RALEIGH — Gov. Roy Cooper’s first three picks for the State Board of Education are unlikely to shake up the education establishment, a top conservative education analyst says.
Newcomers Sandra Byrd and John Buxton are underwhelming picks by Cooper, said Terry Stoops, vice president of research and education studies at the John Locke Foundation.
“Cooper’s nominees to the N.C. State Board of Education will likely disappoint some of the more strident activists in the Democratic Party,” Stoops said. “His appointees have more in common with those appointed by former Gov. Pat McCrory than with the Moral Monday crowd.”
Byrd is a retired education professor from UNC Asheville. She also served as the university’s assistant provost, working there from 1986 until 2011. She now is an independent education consultant.
Buxton served as deputy state superintendent of North Carolina from 2007-09, and was an education adviser to former Gov. Mike Easley from 2001-06.
Also a consultant, Buxton is the founder of the Raleigh-based Education Innovations Group.
The third appointee, Reginald Kenan, is a returning board member.
Kenan, a Duplin County lawyer and former Duplin County School Board member, was appointed to the state board in 2009 by Gov. Bev Perdue.
The board has 13 members, 11 of them selected by the governor. The remaining two nominations are made by the lieutenant governor and state treasurer.
Six non-voting advisers also are appointed to the board.
Board members serve eight-year terms.
Legislative leaders are likely to confirm Cooper’s picks, Stoops said.
“There is nothing to suggest that these nominees will encounter strong opposition from the Republican-dominated legislature, a fact that likely played a role in Cooper’s decision to nominate them to the state board.”
But tensions between the General Assembly and the state board may come into play during confirmation hearings.
Legislators in December passed a law that stripped some powers from the board, handing them instead to newly elected State Superintendent Mark Johnson.
The board filed a lawsuit in return.
“I suspect that legislators will ask each nominee to comment on the lawsuit between the state superintendent and the State Board of Education,” Stoops said. “Nominees’ willingness to side with the former, as lawmakers have done, may ease their path to confirmation.”
Still, there’s no guarantee the legislature will accept Cooper’s nominations without some pushback.
“As always, timing is an issue,” Stoops concluded. “Legislators may choose to delay confirmation simply to ruffle the feathers of their political nemesis.”