Noland Named Interim Commissioner of Education

In a surprise move, the Kentucky Board of Education is bringing Mr. Kevin Noland, the former Kentucky Department of Education chief legal counsel, out of retirement to serve as Interim Commissioner Of Education.

Mr. Noland served as interim commissioner several times before and therefore won’t face much of a learning curve for many of the required duties.

However, Mr. Noland takes over, albeit for what should be a short period of time, at a critical point where modern education reform plans in the recently enacted Senate Bill 1 are in the early stages of implementation.

This could be a real challenge because Mr. Noland is part of the “old guard” at the Kentucky Department of Education. He spent much of his career staunchly defending many now discredited ideas that date from the early days of KERA. So, it will be interesting to see how well Kentucky’s new interim commissioner adjusts to the changes in Senate Bill 1 – changes that definitely move us out well beyond the decades out of touch education philosophies that Mr. Noland historically defended.