State Superintendent Race Has Big Stakes

Jill Underly and Brittany Kinser. Photos from the campaigns.

It may be the undercard in the April 1 elections, but the contest to be the next state superintendent of public instruction is important.

While the fight between two Circuit Court judges, Brad Schimel and Susan Crawford, for a state Supreme Court seat gets national attention and attracts record — and frightening — amounts of spending, Wisconsin voters should pay attention to who will run the stare’s education agency.

The candidates to run the state Department of Public Instruction (DPI) are incumbent Jill Underly, who is seeking a second four-year term, and Brittany Kinser, an educational consultant. Because there are no nonpartisan statewide elections anymore, Underly is the Democrats’ choice and Kinser the Republicans’.

There are several reasons why who oversees DPI is important.

First, current and future federal funds for Wisconsin’s educational programs come to DPI from the U.S. Department of Education. It’s not an insignificant amount: $1.7 billion in federal aid in the state’s two-year budget ending on July 1.

With President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress moving to abolish the U.S. Department of Education, Wisconsin’s education agency will play a more critical role in deciding how future federal funds are spent.

Second, although DPI depends on the governor and Legislature for its budget, the office of superintendent has broad powers that include deciding how to measure students’ progress.

Underly’s change in student testing is a major campaign issue. DPI changed the threshold for what is proficient on the state tests and changed the terms to describe student success. Terms like “basic” and “below basic” are no longer being used, for example, and students are no longer “proficient” but said to “meet” expectations.

The change made it impossible to compare scores for the 2023-2024 school year with previous years.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, a former superintendent of public instruction, said the change “could have been handled better” and is not endorsing either candidate.

Republican legislators passed a bill requiring DPI to go back to the previous tests.

Kinser charges that Underly lowered “testing standards set to measure the progress of our children when it comes to reading, writing, and doing math well…. Lowering standards just covered up the struggles of our students without solving the problem — which was exactly Underly’s goal heading into a re-election campaign.”

“What they’re accusing me of is absolutely untrue,” Underly told a Capital Times reporter. “We raised standards in math and science, and we’ve implemented additional standards and added more standards in career and tech education. What we did was what’s best for kids.”

If elected, Kinser promises “to restore high standards.”

Third, the next superintendent of public instruction will play an important role in the debate over any further expansion of school choice programs that let students statewide attend private schools with vouchers paid for by state taxpayers.

“We have to stop taking money out of our public schools through privatization schemes like school vouchers,” Underly said in another interview. “If we’re going to exceed expectations in academic achievement, we can’t be taking money from our public schools to do that.”

At a wispolitics.com forum, Kinser said she is “pro-voucher” because, “I am pro-kid, so if there are kids going to vouchers, I will be pro-voucher school, too, because that’s what families are choosing.”

This school year, more than 54,000 students are attending private schools using vouchers, an 8% increase in a year. School choice this year will cost $531.7 million, a combination of state aid and property taxes.

Kinser is endorsed by Howard Fuller, a former Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent and a longtime advocate of choice, which started as a small Milwaukee program in 1989.

“For over a decade, I have respected [Kinser’s] work in the Milwaukee community as a school leader and advocate for children and families,” Fuller said in a statement. “Wisconsin deserves new leadership at DPI.”

Underly is endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin, whose vice-president Jon Shelton called Underly’s budget proposal for state education “visionary.”

Kinser has been a special education teacher in Chicago public schools, a Milwaukee school principal, and executive director of a national public charter school network. She co-founded 95 Wisconsin, an initiative with the goal of having 95% of Wisconsin children achieve reading proficiency.

Underly was superintendent of the Pecatonica Area School Board when she ran four years ago. Her 25-year career in public education includes work as a DPI supervisor and at UW-Madison.

Undercard race? Maybe. But an important one.

Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com.