Brittany Kinser discussed her plans for leading the state education department at a forum with reporters Tuesday. On many issues she said she "is not an expert" and would need to learn more.High school classroom. (Dan Forer | Getty Images)
State Superintendent candidate Brittany Kinser said Tuesday she would support Milwaukee schools and advocate for reform to the state funding formula if elected, but declined to explain what she would specifically advocate for, saying that she needs more information and isn’t an expert.
Kinser, an education consultant, is challenging incumbent Jill Underly for the nonpartisan position in the April 1 election. The state superintendent is responsible for overseeing the state’s 421 public school districts, leading the state Department of Public Instruction and has a seat on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regent.
At an hour-long event hosted by the Milwaukee Press Club, the Rotary Club of Milwaukee and WisPolitics, Kinser answered questions from WisPolitics President Jeff Mayers and the audience about her stances. Both DPI candidates were invited to take part, but Underly declined. The two candidates participated in a conversation hosted by other groups last week.
Kinser has outraised her opponent partially due to the contributions she’s brought in from the Republican Party. According to recent campaign finance filings, Kinser raised $1,859,360 from Feb. 4 through Mar. 17. The Republican Party of Wisconsin contributed $1.65 million, and other political organizations $8,380, while individuals contributed $200,980.
Underly raised $1,063,866 in the same time period, with $850,000 coming from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
Mayers asked Kinser, who has previously called herself a moderate, whether the support makes her “uncomfortable” because she is being cast “as the conservative Republican individual” in the race.
“I’m very thankful for all of my supporters. I’m thankful for the Republicans, the Democrats, the independents who have supported me,” Kinser said.
Kinser spoke to some of the issues that Milwaukee Public Schools, the state’s largest school district, has faced in recent years, including the financial crisis that led to audits by the state, recent results from the “nation’s report card” that show wide racial achievement gaps in the district, and reports of lead in schools. Kinser, who has worked in the charter school sector in Milwaukee in the past and is from Wauwatosa, has repeatedly criticized her opponent for problems in the district.
Kinser said she thinks some of the problems are a result of the governance and leadership of the district and said she is excited about the recently hired MPS superintendent.
Brenda Cassellius, a former superintendent of Boston Public Schools and former Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Education, started her tenure earlier this month — taking over a vacancy left by the former superintendent who resigned after details emerged of a financial crisis at the district.
“We all need to support her because her successes are children’s success, so we need to make sure that she has the support she needs,” Kinser said.
She said she hasn’t spoken to Cassellius yet.
“I’ve been a little busy, but I hope to meet her,” Kinser said. “If I get elected, she’ll be definitely on the top of my list to reach out to.”
Kinser said that she hopes Cassellius will “create very clear goals on what she wants to see with operations and academics, financials, and that she can meet those goals.” If the problems persist after some time, that would be the time for the state to step in, she said.
Kinser said she hasn’t supported splitting up the district — as Republicans have proposed in the past — but she would be open to discussing the possibility.
“I think that would actually cause more bureaucracy,” Kinser said. “If that’s what the community wanted, I’d be supportive as long as we could show the kids would have better results, that kids can learn how to read, they’re not going to be poisoned by lead — all of those things.”
Kinser said she wants to open a DPI office in Milwaukee to work with the district.
When it comes to funding, Kinser said MPS gets a lot of money per child, but said special education is underfunded.
“I want to make sure we have an increase,” Kinser said. She has said that she thinks the current reimbursement model for special education costs is outdated and would want to look to other states to see if there is another way to do it.
Kinser again said that she would want to help modernize the state funding formula, but she didn’t provide specific suggestions. She said she would want to look at other states and consult with others when asked about her ideas for modernizing the funding formula. She named Florida, Colorado as states with funding models she would want to look at.
“I would hire someone to help me do this work because I am not a financial expert in school funding and so would have to look and see what they’re doing in other states,” Kinser said.
She also emphasized that the ultimate decision wouldn’t be made by the state superintendent.
“We could provide ideas. The Legislature and the governor have to sign off. I’m not a lawmaker,” Kinser said. “People talk about this role as if it were a lawmaker.”
While the state superintendent recommends an education budget, the final proposal comes from the governor’s office. For the 2025-27 budget, which state lawmakers will take up starting in April, Underly submitted a proposal to increase public education by $4 billion. Gov. Tony Evers trimmed that back to more than $3 billion before submitting his draft budget.
Kinser declined to weigh in on whether Evers’ recommendation was “right or wrong.”
“I haven’t created my own state budget,” said Kinser, who is making her first run for public office. “I just started this 100 days ago, but I would want to make sure that it’s something that is possible because you want to be taken seriously by the Legislature and the governor.”
Across the state, many school districts have held referendum votes in the last couple of years to increase local property taxes, covering budget shortfalls.
Kinser said she agrees there are too many referendums, but also said she hadn’t thought about whether the state is relying too much on property taxes for school funding. Asked if the state should rely more on sales tax or the income tax to fund schools, Kinser said she thinks the state would probably need to rely on both.
“I don’t know. Like I’m telling you, I’m not an expert in that,” Kinser said. “I promise to learn more about it [and] try to find the best way for communities, but I don’t want to say something that I’m not an expert in.”
She added that she would seek advice on such matters. “I promise to have experts around me to answer these questions that you’re [asking], talk with Republicans, Democrats, independents, anyone that owns a home, that has children, worried about their kids,” Kinser said.
Kinser has never held a teacher’s license in Wisconsin, and she recently updated her Wisconsin administrator’s license after a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report that her license had lapsed in 2024.
She emphasized that there is no requirement in state law that the state superintendent hold a teacher’s or administrator’s license
“We’re not trying to be a teacher or a principal in the school. You don’t need that. You just need to be a citizen of Wisconsin,” Kinser said. She added that she has a varied background with experience as a special education teacher as well as a charter school principal and leader, but that getting licensed in Wisconsin was difficult.
Kinser, who supports school choice and has lobbied for increased funding to voucher schools, was also asked about a report from the Journal Sentinel published Tuesday morning. The report found that a Milwaukee-based virtual private school received millions of dollars from the state despite being virtual — blurring the lines between the state voucher program, which uses state funds to send students to private and charter schools, and homeschooling, which isn’t eligible for state funding.
“Does that bother you as an educator that there’s this virtual school that’s getting this much state money?” Mayer asked.
“I would have to look into this,” Kinser said. “I did not read the article today. I was not made aware. Sounds like there’s some controversy there.”
Brittany Kinser headshot. Photo: courtesy of campaign. State Superintendent Jill Underly speaking at a rally in the Capitol. Photo: Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.
State superintendent candidates, incumbent Jill Underly and education consultant Brittany Kinser, answered questions about public school funding, the state’s voucher program and working with the Legislature during an online forum Wednesday evening.
The forum was hosted by the Wisconsin Public Education Network (WPEN), the NAACP, the League of Women’s Voters and Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed and moderated by Kevin Lawrence Henry, Jr., Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at UW-Madison.
The race for the nonpartisan office will appear on voters’ ballots April 1 alongside the high-profile state Supreme Court race. The state superintendent is responsible for overseeing Wisconsin’s 421 public school districts and leading the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), which administers state and federal funds, licenses teachers, develops educational curriculum and state assessments and advocates for public education.
Underly, who was elected to her first term in 2021, said she has the relationships, experiences and “deep knowledge of what it takes to lead Wisconsin’s public schools.” She said that she is “100% pro public school” and said that improvements have been made to Wisconsin’s education system, but there is more work to be done.
Kinser said that her “vision for Wisconsin education is that 95% of children will be able to read well enough to go to college, have a career or a meaningful job or master of trade” and is running “to restore our high standards.” She referenced the recent changes approved by Underly in 2024 to state testing standards, but this was the only mention of what has become a major issue among the candidates and state lawmakers who have launched an audit into the changes and passed a bill to reverse them.
Both candidates said the state’s educational gaps must be addressed, but had varying answers on how to do that. According to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), about three out of every 10 fourth graders and eighth graders were at or above proficient levels.
“We have got to take accountability at the state level for how our children are learning or not learning… This is a crisis,” Kinser said. “That’s why I got into this race. We have got to hold ourselves accountable. We have got to make it transparent. We have to make sure that it’s easy for all of us to know the information right now.”
Kinser said she has been researching some of the best practices around the country and wants to bring “more transparency and predictability” to DPI.
Underly said the gaps are “absolutely unacceptable.” She said they know how to solve the problem but that “it takes money and it takes effort.”
Both candidates said they would want to look at the state’s funding formula for schools, though Underly said that the state’s school choice program, which allows students to attend private and independent charter schools using public dollars, is draining needed resources from public schools and making problems worse.
“It goes back 30-plus years to [former Gov.] Tommy Thompson and his effort to defund public schools and send funding to unaccountable voucher schools, and this goes back to the refusal of the Legislature to fund public schools and the efforts that they make to defund public schools,” Underly said. “I say, give us the tools we need to do the work, and we can get it done.”
Underly added that she would have to sue if the Legislature continued not investing in schools, as required by the state constitution.
Kinser said that she would also want to look at the funding formula. She said that throughout her campaign she has learned that most people agree that the funding formula is “broken” and is in need of “an upgrade.” She also said that she would be interested in examining whether there is a better way to fund special education costs other than through the current reimbursement system.
“Schools are operating with limited resources, are concerned and tired of actually paying the referendums,” Kinser said. “Wisconsin’s funding formula needs to be modernized, and I promise to be a leader in that… I have relationships on both sides of the aisle and rapport with the governor’s office. We have to make sure that it’s updated.”
Underly said that she has worked to develop relationships with legislators, and has worked to “foster productive dialogue, even when we don’t agree.” She noted that collaboration between DPI and the Legislature helped get Act 20, a law that implemented new literacy requirements, passed.
Kinser took credit for helping get Act 11 passed in 2023. The bill provided a historic funding increase to independent charter schools and private schools participating in the Parental Choice Programs and raised the revenue ceiling for public schools to $11,000 for the 2023-24 school year.
“It was the Republicans plus five Democrats in Milwaukee,” Kinser said about the lawmakers who supported the bill. “The governor’s office signed that bill, so it was a group effort to get more funding for all the schools and then some other areas that the governor prioritized.”
Kinser, during her time at the City Forward Collective, a Milwaukee-based school choice advocacy group, lobbied for a bill that increased funding to Wisconsin voucher schools.
While most of the conversation throughout the forum was cordial, the candidates butted heads at the end over Kinser’s lack of a teacher’s license and her support of the state’s choice program.
“I don’t believe she fully understands how public schools work in Wisconsin,” Underly said. “She’s made this claim routinely, for example, that only three in 10, or 30 percent of kids, are able to read, or that they’re college ready, and that makes absolutely no sense. We’ve made incredible gains in Wisconsin — how can we be sixth in the nation? And I think my vision has had a lot to do with that.”
Underly also underscored Kinser’s background as a lobbyist advocating for school vouchers and independent charter schools.
Kinser pushed back noting her varying experiences in the education field including a decade in Chicago Public Schools as a special education teacher and at the district level and about a decade as a principal and in leadership at a charter school in Milwaukee. She also clarified that she recently retained a license again.
“I paid the $185 to update my license… It was so difficult to move my license in from New York and Illinois to Wisconsin,” Kinser said. “I would hope Dr. Underly would understand this as she has said she understands that the teacher shortage is real.”
According to state records, DPI received Kinser’s application and payment on Feb. 25.
Kinser also said the claim that she is a school “privatizer” isn’t true, although she supports school choice. She said when it came to funding she was “lobbying for equal funding for all of our children.”
An empty high school classroom. (Dan Forer | Getty Images)
It’s unlikely the candidates for state Superintendent will debate ahead of the April 1 election with incumbent Jill Underly turning down three opportunities and education consultant Brittany Kinser declining one.
The race for the nonpartisan state superintendent will appear on voters’ ballots alongside the high-profile state Supreme Court race. While the race is not as high profile as the campaign for Supreme Court, the results will be consequential for education in Wisconsin. The winner will be responsible for overseeing Wisconsin’s 421 public school districts and leading the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) — an agency whose responsibilities include administering state and federal funds, licensing teachers, developing educational curriculum and state assessments and advocating for public education.
Underly, who is running for her second term in office, is running on a platform of advocating for the state’s public schools and has the support and financial backing of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Kinser, who is running on a platform of improving reading and math education, is a school choice advocate and has the backing of Republicans, with financial support from the Republican Party of Wisconsin and backing from billionaire Republican mega-donors.
