The return of a top administrator to the Kansas Department of Education is a positive sign for the state’s schools.

Members of the Kansas State Board of Education voted Wednesday to hire Alexa Posny as the state’s next commissioner of education. Posny, who was selected after a search process that lasted several months, replaces Commissioner Bob Corkins, who wisely resigned his post immediately after fall elections ensured the demise of the supportive conservative board majority that had hired him.

Posny left her job as deputy education commissioner in 2006 after she was passed over for the commissioner’s job in favor of Corkins, who had no experience as an educator or education administrator. In a move that highlighted the board’s apparently faulty hiring decision, Posny left Kansas to take over as director of the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education.

Now, however, Kansas will be able to take advantage of Posny’s expertise. One board member who had supported Corkins voted for Posny’s hiring and called her “an excellent candidate.” Two others were absent from the meeting. Only John Bacon of Olathe voted against her hiring.

The decision to bring Posny back to Kansas and the board’s decision this week to revise its stand on teaching sex education in public schools are hopeful signs that the board is moving in a direction more to the liking of a majority of Kansans. The current board backed off the previous board’s recommendations that schools teach an abstinence-only sex education curriculum and require parents to give specific permission for their children to attend those classes.

This week, the board recommended that schools teach an “abstinence-plus” curriculum that encourages abstinence until marriage but also includes what Board President Bill Wagnon called a “comprehensive educational program about sex.” The board also decided to leave the matter of parental permission up to individual school districts, which are in a far better position to respond to the desires of parents.

These moves, along with February’s vote to scrap science standards that de-emphasized the teaching of evolution in Kansas schools seem to be getting the state’s K-12 education system back on a more moderate and professional track. It will be good to have a career education professional back at the helm of the Department of Education. It is hoped her leadership will help the board steer a more stable philosophical course that emphasizes student curriculum and achievement rather than being sidetracked by various political agendas.