The Bluegrass Institute recently sat down to talk about public education in Kentucky with Billy Harper, who is president of Harper Industries, a Paducah-based construction company.

Harper has a long record of involvement in education in the Bluegrass State. He recently completed a four-year term on the Kentucky Board of Education, which develops policy and adopts the regulations that govern the commonwealth’s 174 school districts and the state Department of Education.

Gov. Steve Beshear appointed him to the state education board shortly after taking office in 2008. Harper previously was a member of the McCracken County School Board.

The institute is releasing a series of videos based on our interview with Harper as part of National School Choice Week.

In this segment, Harper discussed significant decisions made while he was on the state board – including the hiring of Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday, Ph.D.

Harper commended Holliday for his commitment to working with the commonwealth’s higher education community to improve Kentucky’s public schools, and for his desire to leave a positive mark on the Bluegrass State.

He also praised Holliday – who was hired as the commonwealth’s education commissioner in July 2009, during Harper’s tenure on the board – for his skill at relating both with state lawmakers and local superintendents. (Holliday was a local superintendent in Statesville, N.C. when hired as Kentucky’s commissioner.) Harper says Holliday definitely wants to make a positive mark for change in Kentucky.

Holliday is the only local school superintendent to ever to receive the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which recognizes companies, organizations, businesses and other entities that have shown long-term improvement in quality and productivity.

The honor is an “award for business models, not education (paradigms).”