Underly, after missing a Wispolitics forum ahead of the primary, told the Examiner that February was a busy month and she would be open to attending a forum in March before the primary. The day of the Wispolitics meeting Underly said that she had to attend a meeting of the UW Board of Regents and also attended a press conference about federal payments not going out to Head Start programs.
“March is not as busy,” Underly said at the time. “I have other meetings and things that are standard, but like, February is just unreasonable… You’re traveling so much and you’ve got a lot of obligations, so it’s hard right now, so yes, you know, next month, if there are forums and I don’t have a standing conflict.”
Since the primary, Underly has declined three debate opportunities.
The Milwaukee Press Club along with WisPolitics and the Rotary Club of Milwaukee will host an event March 25, and said it invited both candidates to participate but Underly’s campaign spokesperson said she was unavailable.
Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education will host an event with Kinser on Thursday. Kevin Conway, Associate Director of University Communication, said the center extended invitations to both candidates for a general election debate ahead of the February primary.
“While all candidates agreed in concept, the Lubar Center was subsequently unable to confirm a program time with the Underly campaign,” Conway said. “Given the circumstances, the Lubar Center pivoted to offering “Get to Know” programs to both candidates, and the Kinser campaign accepted.”
WISN-12 had invited both candidates a chance to debate on UpFront, the channel’s Sunday public affairs program.
“So far, we cannot get both candidates to agree on a date,” WISN 12 News Director Matt Sinn said in an email.
Underly said in a statement to the Examiner that her job as superintendent “requires every minute I can give it, which means making choices which matter the most for our kids’ future, and advocating on their behalf every single day.”
Underly has agreed to a forum being hosted by the Wisconsin Public Education Network, a nonpartisan public education advocacy group, and the NAACP.
“Unfortunately the dates did not work for other debates, but we were able to agree to the Wisconsin Public Education Network forum, which is the forum for the education community,” she said.
WPEN Executive Director Heather DuBois Bourenane said WPEN had communicated with all of the candidates about a general election forum before the primary and the NAACP followed up with Kinser after the primary.
Kinser’s campaign ended up declining.
DuBois Bourenane told the Examiner that the group is hoping Kinser will reconsider, noting that they want to have a “fair and friendly” conversation with the candidates to talk about their “vision for Wisconsin kids.” She said the League of Women Voters was also supposed to cohost the event, but the group doesn’t sponsor events where only one candidate participates.
“It’s unfortunate that voters aren’t going to have an opportunity to hear from the candidates directly,” DuBois Bourenane said. “We hope Ms. Kinser will reconsider… We would love to have her at the event, and as we said in our email, make every effort to make sure that it’s fair and that the questions reflect the concerns that are most pressing to Wisconsin kids.”
Underly said that Kinser’s decision to decline “speaks volumes that after working for years to defund public schools she doesn’t want to show up and answer questions from public school advocates.”
Kinser’s campaign noted Underly declined each forum being hosted by members of the press, and accused Underly of “hiding.”
“Wisconsinites deserve to hear from the candidates who will be responsible for our children’s future. Brittany Kinser has, when possible, made herself available to any organization, group, or voter who wants to learn more about her plans to restore high standards so every student can read, write, and do math well,” the campaign stated, adding that Kinser would continue meeting with voters ahead of Election Day.
The heads of the DOA and DSPS both spoke with lawmakers Tuesday. Wisconsin State Office Building. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.
The Wisconsin Assembly Government Operations, Accountability, and Transparency (GOAT) Committee questioned leaders of government agencies about telework policies, use of work space and cybersecurity during its first public meeting Tuesday.
The committee was formed this session to serve as the Wisconsin version of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project launched by President Donald Trump and led by billionaire Elon Musk.
There are some similarities between the efforts. The acronyms come from internet pop culture: GOAT refers to the “greatest of all time” and DOGE comes from a 2013 meme and a later cryptocurrency. Both are purported to address potential “waste, fraud and abuse” in government. But whereas Musk and DOGE’s work has been quick and widespread, with attempts to fire thousands of federal employees and a goal of ending $1 trillion in government spending, the GOAT committee is starting off more slowly.
Committee chair Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) said that Tuesday’s informational hearing was scheduled due to “increased demand from the public for transparency and efficiency in government” and to look at telework practices in state agencies. She also repeated her intent for the committee to be “very close to the public” and ensure there is transparency for how taxpayers’ money is being used.
The extent of remote work by state employees has been an ongoing point of criticism among Republican lawmakers since the COVID-19 pandemic. Nedweski and Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee) recently introduced a bill to require state agency employees to work in person at state agency offices starting on July 1.
During the hearing, the committee heard from the Legislative Audit Bureau about a 2023 audit on telework. Hearing witnesses also included leaders of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), Department of Administration (DOA), Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS), Department of Health Services (DHS) and the Universities of Wisconsin, as well as some leaders of private businesses.
Testifying for DPI, Deputy Superintendent Tom McCarthy said that telework policies have been helpful for allowing the agency to hire employees. DPI Superintendent Jill Underly was absent, which Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) pointed out multiple times during the meeting.
“We’re never going to compete. We’re never going to be able to punch dollar for dollar at salary for the private sector, especially in IT or high demand fields, so the flexibility that we can provide staff is the thing that continues to allow us to pull larger applicants around the state to some of those very hard to fill jobs,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy also said the department has made changes since the audit.
“We are constantly trying to find ways to improve the productivity of our workforce and make sure that we are serving our partners well in the field, as well as taxpayers in general, being available and being current with best practices,” McCarthy said.
One of the biggest changes, he said, was that the agency looked at the amount of time employees were working in-person versus remotely and said they have tied reductions in the amount of time working in person to a reduction in available work space.
While Nedweski sought to keep conversation focused on telework throughout the hearing, Sortwell, who serves as vice-chair, asked about spending related to a diversity, equity and inclusion conference DPI hosted. Sortwell recently launched inquiries to county and city governments in Wisconsin about their DEI policies.
Nedweski sought to cut that conversation short, however. “We have lots of people here today, totally, and we’re going to try to stay on topic,” she said.
Department of Administration Secretary-designee Kathy Blumenfeld agreed that allowing more remote work has helped the state fill openings more easily. She said the vacancy rate for the Division of Enterprise Technology, which is the agency’s IT department, dropped from 12% to under 6% after the start of its “Hire Anywhere in Wisconsin” program.
Blumenfeld also noted that the agency has made some changes since the audit by updating its space standards. Permanent desks are reserved for employees who typically need to be in the office three days a week, she said, while those in the office less than three days a week have access to smaller work stations. She said the state has also revised its policy for documenting work agreements.
Nedweski questioned how the agency is managing its employees who work remotely and how Wisconsin taxpayers can know that they are “getting maximum productivity” from state employees.
Blumenfeld turned the question back on the public.
“Are they getting the services that they expect?” she asked. “I mean, when something goes south we usually hear about it and we investigate and look… is it a people issue? Is it a process issue? Is it a technology issue? What’s causing this?” She added, “I would say to the people of Wisconsin, if you’re not getting the services you expect, let us know.”
Rep. Mike Bare (D-Verona) asked what the consequences could be for rolling back state policies to what they were pre-pandemic.
Blumenfeld said that the agency has worked to decentralize decision making when it comes to remote work so that people can evaluate each position and the amount of in-person versus remote work is necessary for the job. She said that eliminating remote work policies would also affect the agency’s ability to compete for employees with private sector businesses.
Blumenfeld noted that young employees especially have different expectations from those of older employees.
“The way they work is so different. Of course, they expect to have flexibility in their job and they expect remote,” Blumenfeld said. “They’ve tasted it. They felt it. It’s what they know, and it is totally in our future.”
Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman told lawmakers that in his perfect world everyone would be in the office every day, but that it would be hard to “put the genie back in the bottle” at this point.
Rothman said the UW System has to be an attractive employer and would have trouble attracting and retaining people with a strict five-day in office work policy. He said the UW system is also looking at combining office spaces.
“The cost of losing people is often more expensive,” Rothman said.
Nedweski pushed the question of productivity.
“Has there been an analysis performed in positions as to is a job done more productively in person or remotely or in hybrid?” she asked. “Has an analysis been performed or are we just moving into this hybrid, telework world permanently because it’s what the workforce is demanding?”
Rothman said there isn’t a simple way to measure productivity in the university system’s work. He said employees have specific objectives that they’re required to fill and that guide evaluations.
“We don’t measure how many widgets did we manufacture today, because that’s not what we do,” Rothman said. “We don’t have the ability to check keystrokes… I’m fine if people are sitting there thinking about something really creative and something new to do. They may not touch a keyboard for two hours. They may have been incredibly productive in that environment, so I think it comes down to an individual by individual determination… I’m proud of the work that they are doing in support of the 164,000-plus students.”
Nedweski also brought up the capital requests from the UW System. Gov. Tony Evers announced a sweeping proposal this week that includes $1.6 billion in investments for UW System capital projects.
“If people are going to be teleworking more and more, I have a hard time justifying investment in new buildings that house people who are mostly going to be teleworking,” she said.
Rothman noted that the majority of the system’s capital requests were not for administration, but are rather for students and staff. “We’re not trying to build substantial edifices for our administration,” he said. “We’re focused on our students.”
Gov. Tony Evers said Trump's tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China would impact everyone. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.
Gov. Tony Evers criticized congressional Republicans Tuesday, saying that the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs will be “significant” and felt by everyone, especially Wisconsin’s farmers.
Trump’s 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada and increased tariffs to 20% on goods from China went into effect Tuesday morning. Both China and Canada have announced retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., and Mexico has threatened them. The sweeping tariffs are expected to increase costs for Americans on everything from fresh fruit to electronics to cars.
“It sucks, it’s bad — no good,” Evers said at a WisPolitics event.
“It’s gonna impact our farmers, let’s just think about how that plays out. They’re the chief buyer of our products” Evers said after the event. “Let’s just talk about cheese. We won’t be able to sell that… Now, is that a big deal for Wisconsin? Not everybody eats cheese, right? But it’s a $1.8 billion industry, and it’s going to be just crushed.”
Evers accused congressional Republicans of abdicating their duty in allowing the tariffs to move forward.
“I am just so disappointed in Congress,” Evers said at. “There is no legislative branch. … If Congress thought this through for two minutes, they would understand how bad tariffs are.”
Evers told reporters that his administration will work to challenge the tariffs in court, but that “at the end of the day, we gotta get Congress to do something.
“Is there anybody on the Republican side that believes what’s happening in DC is appropriate? I think there are a whole bunch. … They’re just afraid to come out and talk about it,” Evers said.
The tariffs are being implemented in the midst of Wisconsin’s state budget cycle.
Evers has proposed increasing the state’s budget by about 20%, including hiking K-12 and higher education spending and cutting taxes. The increases would be funded with revenue from the federal government, state taxes and the state’s $4 billion budget surplus.
Evers said the tariffs and potential federal funding cuts could “of course” affect the budget, and that the threats are making it difficult to plan. His plan would not spend the whole surplus, but would leave the state with over $500 million in the state’s “checking account”, which he had said was because of the unpredictability of the Trump administration. The state also has a rainy day fund of about $1.9 billion.
“We weren’t certain about the economy. We weren’t certain about what’s going to happen in Washington D.C. … I’m questioning whether that $500 million is enough to help us get through this,” Evers said.
Superintendent race and DPI
During the event, Evers also again declined to endorse a candidate in the upcoming state Superintendent race. Incumbent Jill Underly, who has Democratic-backing, is running against education consultant Brittany Kinser, a school voucher proponent with Republican-backing.
“I’m not putting myself into that race,” Evers said, noting that he didn’t endorse in the last election for the position four years ago.
While he wouldn’t endorse, Evers did comment on issues at the center of the race, including state testing standards, school funding and Underly’s handling of the issues while in office.
Evers said Underly’s budget proposal, which would have invested over $4 billion in public education, was too high.
“There was no way that we could take care of schools and other issues,” Evers said. “I mean it was ridiculous.” His own proposal includes over $3 billion for Wisconsin K-12 education. Republican lawmakers have criticized both plans, saying they are unrealistic increases.
The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) approved changes to the names and cut scores used for achievement levels on the state’s standardized tests last year — a move that Evers as well as Republican lawmakers have criticized.
Evers said his “issue” was not necessarily the outcome of the testing changes, but rather with a lack of communication with the public about the changes. The process for the testing changes included input from over 80 educators and other stakeholders, but Evers said the changes should have been vetted publicly before approval.
“[Underly] didn’t run it by anyone,” Evers said.
