AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage on Wednesday turned to another member of his inner circle to fill a key Cabinet post.

LePage nominated Stephen Bowen, currently his senior policy adviser on education, to be commissioner of the Department of Education.

Bowen is the second senior LePage policy adviser to be chosen for a key Cabinet post. The governor last week swore in Mary Mayhew as commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“It’s bittersweet, because he’s done a marvelous job as education policy adviser,” LePage said during a State House news conference Wednesday.

LePage selected Bowen despite a written review by the State Board of Education that criticized the governor’s pick for having “very limited administrative experience” and “very little background in implementing educational reform.”

State law requires that the Board of Education weigh in on the governor’s choice for commissioner before the nomination is announced. Bowen interviewed with board members last week.

LePage said Bowen makes up for a lack of administrative experience because he’s someone with “leadership, loyalty and the most important thing, someone who cares about the kids.”

Bowen said he’d compensate by traveling to school districts and speaking with superintendents, teachers, parents, students and others concerned about education.

“I’m not coming into this presuming that I have all the answers,” he said. “I have to go out and listen. It’s going to be an open dialogue.”

Before starting work for LePage last month, Bowen directed the Center for Education Excellence at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a conservative think tank.

In that position, Bowen lobbied legislators and authored position papers advocating for greater school choice, charter schools, tying teacher pay to students’ academic performance and aggressive measures to fix underperforming schools.

Bowen, of Rockport, served in the Maine House of Representatives as a Republican from 2002 to 2006.

He also has experience as a teacher. From 1997 to 2000, he taught social studies at a high school in Fairfax County, Va., before returning to Maine to teach at Camden-Rockport Middle School from 2000 to 2007.

Bowen — who holds a master’s degree in education from George Mason University — took leaves of absence from his teaching job to serve in the state Legislature.

Democrats criticized LePage’s pick Wednesday.

“His resume does not seem to have a lot of teaching experience, management experience, relationship experience with superintendents and districts,” said Sen. Justin Alfond, D-Portland, assistant Senate minority leader. “I’m concerned.”

In a statement, House Minority Leader Emily Cain focused on Bowen’s tenure at the Maine Heritage Policy Center.

“We hope he will be able to put aside the political rhetoric and put forth policy that is based on reality and that will bring together teachers, students, parents and administrators,” said Cain, D-Orono.

But Dale Douglass, executive director of the Maine School Management Association, said Bowen has proven adept at listening to all sides of a debate.

“I think people will find him to be a quick study, and I think that he will be a person who will turn to all of the major groups for information and guidance as he learns the ins and outs of all the details of school law and school funding,” said Douglass, whose organization represents Maine school boards and superintendents.

Rep. Peter Johnson, a Greenville Republican who sits on the Legislature’s Education Committee, praised Bowen and recommended he appoint a deputy commissioner with experience as a school administrator.

“Where we need to go as a state now is to have a visionary and figure out which policies make sense,” he said. “I would look for him to shake up the school system, and for any bureaucracy, that’s a good thing once in a while.”

At Wednesday’s announcement, Bowen said he supports charter schools and ongoing efforts in some Maine schools to do away with traditional grade levels and instead group students by ability levels.

He also called for schools to use teacher evaluations as a way to target appropriate training to teachers.

Teachers are “being asked to do something unprecedented,” Bowen said, “but they’re not getting the support they need.”