Kentucky voters could have an extra race added to their ballots starting in the 2026 elections.

Currently, the state Board of Education is appointed by the governor and approved by the Senate.

Senate Bill eight, however, would put the issue to the voters, electing 14 board members across the seven Supreme Court districts.

The elections would be partizan, but the bill's sponsor says this isn't politically motivated.

This bill is the result of years of watching appointments to the state board used as political favors to gain political control.

And we've seen it on both sides of the aisle.

We've seen it under our former Republican governor used it to actually fire one of the best or run off, I guess one of the best super R commissioners I think that I ever had the pleasure of serving with.

And then also we saw the current governor took office, he abolished the sitting board and then he appointed a brand new one consisting entirely of Democrats.

Opponents of this bill like to say that filling and filing of this bill is due to politics.

Respectfully, I disagree.

I've seen no evidence that this change will improve educational outcomes, that moving to partizan elections is good for our kids.

In fact, eight out of the ten top states that perform at the top of our educational outcomes have appointed school boards, and there are very few that have boards that are elected in a partizan way.

Just two years ago, we reorganized this board to ensure it represented the breadth of perspective, as in Kentucky, to ensure it reflected things like partizan, political ideology, gender diversity, racial diversity.

And I think that's a good approach to ensure that the breadth of experience and perspectives of Kentuckians are represented in what is the foundation of our Commonwealth.

Seven Republicans joined all seven Democrats in voting no.

The bill passed 24 to 14.