Evers said he was “probably” going to veto a Republican bill that would reverse the recent changes and tie the state’s testing standards to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a nationwide assessment meant to provide representative data about student achievement. The bill is in the Senate, having passed the Assembly last month.
“I have a strong belief that [DPI is] an independent agency and they can make those decisions, so having the Legislature suddenly say ‘well, we’re the experts here and this is what the cut scores should be,’ I think that’s wrong-headed.”
A teacher and students in a classroom. (Klaus Vedfelt | Getty Images)
An audit announced this week of changes in recent state testing standards is the latest reaction of Republican lawmakers to changes the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) approved last year in the names and cut scores for achievement levels. It also comes as state Superintendent Jill Underly campaigns for reelection facing a challenger criticizing DPI for “lowering” state standards.
Co-Chairs of Wisconsin Legislative Joint Audit Committee Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) and Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) announced the audit Tuesday of DPI’s decision to update terms describing achievement levels and revise the cut scores used to measure student achievement.
Underly and DPI have repeatedly defended the changes as part of the agency’s regular process to ensure standards are kept current. Assembly Republicans passed a bill last week that would reverse the changes, requiring the state to reinstate standards set in the 2019-20 school year and tie changes to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP is a nationwide assessment meant to provide representative data about student achievement.
Wimberger and Wittke noted in a statement that the recent NAEP results found that 31% of fourth grade students were at or above proficient in reading. Under the new state testing standards, Wisconsin had a proficiency rate of 48% in English/Language Arts and 49% in math. The legislators accused Underly of trying to hide the state’s literacy challenges.
The “unilateral changes to cover up DPI’s failing is absolutely unacceptable, and this audit will help us uncover exactly how and why these reporting standards were changed to stop future manipulation,” the lawmakers said.
According to the Legislative Audit Bureau, the audit could look at several topics related to the changes, including DPI’s written policies and procedures for developing the state’s annual school report card and for updating assessment cut scores. Other topics include, whether the current policies comply with statutory and administrative rule requirements, the way the agency gets input from educators and parents when developing changes, and how the process used for the recent changes versus previous years, State Auditor Joe Chrisman wrote in a memo to Wimberger and Wittke.
Deputy Superintendent Tom McCarthy said in a statement that the audit was for political purposes, noting the upcoming state superintendent election.
“Our approach has been transparent. If the Legislature were genuinely interested in this issue, and had listened to our testimony just a few weeks ago, they would understand that updating cut scores is a standard procedure whenever updates are made to our rigorous state standards,” McCarthy said.
During a hearing on the bill to reverse the changes, McCarthy and other DPI representatives laid out the process the agency used, including a survey and consulting education experts to discuss potential changes and come up with recommendations.
In his statement, McCarthy reiterated that the updates were recommended by experts and that NAEP is a “national benchmarking tool” not a state accountability tool. The test is typically taken by only a few thousand students in the state to develop a representative pool.
“It does not measure Wisconsin academic standards, which are used by teachers to deliver instruction. Comparing the two is like trying to use a thermometer to measure the length of a two-by-four — it makes no sense,” McCarthy said. “Especially since it seems NAEP is under attack by the White House, including canceling a major NAEP assessment and firing analytic staff.”
The Trump administration recently put NAEP Chief Peggy Carr on administrative leave. The Department of Education also recently canceled the NAEP Long-Term Trend exam, which measures the math and reading skills for 17-year-olds.
McCarthy said DPI learned about the audit from a press release that “falsely states that the DPI didn’t support literacy reform.”
“Let’s be clear: we supported and still support literacy reform. The legislature, on the other hand, is still holding back nearly all of the $50 million meant to help kids learn to read. Instead of funding the solutions, they’re trying to manufacture controversy,” McCarthy said. “This newly announced ‘audit’ is not a desire to truly learn, but to lay a political hit on a state elected official in the middle of a campaign.”
State testing standards have become a central issue in the April 1 election for state superintendent as Underly’s challenger, Brittany Kinser, who is backed by Republicans, has said she is running on a platform of “restoring high standards.”
State grants audit
Lawmakers also announced that they plan to launch an audit into the administration of state grants, which they say is meant to help examine whether there is waste, fraud and abuse in the state.
According to the LAB, the audit could look into the policies an agency has for administering grants, whether agencies are compliant with state statute and administrative rules in implementing grants, the amount of grants awarded in recent years and outcomes from those awards.
The audit request comes as lawmakers are starting the process of writing the next two-year state budget.
Wimberger and Wittke said that given the budget it is “prudent” to look at how much is being spent on grants.
“In the last budget, the state issued more than $44 billion in grant assistance funding. Evaluating these programs for wasteful, fraudulent, or abusive spending means we can identify and cut the fat of big government, making Wisconsin’s state government more accountable for our hardworking taxpayers,” the lawmakers said.
A public hearing on the proposed audits is scheduled for Tuesday.
Rep. Benjamin Franklin speaks about his bill to require 70% of funding in schools go towards "classroom" expenses. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin Republicans in the state Assembly passed a package of education bills Wednesday to implement new standards for standardized test scores, school funding allocations, responding to curriculum inspection requests and for keeping cell phones out of schools.
Republicans argued that the state needs to ensure that schools are meeting certain standards, especially as they’ve provided some state funding increases in recent years and as school enrollments have declined. While Wisconsin schools did receive an increase in the last state budget, many schools continue to struggle to meet costs as funding has failed to match the rate of inflation.
“We need to make sure that, as we are increasing funding for education, we are also doing a better job, ensuring that the standards and the expectations that parents and taxpayers have across the state are being met,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said at a press conference.
Vos called some school districts “disappointing” and named Milwaukee Public Schools as an example. The district, which was an ongoing target of Republican lawmakers throughout the debate, has experienced turmoil over the last few years with turnover in staff, a financial crisis after delays in delivering required documents to DPI and reading and math scores that show continued disparities between Black and white students.
“I’m a huge supporter of local control. There are some districts that are so broken and expect us to have to pay for it as taxpayers, either on the front end through funding the school district or on the back end with the bad decisions that are made where people make bad choices,” Vos said. “Having that statewide standards is good for Wisconsin while still maintaining the flexibility to try to get there.”
Democrats said Republicans’ focus was in the wrong place and that the proposed solutions would not help address the real challenges that schools are facing.
Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) criticized Republicans for rejecting Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal that would invest heavily in Wisconsin K-12 education.
Evers unveiled his complete state budget proposal Tuesday evening, calling for more than $3 billion in additional funding for K-12 schools, including to support operational costs, special education and mental health supports.
“The level of investment from the Legislature is just not enough to provide these essential investments in our schools,” Neubauer said. “Here in the Capitol, the Legislature has failed our students … we just have not kept up our end of the bargain.”
“Instead of bringing legislation to the floor to support our schools, teachers and students, the best the majority party can do is to fast-track a bill that would require cursive instruction,” Neubauer said. That bill — AB 3 — passed 51-46 with Reps. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart), Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) and David Steffen (R-Howard) joining Democrats to vote against it.
Test scores
Another bill focused on reversing changes to standards on state tests that were approved by the DPI last year. GOP lawmakers slammed State Superintendent Jill Underly, who is running for reelection against Republican-backed education consultant Brittany Kinser, for approving the changes in the first place.
“Something is wrong in our communication system. It is not a lack of resources. It’s a lack of willpower to do something about the problems that we know are obvious because it is the fact that we have kids who can’t read,” Vos said. He added that only lawmakers should be allowed to “dumb down” the state’s standards.
Vos said there was only one person — referencing Underly — that “needs to pay a price” and “hopefully she will in April.”
Wisconsin students take standardized tests each year including the Forward Exam for third graders through eighth graders and the ACT and PreACT Secure for high school students.
Underly approved changes to the standards last year that included new terms — “developing,” “approaching,” “meeting” and “advanced” — to describe student achievement. Previously, the terms were “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced.” The changes also included new cut scores — which are the test scores cutoffs needed to qualify to be placed in each performance level.
Underly and DPI have defended the changes, saying they were necessary to more accurately measure achievement; that educators and other stakeholders worked together to create the new measures with Underly signing off; and that it’s too late to take the state back to 2019-20 standards.
Republican lawmakers said the changes “lowered” state standards and were an attempt to “cook the books.”
AB 1 directs DPI to use score ranges and qualitative terms used on school report cards for the 2019-2020 school year and to tie the Forward exam score ranges and pupil performance categories to those set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
“There’s no legislative oversight on the scoring and assessment of our kids, so this bill will establish that,” bill coauthor Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) said at a press conference.
“We will be once again allowed to compare ourselves to other states — let us know who’s doing well, are we on pace with them or not,” Wittke said. “Then it provides legislative oversight, so the only time these scores can be adjusted or changed is when we actually legislate.”
Rep. Angelina M. Cruz (D-Racine), who has worked as an educator for the last 20 years, said during floor debate that a variety of student assessments are used to measure students’ learning with each serving a “unique purpose” and reflecting the “expertise of professional educators.” She said that goes for the state tests as well and said the updates to standards weren’t made in a “vacuum,” noting that this isn’t the first time DPI has made changes and it shouldn’t be the last.
“Education is dynamic,” Cruz said. “The disconnect between the reality of classroom teaching and this body and the understanding of assessments has never been more clear… This bill is not about improving education. This bill is about playing political games.”
Cruz said lawmakers would be better served fully funding the state’s public schools.
During floor debate, Wittke said that Democrats were repeating political talking points by talking about increasing funding for public schools.
The bill passed 55-44 along party lines with Republicans for and Democrats against it.
Ban cell phones
Lawmakers also passed a bill that would mandate cell phone bans in schools statewide.
Under AB 2, school boards must require districts to adopt cell phone ban policies in their schools during instructional time. Policies would need to be implemented by July 2026 and would need to include certain exceptions in emergencies, cases involving student’s health care, individualized education program (IEP) or 504 plan and for educational purposes.
Kitchens said it was a “modest” proposal and would help schools enforce policies if they already have them and get other school districts on the same page.
“Part of that is putting them away when it’s time to do work,” Kitchens said, adding that the bill would provide a “unified” approach for the state. During the 40 minutes of debate on the bill, some lawmakers in the Assembly chamber could be seen with their phones out.
Of the 320 school districts that participated in DPI’s 2024-25 State Digital Learning survey approximately 90% of districts reported already having some sort of restrictive cell phone policy in place.
Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwautosa) said she thinks the original intent of the bill was genuine in trying to address challenges posed by phones in classrooms. However, she noted that it wouldn’t apply to the state’s private and charter schools that participate in voucher programs. Vining said the bill was modeled after legislation in Indiana, but Wisconsin Republicans intentionally carved out the voucher schools.
Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwautosa) called attention during floor debate to the fact that the cell phone ban requirement wouldn’t apply to voucher schools. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
“It’s not fair when the concerns of voucher lobbyists are considered valid by Republicans in the Legislature that while the same concerns are ignored when they come from public schools,” Vining said.
Kitchens said the issue shouldn’t be partisan and noted that Louisiana, a red state, and New York, a blue state, both have strict statewide cell phone ban policies.
The bill passed 53-45 with Rep. Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander) joining Democrats against.
Materials inspections within 14 days
AB 5, which would require school districts to comply with requests within 14 days, passed 54-43, also on a party-line vote, with Republicans for and Democrats against.
Parents can already submit open records requests to school districts to receive school materials. The bill adds that entities should respond “as soon as practicable and without delay.”
Rep. Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc) said during the press conference that the bill seeks to help parents get information about materials more quickly. She noted that there are no time requirements included in state statute for responding to open records requests.
“I’m old enough to remember a time in our Wisconsin schools where our schools were begging parents to become engaged and then there came a huge fracture when COVID-19 hit,” Dittrich said. Some parents, she said, aren’t having their requests fulfilled before their child is out of the class. “[The bill] works at bridging this gap between schools and families so they can work together for the benefit of our students.”
This is the third time lawmakers have introduced a bill to implement a time frame for complying. In the 2021-23 session, the bill passed the Legislature and Evers vetoed it. Last session, the bill passed the Assembly and never received a vote in the Senate
Other laws in Wisconsin include one that requires a list of textbooks be filed with the school board clerk every year on an annual basis. Another state statute requires school boards to provide the complete human growth and development curriculum and all instructional materials for inspection to parents who request it.
Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) said the bill is unnecessary given the current state laws.
“It’s trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist,” Hong said.
