where I lived, I would have never made it to Kentucky. I wouldn’t have earned a Ph.D. at North Carolina State. I wouldn’t have earned tenure at the University of Kentucky.
“I would have never become commissioner of education.”
‘Inexcusable’ achievement gaps
Lewis, the state’s first black education commissioner, said his race didn’t affect his work at the department.
Still, throughout his tenure, Lewis directed the state’s attention to racial inequities, including the “incredibly troubling” achievement gaps in JCPS that he, in 2018, cited among his reasons for wanting a state takeover of the district.
More recently, Lewis has warned that Kentucky faces an “academic emergency,” with 40% of its black students having little to no understanding of grade-level content, according to standardized testing results.
“That frankly is inexcusable,” he said.
Though some urban charter school networks have shown promising results for black students, Lewis said that strategy for improvement hasn’t been his sole focus.
“I’ve been an advocate of every approach that you can pick under the sun,” he said, pointing to examples of what he called “high-quality choice” already available in Kentucky, including JCPS’ W.E.B. DuBois Academy.
As for his critics, Lewis directed them to one of his first official actions as commissioner: eliminating the Kentucky Department of Education’s charter school division.
“Why? Because Kentucky didn’t have any charter schools,” he said. “So we didn’t need a division of charter schools. We didn’t need an administrator making really good money as a director.”
Continued sickouts ‘not OK’
Funding for charter schools is not expected to be discussed during the General Assembly’s upcoming biennial budget session.
But other controversial measures may again rear their heads, including a proposal to create a scholarship tax credit.
It is unclear whether teachers will, in turn, mobilize the massive “sickouts” that shut down JCPS, a district of roughly 100,000 students, several times in early 2019.
Lewis, who drew flak for threatening discipline against teachers who continued to push for protests, said teachers’ voices deserve to be heard in Frankfort. But, he added, not at the expense of students’ learning time.
Lewis took particular issue with a group of JCPS teachers that continued calling in sick, despite a deal to allow delegations of educators to lobby their cause while keeping schools open.
JCPS was forced to close its schools six times between Feb. 28 and March 14.
“I didn’t say a word until after day five,” Lewis recalled.
“It’s just not OK for kids to be out of school for six days over a two week period,” he added. “It’s not OK in any one of our districts — but it only happened in one school district in Kentucky.”
No regrets
Asked if he regretted any actions he took as commissioner, Lewis took a long pause before saying: “There’s no decision I would say I regret.”
Still, he said it took time for him to learn how to balance commitments while leading the agency. It wasn’t until he received staff feedback that he realized it was important to not just be visible in schools, but to also be an active presence at the department’s Frankfort headquarters.
The new state board of education will now launch a national search for Lewis’ replacement.
Lewis said it’s critical for Kentucky’s new commissioner to understand that leading the department isn’t necessarily akin to leading a giant school district. The job, which requires maintaining positive relationships with other government agencies, is inherently political, he said.
“I couldn’t imagine, honestly, having come into the job without having some government experience,” said Lewis, who previously served under Bevin’s Education and Workforce Development Cabinet.
As for Lewis, he is headed to Nashville, where he will start Jan. 1 as the inaugural dean for Belmont University’s new school of education.
Lewis, who has spent the bulk of his career in academia, called the job an “incredible opportunity.”
The quick turnaround in finding a job wasn’t a fluke. He visited the private Christian university’s campus shortly after Bevin lost the election to Beshear, interviewing for the position while there.
“I knew anything was possible,” he said, referring to his impending ouster. “I have a family and I intend to stay employed.”
Reflecting on his tenure at the Kentucky Department of Education, Lewis said he kept a “laser focus” on what was best for students — despite what anyone else thinks.
“The only thing I’ve ever asked for people, is to judge me, make your decisions on me, based on what I’ve done,” he said.
” … I don’t have control about what other folks say about me. I have control over what I say and what I do. And I’m proud of the work that I’ve done.”
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Written by Mandy McLaren. Cross-posted from the
Courier-Journal via the Kentucky Press News Service.