Two days after Christmas and only two candidates for State Superintendent of Public Instruction (SSPI) can be found online. The SSPI is the elected leader of the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). What is the rush you ask? Nomination papers, complete with a couple of thousand signatures, are due to be returned to the Wisconsin Election Commission in less than two weeks!

The incumbent, Jill Underly, is a candidate. She is completing her first four-year term and what a term it has been! She has been faulted for mismanagement and poor communications. She is anti-school choice. She and Governor Evers, a former SSPI, don’t see eye-to-eye. Her biggest blunder may have been the changes she made to the standard test scores.

The Institute for Reforming Government recently sent out a release “It’s Time for Supt. Underly to Answer for Test Score Chaos”. The release stated “New test scores for Wisconsin K-12 schools, released last week by DPI, are inflated, biased, and unreliable…” The Badger Institute headlined their release “DPI fabricates testing miracle – but doesn’t help Wisconsin kids read” with a subtitle of “Lower standards set up kids for failure in college and workplaces”.

Underly won’t get my vote, and I am not alone. WEAC’s PAC (the teachers’ union) didn’t endorse the incumbent. In fact, WEAC is so dissatisfied with Underly that they went out and found a candidate to oppose her named Jeff Wright, a School Superintendent with a wealth of experience. Wright is a Democrat having run twice –and faied twice- for the State Assembly. Wright was even endorsed by former President Obama in one of those failed bids.

With Underly’s questionable job performance, I considered Wright as the better of two less than excellent candidates. I even communicated with the Chairman of Wright’s home county Republican Party. His answer was to the effect that while Underly may have problems, Wright is so much worse.

At that point, I knew of two candidates and neither would get my vote. Then a good friend forwarded what looked like a home generated newsletter from a patriotic Catholic citizen that had a lot of commentary on news of the day. This introduced me to candidate number three – a Ron Sari; except I later discovered it was Ron Saari. He has seventeen years of experience as a School Superintendent, has his Masters, and is a supporter of School Choice and CESA offices. He is also a strong supporter of Act 10 and willing to work hard on the pending campaign. I e-mailed the originator of the newsletter for more information (over 24 hours ago) and have had no response.

Shortly thereafter I received a communication from Wisconsin Conservative Digest titled “Brittany Kinser for DPI” with the lead sentence “It looks like we finally have a candidate for DPI that is on the side of providing students with an actual education.” Upon further research, I found a most interesting and diverse background in the world of education, to include being a self-employed educational consultant which she is now. She has been involved in a lot of educationally based organizations – all developed to help the student! When asked about her political leanings, she declined to say as “the office is non-partisan”. She has contributed to Democrats, but also contributed to Deborah Kerr (the lady that Underly beat four years ago). She has been described as a “Blue Dog Democrat” and compared to former Representative Tulsi Gabbard (former Democrat turned Republican).

I think I have found my candidate. It helps that the Wisconsin Conservative Digest commented favorably and that one of Kinser’s (or maybe only) campaign staff is Amy Loudenbeck who you may remember was the Republican Candidate for Secretary of State in November 2022. I got to know Loudenbeck then and have great respect for her.

There are a lot of items waiting on the plate of the new SSPI. One has to clean up the mess that Underly made with the test scores; answer why there are so many school district referendums (and other school finance issues); restore reading, writing, arithmetic, and civics to the classroom experience; deal with declining enrollments across the state; and restore the original opportunity and dignity to Title IX. And, bigger yet, the new SSPI will have to stay in step with changes coming from Washington especially when it comes to the probable demise of the federal Department of Education.

There is much work to be done. Primary Day is Tuesday, February 18, 2025. Maybe in another ten days or less we will have a fifth or even a sixth candidate. “We the people” must educate ourselves about the candidates and the issues; then educate family and friends with encouragement to vote on February 18 and again April 1, 2025. If that is not enough, there are local Boards of Education, county and municipal governments, and judicial elections too. “We the people” must be informed and heard!