Requiring 70% of money to go to “classroom” expenses
AB 6 would require school boards in Wisconsin to spend a minimum of 70% of operating money on direct classroom expenditures and limit annual compensation increases for school administrators to the average percent increase provided to teachers in the school district.
An amendment to the bill would clarify that “direct classroom expenditures” would not include costs for administration, food services, transportation, instructional support including media centers, teacher training and student support such as nurses and school counselors. Those costs would need to fall under the other 30% of spending.
Rep. Benjamin Franklin (R-De Pere) said the state has “a system that fails to put the money in the classroom where the education is happening” and said the bill would implement “guardrails” for school districts to ensure money is going to classrooms and teachers.
Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) said she was voting against the bill — and others on the calendar — because they appeared to be written without “meaningful input” from teachers, administrators, superintendents, parents, students or community members.
“I’m here to let you know that if you want support in the educational community for any education bill, you should do your homework,” Fitzgerald said, “including having conversations with the public and reaching across the aisle.”
Fitzgerald said Franklin’s bill would take away local control from school districts and school boards and criticized the bill for including “vague” wording and “undefined terms,” saying the bills are unserious.
“What about all the additional staff needed to meet the special needs of my students — people like speech pathologists, nurses, counselors? People I could not have done my job without,” Fitzgerald said. “That definition does include athletic programs…. Does it include bus transportation to get to games because I’ve heard that actual bus transportation is not included as a direct class transmission? Although I’ll admit I’m incredibly confused about that one, since I would not have had kids in my classroom in my rural district without bus transportation.”
Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) called the proposal an “arbitrary, one size fits all budget crackdown that limits our ability to meet moral and constitutional obligations.”
The bill passed 53-44 with only Republican support.
The Assembly also passed AB 4, which would require civics instruction in K-12 schools, in a 52-46 vote. Sortwell and Goeben voted against the bill with Democrats.
An empty high school classroom. (Dan Forer | Getty Images)
Democratic-backed incumbent State Superintendent Jill Underly and Republican-backed education consultant Brittany Kinser will advance to the April 1 primary in the race for state superintendent.
With more than 95% of precincts reporting at midnight, Underly won 38% of the vote and Kinser won 34.5% of the vote. Sauk Prairie Schools Superintendent Jeff Wright came in third with 27.5% of the vote, eliminating him from the primary.
Wright thanked his supporters in a statement, saying he was proud of the campaign that he ran.
“I got into this race because I believe that Wisconsin should always be at the forefront of innovation and excellence in public education,” Wright said. “Our districts deserve better from the Department of Public Instruction because Wisconsin’s kids and communities deserve the absolute best from our schools.”
The state superintendent is responsible for overseeing Wisconsin’s 421 public school districts and leads the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) — an agency whose responsibilities include administering state and federal funds, licensing teachers, developing educational curriculum and state assessments and advocating for public education.
The position is nonpartisan, but the Democratic and Republican parties have both waded into the race providing support, including financial backing to their preferred candidates.
Underly is running for her second term in office, saying that she wants to continue to advocate for the state’s public schools and most recently proposed that the state provide an additional $4 billion in funding for school. She has the backing of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin, the state’s second-largest teachers union.
Jill Underly addresses the State Council on Affirmative Action in December 2024 after accepting the group’s 2024 Diversity Award on behalf of her agency. (Screenshot via Wisconsin DOA YouTube)
In a fundraising appeal after the ballots were counted, Underly touted her support of bipartisan literacy legislation, new math and science standards and expanded career and technical education. “Today, our graduation rate is the highest in state history and our schools are ranked 6th in the nation by U.S. News and World Report — up from 14th in 2020,” she said.
Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler said in a statement that the party is ready to “wage a strong door-to-door campaign” to help reelect her to a second term. He said Underly’s record “stands in stark contrast to lobbyist Brittany Kinser, who has never even held a teaching license in Wisconsin.”
According to the most recent campaign finance filings, the Wisconsin GOP has contributed $200,000 to Kinser’s campaign. She has also received contributions from Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein, the billionaire owners of the Uline shipping supply company, and Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks. Her campaign is being managed by Republican former state Rep. Amy Loudenbeck.
“Kinser’s campaign is funded by Republican megadonors and stage-managed by a former Republican legislator because they love that Kinser has promised to drain funds from our public schools and give them to private for-profit schools. Kinser even advocated to remove teacher licensing requirements,” Wikler said. “Our kids don’t need a right-wing puppet to lead our schools.”
Kinser has dubbed herself the only “pro-school choice” candidate in the race and has said she would support increased funding to the state’s school voucher programs. Kinser has said that she wants to improve reading and math education in schools. While supporting increases in special education and rural transportation funding, Kinser has said more transparency and accountability is needed when it comes to funding rather than large increases.
Brittany Kinser. Photo courtesy of campaign.
Kinser previously served as principal and executive director of Rocketship schools in Milwaukee and worked for the City Forward Collective, a Milwaukee-based advocacy group that lobbies for school choice.
Kinser said in a statement Tuesday evening that she was “inspired and humbled” by the support for her campaign, and she plan to travel the state in the lead up to the general election and “share my plan to bring a clean slate, a fresh start, and a fundamentally new approach to DPI.”
Wright’s campaign was recommended for the position by the political action committee of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), the state’s largest teachers union. While he never received the union’s full endorsement, the primary created a split among public education advocates. Neither Wright nor Underly acknowledged each other’s campaigns in their respective statements.
Kinser, meanwhile, sought to call Wright supporters into her campaign.
“Jeff Wright ran a strong race and we agree on several important issues like restoring the high standards Jill Underly lowered for our children. I am committed to restoring those standards and ensuring every child has the opportunity to go to college, get a meaningful job, or master a trade,” Kinser said. “I welcome Jeff, his supporters, and all Wisconsinites — regardless of their political beliefs — who agree that our kids deserve so much better to join our campaign.”
Wisconsin GOP Chair Brian Schimming called Kinser the “common-sense” candidate in a statement and said Tuesday’s results were a “stand against the far-left policies of Jill Underly. They are fed up with liberal ideas being prioritized over their children.”
The polling place at Village on Park on Madison's South side in 2023. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin polls are open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. so voters can weigh in on the three-way primary race for the nonpartisan state superintendent. It’s the only statewide election on ballots in February.
The state superintendent is responsible for overseeing Wisconsin’s 421 public school districts and leads the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) — an agency whose responsibilities include administering state and federal funds, licensing teachers, developing educational curriculum and state assessments and advocating for public education.
Incumbent State Superintendent Jill Underly is running for her second term in office and faces two challengers — Sauk Prairie Schools Superintendent Jeff Wright and education consultant Brittany Kinser.
Underly, a Democrat, has said she wants to continue her work advocating for Wisconsin public schools, including calling for increased funding from the state, limiting school vouchers and supporting schools through the impacts of the new Trump administration. In her reelection campaign, she has defended herself against critiques on changes to the way the state measures standardized tests and her attempts to work with the Republican-led Legislature. She has the backing of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and AFT-Wisconsin.
Kinser, a school choice proponent, has said she wants to improve reading and math education, “restore high standards” and supports increased state spending for Wisconsin’s school voucher programs. She previously served as principal and executive director of Rocketship schools in Milwaukee, worked for the City Forward Collective, a Milwaukee-based advocacy group that lobbies for school choice, and has worked as a special education teacher. She has raised the most money of any candidate with financial help from Republican megadonors.
Wright, a Democrat, has said that he wants to improve communication between DPI, the Legislature and the public, supports increasing funding for public schools and wants greater transparency and accountability for voucher schools. He is endorsed by the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators, and was recommended for the position by the political action committee of Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), the state’s largest teacher’s union, although the full union hasn’t made an official endorsement.
The top two vote getters will advance to the general election for the position on April 1.
Wisconsin voters may also see local primary elections for mayor, city and town council, county supervisor, school board members or school referendum requests on their ballot. Five school districts across the state — Tomahawk School District Kenosha School District, Northland Pines School District, Waterford Union High School District and Mauston School District — will vote on whether to approve a total of $176 million in funding requests.
Voters can check their voter registration status here, see what will be on their ballot here and find their polling location here.
There will be no primary on Tuesday in the race for an open state Supreme Court seat, since there are only two candidates in the race — Susan Crawford, a Dane County Circuit Court judge and former prosecutor for the state Department of Justice, and Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge and former Republican attorney general.
Wisconsin residents can register to vote at their polling places on Election Day. To do so, they need to show a proof of residence document, which must contain the voter’s name and current residential address such as a bank statement, recent electric bill, or a current and valid Wisconsin driver’s license or state ID card.
Voters need to present an acceptable photo ID to vote. Acceptable IDs include a Wisconsin driver’s license, state ID card, U.S. passport, military or veteran’s ID, tribal ID, a certificate of naturalization or a student ID with a photo.
Sauk Prairie Superintendent Jeff Wright, who is running for state superintendent, with a student. Photo courtesy of campaign.
Sauk Prairie Superintendent Jeff Wright says he would work to improve communication between the Department of Public Instruction, the Legislature and the public if he’s elected to be Wisconsin’s state schools superintendent.
Wright, a Democrat, is challenging incumbent state Superintendent Jill Underly. Education consultant Brittany Kinser, a school choice advocate who has the backing of Republican donors, is also running in the Feb. 18 primary for the nonpartisan office. The top two vote getters will advance to the general election April 1.
The state superintendent is responsible for overseeing Wisconsin’s 421 public school districts and leads the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), which has an array of responsibilities including administering state and federal funds, licensing educators, developing educational curriculum and state assessments and advocating for public education.
Wright said in an interview with the Wisconsin Examiner ahead of the primary that throughout his campaign, which launched in October, he has met with Republicans and Democrats at the county level, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC), small town business groups, faith leaders and teacher groups.
“That’s been part of the fun is just how many different types of groups have welcomed me in to share my story and my own hopes for public schools,” Wright said.
Wright comes to the race with significant experience in Wisconsin public education.
Wright has served as the superintendent of Sauk Prairie School District since 2019 and was named Administrator of the Year in 2024 by the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance. During his time in the district, Wright has worked to help improve mental health supports in schools, reduce energy consumption by putting solar panels on the high school and helped open a child-care center that is owned by the village but will be run by the district. He also previously served as a principal in Chicago.
Sauk Prairie is one of the most purple counties in Wisconsin, Wright noted.
“[In this district], we cannot get anything done if we don’t create room at the table for people with different political beliefs, business leaders, faith leaders, parents, educators, and that’s how I’ve led as a superintendent,” Wright said, adding that that’s how he would lead as head of the DPI as well.
Wright has never held public office, though he previously ran unsuccessful campaigns for the state Assembly in 2016 and in 2018.
Wright laid out three issues he wants to tackle as part of his “strategic plan” for the agency: improving the relationship between DPI and the state Legislature, addressing the Wisconsin educator shortage and improving the achievement gaps facing the state.
Bringing people together, he says, is critical to making improvements to education in the state.
Improving communication with educators, Legislature and agency staff
When Wright entered the race, he said there was a “disconnect” between DPI and schools and the agency could do better by including different groups in conversations about its decisions.
Wright said having staff work virtually during the first couple years of Underly’s term, which started in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, created “some of the loss in trust and relationship with people, with school leaders.” He said he thinks there is a place for remote work, but that it was overused at DPI.
In his own experience as a superintendent, Wright said there were multiple times his team was scheduled to meet with Underly or her leadership team.
“We all gathered at a location, and then, not long before the meeting started, the leader of the meeting was told that the meeting would now be taking place virtually,” Wright said.
Wright said that a “promise” he makes for the office “is being present in Wisconsin schools and being directly connected to the work of education.”
In addition, Wright has said that he thinks he can repair damaged relationships between DPI and state lawmakers.
The agency has regularly come into contention with the Republican-led Legislature on a variety of issues and Underly has been outspoken about her disagreements with Republican lawmakers, including when they have withheld money from schools.
Wright said he would hope to improve the relationship by ensuring everyone is welcome to the table and there is open communication.
“We may not want the exact same way to get there, but if we’re not in this room with each other talking about how we could accomplish shared goals, it makes it easier to be really political and to say outlandish things about the other side and to demonize them when there probably is some point of agreement if we just forced ourselves to be in the same room, and that’s how we’ve led in Sauk Prairie,” Wright said. “All the projects that I just listed, my school board voted for unanimously, but I know that they have different yard signs in front of their homes when it comes to the national election.”
Wright said he knew when he entered the race that work needed to be done to help the relationship between the agency, school districts and the Legislature. However, he said he also has come to another realization: “I underestimated how much work would also have to be done to heal the relationship between the department’s leadership and the teammates who are doing the work of the department,” Wright said.
