Wisconsin is in crisis, and we the people are sleeping.
Only three out of ten students in Wisconsin are college- or career-ready. In Milwaukee, under 20% are proficient in reading and math. Green Bay ranks a tad above that. Even in Wrightstown, with highly ranked schools, just over 50% of students are proficient in reading and less than two-thirds in math. Where are qualified innovators and entrepreneurs, let alone everyday workers, going to come from? Why are parents not in the streets demanding improvement? Accept no excuse for such scores. Across the state and the country, schools with the same mix of students from broken homes and carrying unfortunate baggage are graduating students ready to meet the world.
Next week Tuesday you will have an easy opportunity to make improvements in the state of education in Wisconsin. Three candidates are vying for the office of Superintendent for the Department of Public Instruction, a Constitutional office. We are unique among the states in that we elect this official and have no statewide board of education. Therefore this officer answers to we the people, and nobody else. The Superintendent oversees 2,200 public schools with the help of 600 employees in the department.
Consider incumbent Jill Underly. She has presided over our kids’ education for the past four years and has for the most part followed in the path of her predecessor, current Gov. Tony Evers. Student population has dropped, test scores have dropped even more, and funding has steadily increased.
Because student scores have dropped, Underly concealed that ugly truth from the public by rigging the scores so that kids could get an improved label without actually improving. Shameful and dishonest! Her suggested solution for next year? A four billion dollar budget increase! (Don’t forget that those are your tax dollars, and if history repeats, you won’t get a return on your investment.)
Underly is a fan of DEI/wokism in our schools and supports her department’s workforce working from home. She is viciously opposed to School Choice. She has the backing of the Democrat Party but has received no endorsements from any major education organizations.
A second candidate is Jeff Wright, current superintendent of the Sauk Prairie schools. After graduating from Harvard, he became principal of a Chicago high school. He twice ran for a seat in the Wisconsin Assembly as a Democrat. He believes that under Underly trust in the department has suffered and needs to be restored.
Wright says he will address the black-white achievement gap, one of the worst in the nation. However, he opposes Wisconsin’s pioneer program which empowers parents to choose their child’s school. His website repeats tired myths about the Choice program, and suggest he’ll end it once the political winds change. The state’s largest teachers’ union is supporting him but has stopped short of an endorsement.
Brittany Kinser views the office of Superintendent as an advocate for K-12 education for all students statewide. Kinser has been a special ed teacher, a school principal, a literacy advocate, and president of a charter-and voucher-focused Milwaukee non-profit.
Kinser is the only candidate who admits we have a reading crisis in Wisconsin. Her solution? Return to phonics and methods which emphasize reading comprehension. (Note to Underly and Wright: If you cannot admit there’s a problem you surely aren’t qualified to fix it.) And she will also restore cursive writing to the curriculum.
Kinser won’t politicize education with dangerous ideologies like DEI, nor will she promote boys in girls’ sports.
But maybe her biggest strength is that she believes in education freedom, the long-lost notion that parents should be free to select for their children the kind of education they believe best serves their needs. Regular public schools? Charter schools? Home schooling? Scholarships for private or religious schools? Parents, you are free to choose, and whatever school you choose she will be your Superintendent and have your back.
Parents, grandparents, and taxpayers, you may not be “in the streets,” but at a minimum find yourselves at the polls on February 18 (or vote early if you wish). I will be voting for the only candidate for the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction who will break from the failed past and give kids a real chance: Brittany Kinser. I agree with the CEO of the Institute for Reforming Government who said Kinser “is right on all the issues.”
