Kennoki joined the House of Councilors in 1953 with the goal of promoting education reform within the LDP.

[1] Kennoki originally rose to prominence as a bureaucrat within the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture.

[7] This request kicked off an investigation into the education system that would result in the Council's publishing of radical new guidelines in 1971, something that would define Japanese educational policy decades on.

Kennoki recalled that the request was made by his own volition, and that he remembers that he only had one other LDP member look over it.

[8] In October 1967, Kennoki declared a militant strike by Nikkyoso (the Japanese teachers' union) over low wages imposed by the Satō government to be illegal, stating that he would only meet with the striking teachers if they renounced their Code of Ethics and did not use force to try and influence government policy.