His campaign brought attention to a spending pause at the agency in early January.
The agency has paused new hiring and travel outside of Wisconsin through June 30. The agency said that a $2.3 million reduction in state funding for the DPI’s administrative costs is a key contributor to the agency’s fiscal strain. DPI said it made the decision to focus on directing resources to supporting schools and students “even if it means sacrificing some of the agency’s own needs,” according to CBS58. The agency sent a memo to staff about the pause in January.
Wright claims the freezing pause is the result of overspending in the first half of the fiscal year and the agency has been trying to correct the budget by the end of the fiscal year.
He said the recent financial strains at the agency and criticisms from over changes to the way the state measures scores on standardized tests are examples of Underly failing to be an effective leader.
“The lack of communication about the budget problems to people that are on the team has been of great concern. I think that a lot of legislators did not realize the level of financial issues either,” Wright said.
“I’ve talked with people, who are supposed to be working like shoulder to shoulder with educators and schools, that now have to do that work virtually… or they’re now doing two jobs or three jobs because of retirements or resignations, and the positions were not being able to be filled,” Wright said.
Test scores and the educator shortage
Wright also said the recent changes to the way DPI measures the state’s standardized reading and math test scores weren’t transparent or well communicated. Underly, for her part, has defended the changes, saying they were necessary because standards changed several years ago and state tests had to be updated. She also said the new cut scores better align with state standards.
“It caught way too many schools, the governor, the Legislature by surprise, and I think that that shows that broken trust,” Wright said. “That lack of communication is what people are really challenging in this.”
In reaction, Wright said his district made a spreadsheet to help measure scores from earlier years to the most recent year under the new changes. One of the biggest complaints about the changes was how it made it more difficult to track changes in student performance over multiple years.
Lawmakers introduced a bill to reverse the changes and Wright said he supports the goal of the bill, but doesn’t agree it is something that should be legislated.
“The fact that it’s being legislated is a result of a lack of trust and a broken relationship between the Department of Public Instruction and the Legislature,” Wright said. If the process for the changes were more transparent and open and there were a better relationship with lawmakers, Wright said he doesn’t “think we’d be in the same spot.”
To address the teacher shortage, Wright said the state needs to ensure that teachers have a voice in the workplace and feel respected in their jobs. Recent DPI data found that four out of every 10 first-year teachers either leave the state or the profession altogether after just six years.
Wright said he wants to ensure the state education department is collaborating with colleges of education, educator associations and leadership teams to try to find best practices in other states or within the state’s districts that can be used across Wisconsin.
Wright’s supporters
One Wright supporter is Dan Bush, a Madison resident and former employee of DPI. He worked for DPI for several years, including during the first seven months of Underly’s term, as director of the school finance team. He said it was a “really professionally and personally satisfying opportunity to be able to get,” but when Underly took office, “things started going downhill very quickly.”
“I really needed some urgency and some movement on helping me fill some vacancies because just personally, between COVID and doing double, triple duty, I was pretty exhausted at that point, but I just wasn’t getting your support in getting that filled,” Bush said.
In addition, Bush said there was “a lot of dysfunction and confusion with the new leadership team and coming in, not really communicating with managers what the direction was, what the issues were.”
Bush said he started looking for a new job within three months, and since leaving he has watched turnover in the department from the outside.
“Since I left, so much experience has just been gone. … Staffing was always kind of tight on that team, but losing so much expertise and so much experience in so short of time has really put the folks there in a tight place,” Bush said. He said he kept up with the Milwaukee Public Schools financial scandal, where the district was late in returning required documents to the state, and thinks that if “there had been folks who were more experienced, more knowledgeable,” he thinks the issue could have been addressed sooner.
Bush said he has been hoping someone “good” would challenge Underly. Though he added that it’s “tough because for politics, you know, how much do voters really care about the internal administrative workings of a public agency?” He said, however, that those issues do have a “real impact for people.”
“The way we fund schools in Wisconsin, most school funding is kind of zero sum. For some districts to get more money, other districts have to get less, and it does impact people,” Bush said.
Bush said after speaking with people he knows in Sauk Prairie and surrounding communities and meeting with Wright on several occasions, he came to the opinion that he is the right person for the job.
“I think he’s someone who’s going to be a more effective advocate for kids in schools, you know, that’s the bottom line… I have a seventh grader here in Madison, and I care about what she learns, what happens to her, and so in that sense, I’m personally invested. But I also have this whole — the personal side of this area that I spent 10 years working in, that I still feel very close to, just has not been going well, and that part does bother me,” Bush said.
Wright has the endorsement of Association of Wisconsin School Administrators (AWSA).
AWSA Executive Director Jim Lynch said the organization interviewed all three candidates in its endorsement process. Lynch said he’s known Wright during he tenure at Sauk Prairie schools, and has worked closely with him.
When it comes to DPI right now, he said “there’s room for improvement in terms of how you bring people to the table, when you bring people to the table and how that translates into sound management and really strong leadership,” Lynch said. However, he added that the endorsement is “mostly about we see a game changing candidate, and we think it’s incumbent upon us to say we think this is a special person.”
Lynch said the organization found Wright to be “a highly effective leader, highly competent, skilled, very personable” and “modest.”
Wright was recommended for the position by the political action committee of Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), the state’s largest teacher’s union. However, the full union hasn’t acted on a full endorsement.
Funding public education
Wright said he is supportive of increasing funding for Wisconsin public schools and said the number of districts turning to referendums as a way to fund operational and building costs is evidence that the current system for funding public education is “inadequate and broken.”
“We have a system of haves and have nots across the state where districts that are in communities that have the capacity of passing a referendum and potentially have more income capacity to afford it, can pass referenda to expand programming and enhance their schools. While other districts are unable to pass referendum and are in a constant state of budget cuts and potentially considering dissolving the district completely,” Wright said.
The special education reimbursement is the first funding issue that he wants the state to change. The reimbursement for public schools was raised from 30% to 33% in the last state budget.
“In the early ’90s, the state paid for over 60% of special education costs. We have a moral imperative to provide these services to kids who need them,” Wright said. “The state should be helping us pay for them right now.”
Wright said he would also advocate for raising the spending limits for districts.
“If we raised the floor … we could bring 90% of districts in the state within 10% of each other on that revenue limit, which I think is fundamentally more fair and not forcing some districts to live under low spending conditions from the 90s, while others have continued to outspend neighboring districts,” Wright said.
Limit state vouchers
Meanwhile, Wright said that he is not in favor of the voucher programs in Wisconsin growing any larger and wants greater transparency and accountability for the current programs.
First, Wright said that there should be a line on property tax bills so that people can see on those bills how much is going towards the choice programs. He also said that there should be more accountability.
“Any time that you take public money to educate a student,” Wright said, “there should be similar rules of accountability of how you spend that money and how you serve those children.”
He also said he would be open to discussing changing the income limits for students’ participation in the voucher programs. Currently, for a family of four the income limit for the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and the Racine Parental Choice Program is $93,600 and the limit for the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program is $68,640.
Wright said the cut offs are too high.
“We either should be doing more of a graduated system so that if your family makes more, you qualify for less government assistance, or lower that cap, which also may help families who qualify for a voucher… A graduated system would be more fair,” he said, adding that it “would make it so that families that do have income levels that are beyond the average in their community are not receiving a full voucher from the state.”
Federal level issues
The DPI also helps districts navigate the impact of federal decisions. President Donald Trump recently signed executive orders that attempt to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion in government, the private sector and schools and ban transgender girls from participating in girls sports.
Wright said the issue is “personal” for him.
“I have been on the phone with parents in my school district who have been in tears because of being sincerely scared for their own kids,” Wright said. “While they are grateful for the love and support that their kids have felt in my school district and in my schools, when they see their own children, or children that are like theirs, being demonized in the national rhetoric, it really hurts.”
Wright said statewide leaders need to focus on ensuring that school districts are supported and students can be in school and feel like they belong.
“It’s really hard to learn math when you’re scared or when you’re really, really anxious, so making sure that schools have the resources to support students when they’re going through times of trouble, and just doing all we can to be working with families and educators,” Wright said.
The administration is also considering eliminating the Department of Education. Wright said that there are important programs that the department oversees including Title I funding for districts that serve students that have the highest levels of free and reduced lunch eligibility and college financial aid.
“We need to make sure that these programs continue, and that people understand exactly what the U.S. Department of Education does, and that the programming that we see from the federal government affects our littlest learners at Head Start, but also our adult learners that are accessing grants or loans for college or university education,” Wright said.
The primary election is Tuesday, Feb. 18, and the general election is on Tuesday, April 1.
The Examiner spoke with all three candidates ahead of the election. Read about incumbent candidate Jill Underly here. Read about Brittany Kinser’s campaign here.
Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) speaks about the cell phone ban bill. Screenshot via WisEye.
Republican lawmakers made the case Tuesday for a state law that would require school districts to implement a policy banning cell phones and other devices from classrooms as a way to improve students’ focus and performance.
The bill — AB 2 — would require school districts to adopt a policy that “generally prohibits pupils from using wireless communication devices during instructional time.” The policies would need to include certain exceptions in emergencies, cases involving student’s health care, individualized education program (IEP) or 504 plan and for educational purposes. Under the bill, the policies would need to be adopted by July 2026.
Wireless communication devices are defined as a “portable wireless device that is capable of providing voice, messaging or other data communication between two or more parties” and explicitly includes cell phones, tablet computers, laptop computers and gaming devices.
Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) and Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton) said the policy would be beneficial to students and though many schools already have some, the statewide policy is needed to put enforcement power behind school districts.
“Phones can be a distraction for all of us, but it’s even worse for students,” Kitchens said during a Tuesday hearing in the Assembly Science, Technology, and AI committee. “The interruptions and the pressures of social media are detrimental to children’s mental health as well as to their education.”
According to DPI’s 2024-25 State Digital Learning survey approximately 90% of districts already have some sort of restrictive cell phone policy in place. About 320 out of the 421 public districts in Wisconsin participated in the survey.
“The problem is enforcement without a strong unified approach to the problem. Most teachers eventually throw up their hands… By applying the power of state law behind these restrictions, we’re giving support to our schools,” Kitchens said. “This is not something we are doing to the school districts, [it’s] something we’re doing with them.”
Kitchens said that the law will not “usurp” local control as each district will be able to determine its own policy. He said an amendment to the bill was drafted to clarify that schools can also ban devices throughout the entire day, including lunch.
“We deliberately drafted the bill to be as open as possible,” Kitchens said.
Kitchens noted that much resistance to the policies comes from concerns parents have about being able to reach their children during the day.
“If they’re only banned during class time, they can still reach them between classes. Schools will write their own policy on how they can be reached in case of emergency,” Kitchens said.
According to the Education Commission of the States, several states across the country, including Ohio, California, Florida, have similar statewide policies.
“The results of cell phone bans in schools have been universally positive in the U.S and across the world,” Kitchens said. “In Orlando, schools report that students are more engaged with less bullying and early reports show a dramatic improvement in test scores.”
Democrats on the committee were skeptical about the need for a state law addressing the issue, given that many school districts already have policies in place restricting cell phone use for students.
Rep. Ben DeSmidt (D-Kenosha) said the bill could create confusion and complication for school districts that already have policies in place.
“If we’re just going to muddy the waters with this, and the problem is already being dealt with by school boards… Why don’t we trust those local electeds? Why are we challenging their authority?” DeSmidt asked the bill authors.
Kitchens said that the intention isn’t to create confusion, but to provide enforcement mechanisms and provide cover to school districts when dealing with parents.
DPI Assistant State Superintendent Josh Robinson and Policy Initiatives Advisor Sara Knueve testified at the hearing and made some recommendations for how to make it more effective.
Robinson said the bill gets to the “heart of” the idea of engagement. He said technology “is here to stay” and educators are responsible for ensuring students have the “digital learning skills necessary to compete and thrive in society.” On the other hand, he said DPI understands that there is a need to “mitigate the negative impact” devices can have on students’ mental health and learning.
Knueve noted that cell phone policies in schools vary greatly.
“In general, middle and high schools tend to have some form of restriction, while elementary schools usually enforce a ‘no phones during the day’ policy. To manage devices, some schools use strategies like “phone hotels” or caddies for storage,” Knueve said.
Robinson called the goal of limiting technology disruptions during classroom time “wise,” but had a few recommendations for how to change the proposed legislation. Instead of starting with an outright ban of all devices, the agency suggested setting a statewide policy goal of restricting non-district-issued electronic devices and leaving the local implementation of the policy up to each district.
