Despite being an off-year election this year, several states saw high-stakes elections that could have major implications on the education landscape in their communities.

One of those high-stakes elections is the governor’s race in Kentucky, where the results mean that big education changes are likely to be in the state’s future.

Business executive and Republican candidate Matt Bevin beat Attorney General Jack Conway for governor of Kentucky; Bevin, a vehement opponent of Common Core, has made it his mission to oust the standards as soon as possible.

Bevin has been consistently against the standards since he began his journey to political office, calling Common Core “federal overreach" in 2014 during his run for U.S. Senate.

"Local control of education empowers parents and educators to advocate on behalf of our children and their individual needs. Common Core is just another example of unconstitutional government overreach - more of the same that is not working for America," he said, according to The Courier-Journal. 

While Bevin cannot take down Common Core alone, he has made it adamantly clear that he intends to do away with the standards by developing rigorous state standards to give more control to the local levels of education.

If Kentucky effectively scraps the Common Core under Bevin's leadership for state-designed standards, it will join a slew of other states now backing away, 

And, according to Education Week, Bevin might change the education landscape in Kentucky in some other ways, as well.

”...Bevin has promoted vouchers as well as charter schools, two school choice programs that Kentucky lawmakers have so far resisted. It's unclear, however, exactly how much political capital Bevin would sink into pushing for expanded choice.”

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

11/04/2015