Written by Valerie Honeycutt-Spears and Jack Brammer of the Herald-Leader
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear does not like Republican Senate President Robert Stivers’ efforts to undo his remake of the Kentucky Board of Education.
His spokeswoman, Crystal Staley, called Stivers’ Senate Bill 10 “an attempt to strip away” Beshear’s powers as the new governor is “trying to change the tone in Frankfort.”
Stivers, miffed that Beshear on his first day in office last December created a new state education board with all Democrats, filed his bill Tuesday to block any similar reorganizations in the future.
Staley said the board Beshear set up is “the best qualified in recent memory,” noting that it includes a superintendent of the year, an inductee into the National Teaching Hall of Fame and a former president of the University of Kentucky.”
Stivers, who said the Republican-controlled Senate will act quickly on the bill, said it would keep future governors from such sweeping changes in the board’s makeup. It would require political, gender, and racial diversity on the board that oversees education in Kentucky’s pubic schools from kindergarten to grade 12.
Stivers (R-Manchester) noted that his bill would mean that the Senate would not confirm Beshear’s appointments to the board but they could be reconsidered for reappointment.
(Cross-posted via the Kentucky Press News Service. Read the rest of the article at the Herald-Leader.)
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