One of the specific suggestions was to require each school board to develop and adopt a policy that limits or prohibits pupils’ use of electronic communication devices during instructional time and also articulates specific times that the district cannot prohibit use of devices.
DPI also recommends that the bill update or repeal a current state statute, so there is no conflict. Wisconsin Statute 118.258 already states that each school board may, but isn’t required to, adopt policies prohibiting students from using electronic communication devices on premises owned, rented or under the control of a public school.
Finally, DPI said the bill should be changed to make a clear distinction between non-district-issued wireless communication devices and district-issued wireless communication devices.
State Superintendent Jill Underly with Madison La Follette High School Principal Mathew Thompson and Madison Public School District Superintendent Joe Gothard in the hallway at La Follette | Photo by Ruth Conniff
Incumbent State Superintendent Jill Underly says that Wisconsin has made some “incredible progress” in the last four years when it comes to education, but there is still more work to be done that she wants to see through in a second term leading the Department of Public Instruction (DPI).
Underly faces two challengers — education consultant Brittany Kinser, a self-described moderate and school choice proponent, and Sauk Prairie Schools Superintendent Jeff Wright, a Democrat — in the race for the nonpartisan office. The primary for the state superintendent election is Feb. 18., and the top two vote getters will advance to the general election.
“This position is about being the No. 1 advocate for public education, and I feel like I’m doing that,” Underly said in an interview with the Wisconsin Examiner.
Underly, a Democrat, ran for her first term in 2021 and defeated her opponent with nearly 58% of the vote. She said entering office during the COVID-19 pandemic was “unprecedented” and presented a bit of a “learning curve,” but she said she feels like DPI has “gotten our arms around what are the most important issues that the state of Wisconsin citizens want us to work on.”
Underly said some of her work has included calls for increased investment in education throughout the budget process, and pointed to securing investments and starting certain initiatives for career and technical education, school mental health, teacher recruitment and retention efforts. She also said that she has worked hard to help elect people in the Legislature who will be “pro-public school advocates” and will help pass initiatives in the future.
Underly said 2025 is “equally unprecedented” compared to last year and her experience makes her the right person to lead DPI.
“You need somebody in this role who can [offer] stability, who has the relationships, who can be consistent in this time of chaos and we need someone who’s going to stand up for public schools — for all kids, for teachers and families — and someone who has already proven that she can do it,” Underly said.
Underly said her work on literacy is one of her proudest accomplishments in her first term.
The agency was instrumental in negotiating 2023 Wisconsin Act 20, which sought to move the state towards a “science of reading” based approach and banned “three-cueing” — a way of teaching reading that relies on context, structure and letters to identify words.
“I think what it proved is that we really do want the same thing. When we put politics aside, we can get some really good stuff done on behalf of kids,” Underly said. “The flip side of that is politics still is involved. I mean, we’re still waiting on that $50 million so that we can reimburse school districts for curriculum and hire some reading coaches, but I’m really proud of that.”
Lawmakers had dedicated the money to supporting literacy changes in the last budget, but it is being withheld by Republican lawmakers.
While Underly is proud of her accomplishments, Underly’s opponents in the race have been critical of her leadership.
Recent changes to the way DPI measures the state’s standardized reading and math test scores is at the center of criticisms from her challengers, who said the changes “lowered standards” and that the decision to make the change wasn’t transparent or well communicated. The changes included new terms to describe student achievement and new cut scores, which are the minimum scores needed to qualify for certain achievement labels.
Underly said it’s “absolutely false” that DPI lowered standards and that “it wouldn’t be an issue” if the election weren’t happening.
“The critics are wrong, and I think, by Brittany saying that this is the reason she entered the race, it just gives me this feeling that she just doesn’t understand what this job is about,” Underly said.
“We didn’t lower standards. We raised standards in math and science. We added standards in career and tech ed. We added a literacy score for all kids. We were very transparent. This is something that DPI has done periodically since testing began in state law,” Underly added. “We had to change the scoring system to match the test, and you do that any time you change a test.”
Underly said she also thinks that the focus on testing is a distraction from other consequential challenges that school districts are facing. If student achievement is a major priority for the state, Underly said, it should look towards investing in mental health, literacy and math, teachers, school meals and early childhood education, including full-day 4-year-old kindergarten.
“Where you see low test scores is in communities that have high poverty. You don’t see low test scores in the schools that have the best facilities or the most veteran teachers or strong and robust school nutrition and mental health programs,” Underly said. “It’s just a way to misdirect or to take the eye off of what really matters, and also then disguise the fact that our Legislature has underfunded schools and undermined public schools, specifically, for the past 15 years.”
Increased investment in public education
A little before polls close in Wisconsin next Tuesday, Gov. Tony Evers will deliver his budget address at the State Capitol and unveil his complete state budget proposal. As a part of the process, state agencies submitted requests to Evers late last year. Underly and DPI submitted one that would dedicate an additional $4 billion — about the same amount as the current budget surplus — towards K-12 education.
The sweeping proposal includes increasing funding for mental health supports, special education costs, literacy and math education, teachers and staff pay, free school breakfast and lunch and early childhood education, including full-day 4-year-old kindergarten. Underly said she proposed it because “it’s what our schools need.”
“They need, probably, more than that, but that’s what they need right now,” Underly said.
Underly noted school districts haven’t been receiving inflationary increases in funding from the state Legislature over the last 15 years. She also noted that last year a record number of school districts went to referendum to ask taxpayers to raise their property taxes to help cover operational and building costs.
There was a “fiscal cliff because the COVID dollars were temporary, one-time, and they couldn’t make ends meet and we had record high inflation,” Underly said. “[Schools] still have to pay staff. They still have to put gas in their buses, and they have to pay utilities and all these other things to keep their operations going, but they haven’t been able to get any increase really that’s been sustainable from our state Legislature.”
Underly said investing could help address an array of issues.
For example, Underly said teacher retention could be helped with more resources and by reestablishing the “respect and rapport that teachers deserve.” Recent DPI data found that four out of every 10 first-year teachers either leave the state or the profession altogether after just six years. She said the agency has been doing some work to help, including securing a federal grant aimed at supporting special education teachers, but that more investment would be beneficial.
Underly said enough people are being prepared for the job and by getting “more revenue in our schools, they have a feeling we can get more staff, either to lower class sizes, which will help with working conditions, and they can also pay their staff more.”
Instead of adequately addressing the financial challenges, Underly said Republicans have been blaming schools “so that people will not send their kids to public school, and they can take that money and they can put it in private vouchers.”
Limit school vouchers
Wisconsin’s school voucher programs, which use state money to subsidize families’ tuition at private schools, have been growing since the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was created in 1990. The caps on Wisconsin’s school voucher program, which limits the number of students who can participate, are slated to be lifted in the 2026-27 school year and could have a big effect on the future of education in Wisconsin.
Underly said the state needs to ensure the program doesn’t expand any further. She noted that the programs aren’t held to the same accountability, testing, reporting or licensing requirements as the state’s public schools.
“If you have somebody in the seat who is indifferent to vouchers, or is going to be supportive of vouchers, it’s really — that’s the end of public education in Wisconsin, and that’s what the federal government wants. They want to privatize public schools,” Underly said. “They want to take the money that they no longer have to spend in the Department of Ed and just give it to parents so that they could put it in a voucher.”
“If you have somebody in the seat who is indifferent to vouchers, or is going to be supportive of vouchers, it's really — that's the end of public education in Wisconsin, and that's what the federal government wants. They want to privatize public schools,”
– State Superintendent Jill Underly
Endorsed by Democratic Party and AFT-Wisconsin
Underly’s approach to advocating for public schools is part of what has won her the endorsement of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin, a union of professionals working in the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Technical College System, public schools and state agencies.
Jon Shelton, AFT-Wisconsin vice president for higher education and a UW-Green Bay professor, said that Underly’s incumbent status and accomplishments in office set her apart in the endorsement process. The organization, which has a constitutional process for endorsements, interviewed Underly and Wright.
“[Underly] has always shown a commitment to ensuring that the voices of educators have a seat at the table and in the decision-making processes, both with the Department of Public Instruction, but also modeling that for local school districts,” Shelton said.
In addition to overseeing the state’s 421 public school districts, the state superintendent also has a seat on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. Shelton said Underly’s outspokenness for educators was an asset in her position there as well. He pointed out that she was the only regent to vote against a plan to fire 35 tenured faculty members at UW-Milwaukee and to give a speech about the negative consequences of the decision.
Shelton also called Underly’s budget proposal “visionary.” He said that K-12 education and higher education, while separate systems in Wisconsin, are connected since younger students eventually become college students and the higher education system is responsible for preparing their future education, which is why it’s important to see both supported by the state.
Shelton said the proposal is important because there is a budget surplus in Wisconsin and educators shouldn’t allow “our expectations to be lowered.” He noted that under new legislative maps, 14 Democrats flipped seats in the state Legislature and the impact could continue in the future.
“In 2026, Democrats could have control of either one or both houses of the Legislature. This idea that we have to basically just adhere to the low expectations of Republican priorities, it’s not the reality anymore,” Shelton said. “So it’s really important that we have people who are in a position like Dr. Underly, who have that platform to be able to vocally and forcefully advocate for these priorities, so that they’re on the agenda in 2026.”
Shelton said having an advocate willing to engage in certain battles is more important than having a candidate that prioritizes working across the aisle due to the actions being taken at the federal level right now.
“Our nation, our state, is under threat from authoritarian Republicans. Right now, the Trump administration is intentionally trying to sow chaos and intentionally trying to set working people against each other. This is why you have this, this executive order, which is meant to prevent even teaching about things like race and racism. This is not like the West Wing… where you have Republicans and Democrats having good faith differences of opinion. This is a party at the national level that is connected to [Assembly Speaker] Robin Vos and the Republicans at the state level, who, frankly, don’t want certain parts of our education system to exist,” Shelton said.
“We’ve tried to find common ground with Republicans, and they just keep cutting our budgets and keep coming at us for more, and frankly, our administrators continue to accommodate this,” Shelton continued. “We’re not going to let our students and the people of the state have the public higher education system, that’s been so good for such a long time, just taken from us, and so we’re going to be the ones on the front lines of fighting it, just like we’re going to be the ones on the front line of fighting authoritarianism from the national level.”
The Wisconsin Democratic Party endorsed Underly for a second term at the end of November. Party Chair Ben Wikler called her a “steadfast advocate” for students, parents and schools in a statement and said she is a “proven leader” who is “championing our kids in the Department of Public Instruction.”
The political environment and working with the Legislature
During her term in office, Underly and the agency have regularly come into contention with the Republican-led Legislature on a variety of issues. Just last week, representatives from the agency testified against several Republican bills, including one to reverse test score changes and limit how schools can spend their money.
Despite the disagreements, Underly said that she’s been able to work with lawmakers during her term. She said the literacy law is one example.
However, Wright cited the communication challenges that the agency has had with lawmakers, school districts and others. He said he would try to minimize partisanship, so that more conversations can be had between the agency and lawmakers.
Underly said communication with lawmakers is an issue that the agency has been working on, and brushed back some of Wright’s critique.
“It’s entirely comical that the male candidate in this race thinks that he’s going to have better luck with the Legislature…,” Underly said. “It’s really insulting that this, you know, this male candidate, thinks he can come in and undermine my leadership and call me a bad communicator.”
Underly said that when she speaks with lawmakers individually and when people on her team speak with them it’s clear that they agree on a lot, but that politics and polarization can get in the way. She noted that most lawmakers want healthy kids, high quality public schools and communities in rural and urban areas.
Underly said in a second term she would continue to work on improving the relationships and is hopeful that new faces in the Legislatures will help.
“We need people in the Legislature who will fight for public schools, too. That’s really what it comes down to,” Underly said. “I think we have to understand that it doesn’t matter who’s in the seat, if you’re a public school advocate, it’s always gonna be a struggle.”
In discussing the politicization of education, Underly called attention to the recent actions being taken by the federal government at the instruction of President Donald Trump. She said the actions are “chaotic” and “cruel.”
“The things that they’re axing and cutting and slashing are programs that are meant to help kids,” Underly said. She pointed to Head Start programs and the freeze on payments that have been affecting child care centers across the country, including in Wisconsin. “We look at the programs that they’re cutting like these that are helping the most vulnerable kids so that they can be successful, healthy adults.”
The administration is also considering eliminating the Department of Education, and Underly warned that people need to be prepared.
