By Jennifer Brooks - The Tennessean -

Gov. Bill Haslam went outside the state and outside the schoolhouse to find Tennessee's next education commissioner.

Kevin Huffman is a Washington, D.C.-based attorney who has two years of classroom experience and a decade as an administrator at Teach for America, a nonprofit dedicated to taking bright young college students with no teaching experience and training them to teach in some of the poorest schools in the nation.

"I put a special effort into finding the right fit for education commissioner," Haslam said in Thursday's announcement of one of his final Cabinet appointments. "… Kevin combines the experience of having been a bilingual first- and second-grade teacher to helping oversee a national organization with 1,400 full-time employees and a budget of $212 million."

Huffman takes office as the state implements sweeping education reforms, fueled by a half-billion dollars in federal Race to the Top money. A state with some of the lowest test scores and graduation rates in the nation, Tennessee is trying to reinvent itself, and it will be Huffman's job to carry out those reforms.

"I'm very excited to be taking on this enormous opportunity and challenge, grateful to the governor, and looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting to work," Huffman said at his debut media conference at the Capitol.

"There's a national conversation going on right now about how to improve our schools and how to ensure that American kids can compete with kids anywhere in the world," he said. "Tennessee is at the epicenter of that conversation. That's why I'm here; that's why I'm excited."

Huffman said he supports tenure reform for teachers, expanded access to charter schools and pre-kindergarten education that is focused on academic results, not just access. But, he said, "Every kid should have access to something that readies them to go into kindergarten on an equal playing field with kids from wealthier communities."

Unions keep open mind

As Huffman arrived in town, the state's teachers unions were preparing for a Saturday rally to protest what they see as an attack on teacher tenure and collective bargaining rights.

Still, union officials say they're willing to give Huffman a chance.

"He's sort of an unknown quantity to us, but we look forward to sitting down with him," said Jerry Winters, director of government relations for the Tennessee Education Association, the state's largest teachers union. "We're not going to hold his background against him."

Former Education Commissioner Tim Webb, a longtime Tennessee school administrator, now works as Cheatham County's director of schools. But some say the new commissioner's executive background as an outside observer of public education will be a real asset.

"He brings an outsider's perspective, maybe a business perspective, to the job," said J.C. Bowman, executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee, a statewide teachers association.

The learning curve is going to be steep at first, for someone who has never worked or taught in Tennessee, he noted.

"He is going to have to be at the top of his game," Bowman said.

Colleagues delighted

State law requires that the education commissioner "shall be a person of literary and scientific attainments and of skill and experience in school administration. The commissioner shall also be qualified to teach in the school of the highest standing over which the commissioner has authority."

Huffman — raised in Ohio and transplanted here from Washington, D.C. — has a doctorate, but he is not licensed to teach in Tennessee. Haslam noted that there have been past education commissioners who were not licensed, either, but "we're going to make certain we get that right."

Huffman, an early Teach for America graduate, spent two years teaching bilingual first- and second-grade classes in Houston. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the New York University School of Law and was an associate at a Washington law firm specializing in education law before joining Teach for America's administrative staff 10 years ago. He was most recently executive vice president for public affairs.

His Teach for America colleagues in Tennessee were delighted by the news that he had been tapped for the state's highest education post. More than 250 Teach For America graduates are working in high-need Tennessee schools.

"He's someone who understands the value of public education," said Shani Jackson Dowell, executive director of Teach for America Nashville. "We're just really excited. … He has an incredible commitment to student achievement."

Neither the governor nor Huffman would weigh in on a bill working through the legislature that would strip the state's teachers unions of their right to bargain collectively on salaries and other work issues.

Collective bargaining is not on the governor's short list of education priorities this legislative term.

"We're not going to throw 100 things against the wall and see what sticks. We're going to pick a few things that we think are important," Haslam said.

Huffman, 40, is the father of two daughters. He and his wife, Amy, are expecting. His ex-wife, Michelle Rhee, is the former chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools who made headlines with her sweeping reform efforts.

Huffman served as a columnist for The Washington Post last year after winning the newspaper's contest to become a "pundit." His columns can be read at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2009/12/10/LI2009121002695.html.

Contact Jennifer Brooks at 615-259-8892 or jabrooks@tennessean.com.