By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today
The Kentucky Board of Education, with new members appointed by Gov. Matt Bevin in place, voted to accept the forced resignation of Education Commissioner Dr. Stephen Pruitt during a special board meeting on Tuesday.
Pruitt has been commissioner since September 2015. Bevin made it clear Tuesday before the board’s vote he was unhappy with the state’s recent decline in test scores but said the decision to keep Pruitt was up to the board.
Stephen Pruitt was forced to resign as education commissioner on Tuesday.
After swearing in new members Amanda Stamper and Hal Heiner and naming incumbent board member Milton Seymore of Louisville as the chairman, the new board – all appointed under the Bevin administration – spent four hours and 20 minutes deliberating Pruitt’s fate in executive session.
They came out with a resolution amending Pruitt’s contract, which originally ran until 2019. The board said it “does not have grounds or evidence for a ‘for-cause’ termination” and publicly thanked him for his service. The amendment said it would accept Pruitt’s “written resignation” and he would be paid salary and benefits for three months.
Pruitt earned an annual salary of $240,000 and was selected as commissioner in September 2015 — just two months before Bevin won the governor’s race.
The board named Dr. Wayne Lewis, currently executive director of Educational Programs, Kentucky Education & Workforce Development Cabinet and a graduate of the University of Kentucky, as interim commissioner at an annual salary of $150,000, effective immediately.
“I am incredibly honored that the Kentucky Board of Education has decided to place the trust in me that they have,” Lewis said to reporters after the announcement. “I intend to hit the ground running.”
KEA President Stephanie Winkler blasted the decision to force out Pruitt in a Facebook post.
“Despite the outcry of tens of thousands of Kentuckians, today Governor Matt Bevin continued his offensive against public education, this time through proxies and behind closed doors,” said Winkler. “Dr. Stephen Pruitt has been a strong and effective champion for our students and public schools. Forcing an honorable and highly qualified man to resign from his position without any cause is contrary to the best interests of students across the Commonwealth. Unlike our Governor, Commissioner Pruitt made great strides in transparency and accessibility — every administrator, board member and educator knew he was just a phone call away.”
While Pruitt left before the end of the meeting, he was given an ovation by supporters on hand after the board went into its lengthy closed-door session.
“I will always stand for public education wherever I am, whether I’m commissioner or not,” he said. “And I will always make a point to remember that it’s about our children and our educators. So what’s it been like the last 24 hours? I got to serve Kentucky’s kids, and that’s really what I care about.”
House Democratic Leader Rocky Adkins called it “a sad day for public education and the children of Kentucky.”
He said it was another attempt by Bevin to “weaken and dismantle Kentucky’s education system and implement his agenda of charter schools.
“Commissioner Pruitt has done a great job of keeping our schools on course academically and building the type of relationships we expect this office to have with our local school officials. This backhanded move appears to undermine that work, all in the name of moving public-education dollars from the public classrooms to the for-profit classrooms of charter schools.”
If it was actually about the children, public schools would not exist, given their expensive and miserable performance.