“If he says that’s what he’s going to do, we have to believe them… I don’t think people realize all the different things the Department of Education administers,” Underly said. She noted many programs work to ensure certain people have equal access to education, including kids and families in poverty, students with disabilities, English language learners, Native American students, kids in rural areas and girls.
“There’s so many protections in place… I think of the funding that our schools get, our state gets money from the Department of Ed. I don’t know if the state Legislature would be willing to fill those gaps,” Underly said. “There’s a lot to be concerned about.”
Trump has also signed executive orders that attempt to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion in government, the private sector and schools. He has also eliminated a policy that stopped Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from going to “sensitive areas” — a decision that opens schools up to immigration raids.
Underly said her “North Star” is focused on “creating safe, welcoming environments where every child feels valued and respected, where every child feels they belong so they can thrive.” She said DPI trusts schools and educators to work closely with families and communities to support all students, though the agency is also providing guidance.
“I’m going to always stand up for kids, especially your most vulnerable kids, and just remind people to stay focused on what matters,” Underly said. “We’re going to follow the law, and we gave them the guidance that will help them.”
The primary election is Tuesday, Feb. 18, and the general election is on Tuesday, April 1.
Education consultant Brittany Kinser says the recent changes to the way Wisconsin reading and math scores are calculated motivated her to enter the race for state schools superintendent.
Kinser is running against incumbent Superintendent Jill Underly, a Democrat, and Sauk Prairie Schools Superintendent Jeff Wright, a Democrat, in the race for the nonpartisan office. The primary for the state superintendent election is Feb. 18 with early voting underway. The top two vote getters will advance to the general election.
Kinser was debating as late as December about whether to enter the race, she said, when a Milwaukee school leader, whom she declined to name, helped her make a decision.
“[He] said, ‘I heard, you’re not going to run. … Who’s going to be the voice for our kids?’” Kinser said in an interview with the Wisconsin Examiner. “And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’”
Kinser, prior to entering the race, called herself a “Blue Dog Democrat” according to WisPolitics, however she hasn’t embraced the label since. She recently called herself a “moderate” on 1130 WISN, saying she has voted for Republicans and Democrats before and attended the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention. Her campaign manager is Amy Loudenbeck, a former Republican state lawmaker and former School Choice Wisconsin leader.
Kinser said the decision to change to how test scores are measured was “unacceptable.” Those changes included new terms to describe student achievement and changes to cut scores, which are the minimum scores needed to qualify for certain achievement labels.
“When I heard that they lowered the standards, my response was like, that’s not good for kids. That might make adults feel OK … but that’s not what’s best for kids,” Kinser said. “Kids know if they can’t read, all colleges and their employers will know that they can’t read well enough when they graduate, and so when that happened, I knew I needed to do something. I [can’t] just sit on the sidelines and complain about it.”
While opponents have said the changes “lowered” the state’s standards, DPI and Underly have repeatedly defended the new scores, saying educators helped develop them and the changes were needed to better align the state’s standardized tests with its curriculum standards.
Kinser has said she supports reversing the changes, and is running to “restore high standards” in Wisconsin.
Literacy is one of Kinser’s top priorities and she has said that more needs to be done to ensure students are able to read, pointing to recent results on the Nation’s Report Card.
“It doesn’t have to be three out of 10 [who aren’t proficient in reading]. It can be 95% of our children. It’s possible,” Kinser said.
When it comes to supporting literacy efforts, Kinser said that the state needs to ensure that teachers have “evidence-based curriculum” and are getting support, including through coaching and professional development.
Kinser named Louisiana and Mississippi as examples of states that Wisconsin could take notes from — both states that have seen improvements in reading scores on national assessments.
“They’re doing that in Louisiana, and they have a portfolio of choices for schools. They’re focusing on the kids… we need to focus on making sure our teachers have the support they need, the curriculum as an evidence-based curriculum, so that our kids are getting the instruction and then there is transparency around results,” Kinser said.
Wisconsin has been taking steps to change reading, including by passing a law that was negotiated in part by DPI with Underly at the helm. The law sought to push Wisconsin schools towards a “science of reading” approach to teaching literacy, and dedicated $50 million to support the efforts, though the majority of the money is still being withheld by the state Legislature.
Kinser said that the law was a “great first step,” and said she would want to build on that. She said there needs to be accountability to ensure that schools are adopting new curriculum and not using “three-cueing” — a way of teaching reading that relies on context, structure and letters to identify words — as it was banned under the new law.
“We can continue to build on that, but we also can make sure that we are supporting the schools and implementing it, and also celebrating the schools and making data really clear to see where we’re at, because it really should be about how the students are learning,” Kinser said.
Kinser’s school choice background & view on its role in Wisconsin education
Kinser, if elected, would take the position with a different background compared to her opponents. As first reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Kinser has never had a Wisconsin teaching license and her principal’s license lapsed last year.
Kinser said at a WisPolitics forum last week that she is qualified for the job even with her lack of license, and pointed to her other experiences as an educator.
The majority of Kinser’s education experiences in Wisconsin have not been at traditional public schools. Currently, Kinser serves as CEO of Kinser Consulting, LLC and she recently helped start a literacy initiative in Wisconsin.
Prior to this, Kinser served as the CEO and President of the City Forward Collective, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit advocacy group that works to ensure “every child has the opportunity to attend a high-quality school” with a mission statement that says it seeks to support Milwaukee public, charter and private voucher schools.
According to Wisconsin’s lobbying website, Kinser was registered from January 2023 until January 2024 as a lobbyist for the organization, which spent over 538 hours and $148,000 lobbying in 2023-2024.
During 2023, the organization spent the majority of its time lobbying in support of SB 330, now 2023 Wisconsin Act 11, which increased per pupil funding for choice programs, and its companion bill AB 305. The group spent a total 236 hours in 2023 lobbying for the bills.
Last session, the group also registered in support of 2023 AB 688 and AB 900, a pair of bills that would have implemented a decoupling policy in Wisconsin. The policy would separate the state’s voucher programs from public school districts and fund them using state general purpose revenue.
Kinser said she continues to support the policy of “decoupling,” which didn’t pass the Legislature last session.
Kinser has also served as principal and executive director of Rocketship schools in Milwaukee, part of an entrepreneurial network of charter schools that started in the Silicon Valley and has been at the center of public debate about privatization of public schools. Kinser has also served as a special education teacher in Chicago.
Kinser has claimed the title of the “only pro-school choice” candidate in the race, and she said her experiences as an educator shaped her views on the school choice program in Wisconsin.
“Parents should have choices for their children,” Kinser said. She noted that parents in Wisconsin “overwhelmingly choose their neighborhood schools in the state” and called open enrollment, which is a policy that allows students to attend a public school outside of their residential school district, the largest school choice program in Wisconsin.
“What I see happening right now is everyone wants to focus on vouchers, but that’s just… a scholarship for children to go to a private school. That’s just one small part,” Kinser said.
Asked about whether she wants to see changes in funding for voucher schools, Kinser noted that students who receive vouchers to attend private schools in Milwaukee “do not get as much money as the students that are going to MPS.”
As a leader of the City Forward Collective, Kinser celebrated the historic increases in funding for Wisconsin’s voucher programs in the last state budget as a win for “parent power” in an opinion piece in 2023.
“We want to make sure all of our kids are getting a great education, and so the funding for elementary school children that receive private vouchers is much lower than if they were going to a traditional public school, so I would be an advocate for kids getting more money, yes, and making sure that’s fair.”
Public school funding
As state superintendent, Kinser would be responsible for overseeing 421 public school districts across the state, and funding for those schools has become an increasing concern for many in recent years, especially as more school districts have turned to voters to ask them to raise their property taxes to help cover education costs.
Kinser pointed to a controversial partial veto by Gov. Tony Evers in the last budget that extended a $325 increase in its school revenue limits each year for the next four centuries into the future. She said, given this increase in what school districts are allowed to raise from local taxpayers and spend on each pupil (which does not come with any increase in state aid), she is more concerned about ensuring that there is transparency about where money is being allocated and “making sure that it’s getting into the classroom.
“My priority is in the classroom to our teachers, and we are getting more money every year,” Kinser said.
Kinser said that she does want to see more investment in special education, though she didn’t say how much of an increase there should be. The state of Wisconsin currently covers only about 33% of public schools’ special education costs, leaving school districts to cut programs and find other ways to come up with money to cover this federally mandated expense.
“We need to figure out what is possible for funding for special education. We can’t put a number out there that’s not going to happen,” Kinser said.
Kinser said that ensuring a “good relationship” between DPI, the Legislature and Evers’ office would be necessary to figure this out. She said she doesn’t think the whole state surplus, which was most recently estimated to be $4.3 billion, will go towards education, even if that’s her first priority.
She said that she already has a “strong rapport” with Evers and the Legislature, and will continue to strengthen those relationships as well as others.
“Kids need an advocate, and their families and our educators, and part of that is being able to have relationships, building relationships with both sides of the aisle, and… being able to have relationships with everyone,” Kinser said.
Kinser said she wants to see additional investment in rural education, including transportation.
Navigating politics and education
Kinser said that she doesn’t think that politics belongs in Wisconsin schools.
“When I interviewed to be a principal or a special ed teacher… no one ever asked me if I was a Republican or Democrat, I would have been appalled and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this school doesn’t have their priorities in order, like, why are they asking me this?’ I gotta work with all the kids, no matter who their parents are.”
The DPI, however, will likely have to navigate politically charged issues in the coming years. One issue is diversity, equity and inclusion, which has become a highly discussed topic again as the new administration of President Donald Trump has sought to eliminate DEI in government, the private sector and schools.
Kinser said she thinks every student should feel safe and welcome in the classroom, but that cultural issues, including diversity, equity and inclusion, are something that should be handled by individual districts.
“Wisconsin is a local control state, and I think it is really important that parents are working with their school districts and school board to decide on those issues, on the culture issues,” Kinser said. “I don’t think you can have someone from Madison telling all different school districts what to do with each of their cultures.”
The Trump administration is also considering attempting to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Kinser said that she doesn’t know whether that will happen but would want to ensure Wisconsin continues to receive its federal funding.
“My big thing is making sure that the money that we get for… that we’ve been getting really — Title I and special education — still flows to our state so that we can use that money,” Kinser said. “I think the funding is the biggest issue that everyone I’ve talked to here is most concerned about, so making sure that that money still comes into our state.”
The primary election is Tuesday, Feb. 18, and the general election is on Tuesday, April 1.
A teacher and students in a classroom. (Klaus Vedfelt | Getty Images)
In its first hearing of the legislative session, the Assembly Education Committee took testimony Thursday on several Republican bills, including one that would reverse changes to state testing standards and others that implement new state requirements on local school districts.
State Superintendent Jill Underly criticized several of the bills ahead of the hearing in a statement for not providing “real solutions” to the problems that school districts are facing across the state.
“[Republicans are] too busy playing political games, using our schools and children as pawns to push their own ideological agenda,” Underly said in a statement. “Rather than empowering local districts, they are intent on ignoring local control and imposing their own control over classrooms, dictating every move and actively trying to undermine public trust in our teachers and the entire education system.”
Reversing test score changes
The first bill — AB 1 — would reverse the changes to the Forward Exam test scores implemented by DPI last year.
Under the bill, Wisconsin would be required to return educational assessments to score ranges and qualitative terms that DPI used on school report cards for the 2019-2020 school year. It also would require DPI to align the Forward exam score ranges and pupil performance categories to those set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Each year Wisconsin students take standardized tests, including the Forward Exam for third graders through eighth graders and the ACT and PreACT Secure for high school students, that help schools, teachers and families determine educational progress.
Last year, DPI approved changes that included new terms to describe student achievement — “developing,” “approaching,” “meeting” and “advanced.” Previously, the terms were “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced.”
New cut scores were also implemented — switching the state from a 3-digit number to a 4-digit number score for the math and English/language arts (ELA) test and changing the test scores needed to qualify to be placed in each performance level.
Sen. John Jagler (R-Watertown) said at the hearing that the recent changes to the test scores “broke the connection to previous years to allow us to see how our kids are performing over time.”
“As we move out of COVID, it is more important than ever that we’re able to see how our educational system is advancing or not advancing,” Jagler said. “Moving away from the national standards set by NAEP only compounded the problem.”
Jagler said he was “disturbed” to see recent NAEP results that found that 31% of fourth grade students were at or above proficient in reading and 8% were advanced.
The Forward Exam results with the new cut scores found that public school student proficiency rates in ELA were 48%.
