Two Candidates Will Challenge State School Superintendent Jill Underly

Riverwest Elementary School, 2765 N. Fratney St. File photo by Dave Reid.

The race for Wisconsin state superintendent is shaping up with three candidates, including incumbent Superintendent Jill Underly and two challengers who filed their paperwork to run Monday.

The deadline for candidates to file their ballot access papers is Tuesday at 5 p.m.

Brittany Kinser, an educational consultant and former special education teacher and elementary school principal, is the most recent candidate to enter the race. She filed her paperwork to run in December, after initially saying she wouldn’t run, and announced in a press release Monday that she turned in over 3,500 signatures to the Wisconsin Elections Commission for her candidacy.

“This is just the start of our grassroots effort to demand the best education possible for our children,” Kinser said in a statement.

According to the release, Kinser is running on a platform of “ensuring students can read, write and do math skillfully,” and that she “wants to restore high academic standards and make sure students have the skills they need for good jobs after graduation.”

According to WisPolitics, Kinser has described herself as a “Blue Dog Democrat.” Most recently, Kinser has served as CEO of Kinser Consult. Prior to this, she was the president of the City Forward Collective, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit that advocates for school choice.

According to her LinkedIn profile, she previously worked as a special education teacher and instructional coach in Chicago Public Schools for eight years before starting with Rocketship Public Schools, a national network of charter schools with locations in Milwaukee, where she worked for 10 years, including as executive director.

Democrat Jeff Wright, superintendent of Sauk Prairie School District, said he turned in over 2,700 signatures to WEC on Monday. He announced his candidacy for the position in October.

During a press conference at WEC, Wright described himself as a “nonpartisan problem solver,” saying that he wants to help improve communication and develop a more strategic plan for advancing education.

Asked about Kinser’s candidacy, Wright noted her lack of experience in a traditional Wisconsin school district.

“[Kinser] hasn’t worked in a Wisconsin public school district. It’ll be interesting to learn more about what she thinks that she wants to do for public education in the state,” Wright said. “It’ll be interesting to see how someone without the experience of leading a school district changes the race.”

Wright said that he thinks he is the best candidate in part because he has a “real wealth of experience” having taught in Chicago and rural Wisconsin and believes he will be able to bring a lot of people to the table to help tackle issues facing education.

Both Wright and Kinser will face incumbent Underly, who is running for her second term and has said she wants to ensure the state is making investments in public education. She has proposed that the state spend an additional $4 billion on public schools in the next state budget.

Underly has the endorsement of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

Gov. Tony Evers so far has declined to endorse a candidate in the race.

“I’m not taking any position on that,” Evers told reporters during a press conference last week. The comment came after he described recent changes that DPI made to state test score benchmarks as a “mistake.”

Wright and Kinser have been critical of the changes.

The primary for the nonpartisan race is set for Feb. 18. The two candidates with the most votes in the primary will advance to the April 1 general election.

Two candidates officially challenge state schools Superintendent Jill Underly was originally published by Wisconsin Examiner.