Obama taps Kansan for education dept. post

President Barack Obama has nominated Kansas' education commissioner for a key job in the U.S. Department of Education that would pull her back to Washington while the state’s public schools face budget problems. Commissioner Alexa Posny declined Wednesday to discuss her nomination, which requires U.S. Senate confirmation. She’d be assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services. Posny served as director of the federal agency’s office of special education in 2006-07, before the State Board of Education hired her as Kansas’ top public school official. She already enjoyed a strong reputation among educators and legislators when she took the commissioner’s job because of previous work for the state Department of Education. And a key legislator worried about how Posny’s departure would affect the state agency and Kansas’ school system. The state’s financial problems have forced four rounds of budget cuts in seven months, including reductions in aid to public schools. “Schools are having a lot of problems, especially funding problems, and there needs to be strong leadership at the Department of Education,” said Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Jean Schodorf, a Wichita Republican.

State board chairwoman Janet Waugh also acknowledged mixed feelings despite being pleased for Posny. Waugh expects the board to conduct a national search for a new commissioner.

“Certainly, the nation’s gain will be Kansas’ loss,” said Waugh, a Kansas City Democrat.

In nominating Posny this week, the White House not only cited her experience as an administrator but as a teacher. Her career began in the 1970s, when she taught emotionally disturbed students and students with learning disabilities in schools in Middleton, Wis., outside Madison.

She joined the Kansas Department of Education in 1999 as director of special education and, two years later, became a deputy education commissioner, the job she held before leaving for Washington in 2006.

She was a finalist for the commissioner’s job in 2005, but the board instead hired Bob Corkins, then the leader of two conservative think tanks.

The state board’s 10 members are elected, and control over it has alternated over the past decade between conservative Republicans and a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans.

A conservative majority picked Corkins. He resigned after the moderate GOP-Democratic coalition regained control of the board in the 2006 elections.

Kansas, which had intended to devote about $3.8 billion to overall aid to public schools for the coming academic year, has reduced that figure by $163 million, or 4.3 percent. The state’s 293 districts anticipate laying off about 3,000 employees.

Schodorf said she’s disappointed by the timing of Posny’s expected departure but quickly added, “I know I shouldn’t say that, because it’s good for her.”