“We simply can’t improve our numbers by cooking the books which it appears we’ve done here,” Jagler said.
Lawmakers said there needs to be more oversight of the process for test score review, especially as more money is being requested for education in Wisconsin. Underly has proposed spending an additional $4 billion.
“Later on in this session, there will be a request for billions of dollars to be invested in our schools. Should we, the Legislature, be able to determine where we are with other states that are making improvements?” Wittke commented.
Representatives from DPI defended the test score changes and said reverting to the old standards would not be an effective way of measuring test results any longer.
Deputy State Superintendent Tom McCarthy, noting that Wisconsin has a seven-year process for reviewing standards, said Wisconsin hasn’t lowered its educational standards “one iota.”
“If you ask a classroom teacher, what we are expecting them… to teach kids has continued to get more and more rigorous over the past decade,” McCarthy said.
When it comes to NAEP, McCarthy said that it “does not have standards like we do,” adding of the NAEP standard rubric, that it “sometimes relates and it sometimes does not relate.”
DPI Director of the Office of Educational Accountability Viji Somasundaram noted that NAEP addresses the “proficiency” measure on its website.
“It should be noted that the NAEP Proficient achievement level does not represent grade level proficiency as determined by other assessment standards (e.g., state or district assessments),” the website states.
Somasundaram also said that while state assessments are administered to every student in Wisconsin (in 2023-24 there was a 95.4% participation rate for public school students) the NAEP is only administered to a few thousand students. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the NAEP just tests a representative sample in a state, so not every student in a school or school in a district participates. She said it is a “valuable tool” that can “provide comparison information across the states” and trend information over several years but it doesn’t provide grade level assessment.
Somasundaram explained the process for coming to the new state standards, saying it included input from 88 participants who met over the course of four days. She said they used a method called “bookmark” standard setting, which is used across the country for developing cut scores. DPI helped organize the session but isn’t involved in the process, she said.
“We have one of the most stable assessment systems and it is a practice that we have been following to bring educators together after we have a new assessment to establish cut points,” Somasundaram said.
Some have complained that because participants were required to sign nondisclosure agreements it was a sign of a “secret” process, however, McCarthy said the NDAs were required since participants were looking at “live” test questions, which are considered “proprietary” information.
“Reverting the cut course or having these conversations and accusing people of dumbing down or lowering standards is a convenient political narrative, but it’s not actually real,” McCarthy said. “It’s not what’s happening in schools.”
Rep. Cindi Duchow (R-Town of Delafield) accused DPI of trying to “muddy the waters” when it comes to the scores and focused specifically on the results in Milwaukee. The recent NAEP test results found concerning results for Milwaukee public schools, where only 9% of fourth-grade students tested proficient or above in reading. Other large cities had 26% of students at that level
“We got the national reading scores last week. MPS is the worst in the country. You should all be embarrassed,” Duchow said, “and if this was a private sector and not a government bureaucracy, you would all be fired.”
“You’ve got nothing but word salads going on,” she added.
In response, McCarthy said that the challenges in Milwaukee Public Schools go beyond the agency and have existed since 1988 when the Legislature created the Milwaukee school voucher program.
“I would contend for you that since that point in time things have not actually gotten any better, it’s actually gotten worse,” McCarthy said. “If you want to sit down and have a conversation about what we can do to support Milwaukee and figure out how to drive their results, we’re on board, but the Department of Public Instruction does not have a lever to push that says ‘make Milwaukee better.’”
According to the Wisconsin lobbying website, the test score bill is supported by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, the City Forward Collective, Badger Institute, Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, School Choice Wisconsin Action, Wisconsin Charter Action and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin is registered in opposition.
Gov. Tony Evers’ spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Dictating how districts allocate funds
The committee also discussed a bill that would impose new mandates on the way school districts allocate money.
The bill — AB 6 — would require school boards in Wisconsin to spend a minimum of 70% of operating money on direct classroom expenditures and would limit annual compensation increases for school administrators to the average annual percentage increase in total compensation that is provided to teachers in the school district.
The bill defines “direct classroom expenditures” as money spent on “salaries and benefits of teachers and teacher aides, instructional supplies, tuition, athletic programs and cocurricular activities.”
Currently in Wisconsin, local school boards, which are elected by community members, are responsible for overseeing school spending.
Bill coauthor Rep. Benjamin Franklin (R-De Pere) said the bill would “provide fairness for our teachers and support staff and prioritize our students by making simple reforms to how schools use their resources.” He noted that, according to National Center for Education Statistics, positions devoted to school administration grew by 94.6% nationally between 2000 and 2022 while teaching positions have shrunk. He also noted the recent results on the NAEP test.
“In the business world if I invest money in a particular area and it yields negative or undesirable results, I would look to reallocating my resources to achieve the desired outcome,” Franklin said. “Government is no different. As state legislators, we have the responsibility to be wise stewards of citizens’ tax dollars and to make sure that we continue to invest back in our classrooms and not in the front office.”
Rep. William Penterman (R-Hustisford) asked how the author came to the 70% number.
Franklin said that most school districts spend on average 73% in the classroom across the state, though he couldn’t name the source of the 73% average. He said 70% is an “achievable” number, and that the bill is a way to ensure districts that are “underperforming” keep up with other districts.
If school districts don’t meet the requirement, DPI would be required to cut the district’s state aid payments by the difference between what the school board spent on direct classroom expenditures and the minimum that it should have spent on direct classroom expenditures. The district would also be prohibited from levying additional property taxes to compensate for the reduction.
Under the bill, if the total reduction in state aid and other state payments does not cover a school board’s excess expenditures, DPI must order the school board to reduce the property tax obligations of its taxpayers, including providing refunds to taxpayers who have already paid their annual taxes, by an amount that represents the amount of excess expenditures that have not been recovered through the state aid reductions.
Franklin highlighted that Milwaukee Public Schools recently came under fire for attempting to increase four administrators’ salaries to $200,000 a year, though the district eventually decided against the raises due to the district’s current finances. The finances of the district have been under scrutiny over the last year due to the passage of one of the largest operating referendums in state history and the subsequent news that the district was late in delivering required financial information to DPI.
Underly said in her statement that the bill “threatens local control, burdens schools with unnecessary penalties and risks worsening the already fragile financial and administrative challenges districts face.”
“Instead of top-down mandates, local communities should retain control over how their schools are run and the Legislature should instead focus on fully funding our public schools so they can meet their local priorities and student needs,” Underly said.
During the hearing, DPI representatives presented more in-depth testimony about why the bill would be ineffective.
Kimber Vercauteran with DPI noted that the state already limits school districts spending through revenue caps. She said that the agency is also supportive of local control, calling it “the most important aspect of our Wisconsin state law.”
“This bill because it requires DPI to intervene, calculate, monitor and penalize spending at the district level lies in direct conflict with school boards, which are empowered with the supervision and management of schools,” Vercauteran said. “Boards are still best positioned to ensure that bonds are expended in accord with the needs of the community.”
Vercauteran also said that the definition included in the bill may not cover all of the costs actually incurred.
For example, she said, athletic activities usually require facilities. She said that the remaining 30% also may not cover the costs of other things including school safety, libraries and librarians, nutrition services, transportation or utilities as the bill is written.
Vercauteran said there are also logistical problems with the enforcement mechanism included in the bill. She said that DPI doesn’t receive school district reports until after the end of a school year.
“We would not be able to determine whether the district meets that 70% benchmark until well into the following year, and if this bill wants us to enact those aid reductions in that following year, school districts have little to no notification that they’re all of a sudden going to have an aid reduction,” Vercauteran said.
Mandating two weeks for school materials inspections
Wisconsin Republicans are also resurrecting a bill that would set a deadline for a school district to respond to a resident’s written request to inspect a textbook, curriculum, or instructional material.
The bill — AB 5 — would require school districts to comply with requests within 14 days.
This is the third session in which lawmakers have introduced a bill to accomplish this. In the 2021-23 session, the bill passed the Legislature and Evers vetoed it. Last session, the bill passed the Assembly and never received a vote in the Senate.
Nicholas Zabloudil, who works for bill author Rep. Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc) — who was absent from the hearing due to illness — said the bill “is vital in restoring the relationship between parents and school districts.”
“We’ve seen an outcry from parents around our state and frankly around the country regarding the lack of transparency in public schools,” Zabloudil said. He noted that in some cases parents have made records requests and have encountered delays in receiving responses.
DPI testified against the bill, saying it is duplicative, unnecessary and would put a burden on school employees.
DPI Education Policy Advisor Laura Adams said that the agency fully believes in transparency for families and community members, but noted that there are already a variety of ways for people to gain access and to understand the types of instructional materials being used in schools
Adams said that open records laws “are already a vehicle for families and community members to be able to request instructional materials and to see the instructional materials that are being used.”
Other laws in Wisconsin include one that requires a list of textbooks be filed with the school board clerk every year on an annual basis. Another state statute requires school boards to provide the complete human growth and development curriculum and all instructional materials for inspection to parents who request it.
State Superintendent Jill Underly with Madison La Follette High School Principal Mathew Thompson and Madison Public School District Superintendent Joe Gothard in the hallway at La Follette in September 2024. Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner
Wisconsin lawmakers are seeking to reset the state’s testing standards to what they were in the 2019-2020 school year after the Department of Public Instruction implemented new performance level standards last year — a decision that DPI Superintendent Jill Underly has repeatedly defended.
The co-authors on the bill — Sen. John Jagler (R-Watertown), Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) and Rep. Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville) — say it’s needed to “reinstate” high academic standards in Wisconsin. In a statement, Jagler accused DPI of making the decision to change the way the state measures academic standards in a nontransparent way.
“These changes were made behind closed doors in advance and revealed only when the test scores were announced,” Jagler said in a statement. “Not surprisingly, the massive uptick in artificial performance gains was confusing at best and misleading at worst. We also lost, because of these changes, the ability to compare performance from previous years.”
The changes and reactions
Wisconsin students take standardized tests every year with third graders through eighth graders taking the Forward test, which was first created in 2016, and high school students taking the ACT and PreACT Secure. The tests are meant to help inform schools, teachers and families about “what students know in core academic areas and whether they can apply what they know.”
According to DPI, evaluating standards is a routine process. Specifically, every seven years the state reviews, and may update, its state standards in various subject areas to ensure they remain current. This process happened for English, Language Arts (ELA) in 2020 and math in 2021.
The new standards meant that DPI also needed to reevaluate the Forward exam and corresponding performance level standards and “cut scores” — the minimum scores needed to qualify for categories including “advanced” and “developing.” The DPI started the process of reevaluating cut scores in 2023.
A similar process for setting standards took place in June 2016 when the Forward exam was administered for the first time, under the guidance of then-Superintendent and now-Gov. Tony Evers.
Last year, two changes were made to the cut scores after an evaluation process.
First, new terms were established to describe student achievement — “advanced,” “meeting,” “approaching” and “developing.” Previously, the terms, which were established in 2016, were “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced.”
The new terms were announced in early June 2024 after DPI received feedback in December 2023, including 800 responses and 500 comments to a survey sent to educators, administrators, parents, families and education groups.
“I’ve often heard confusion from parents, families, and legislators on what performance terms on tests meant in regard to where students are at academically,” Underly said at the time. The new terms, she said, are “not only clearer, it also recognizes the endless potential each of our students has as learners.”
The second change was to the state’s cut scores, which came after a standard-setting meeting also held in June.
According to DPI, about 88 educators — including mathematics and reading specialists, classroom teachers, school principals, curriculum and instruction coordinators and specialists, interventionists, instructional coaches, gifted and advanced coordinators and CESA staff — participated in the standard-setting meeting. The group included representatives from each of Wisconsin’s CESAs, the five largest school districts, private schools in the school choice program and rural, suburban, and urban school districts. The group then submitted a recommendation to the state superintendent, which was approved later in June.
The new cut scores switched the state from a 3-digit number to a 4-digit number score for the math and ELA test and changed the test scores needed to qualify to be placed in each performance level. For example, under the previous cut scores, a third-grade student would need a 624 on the ELA test to be considered “advanced.” Under the new cut scores, a third-grade student would need a 1622 on the ELA test to be considered “advanced.”
Under the new standards, the 2023-24 test results showed that the public school student proficiency rate in ELA was 48% and Wisconsin students had a proficiency rate of 49% in math. In the previous year, public school student proficiency rates in ELA and math were at 38.9% and 37.4% respectively.
The changes mean that the test was no longer aligned with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Prior to the changes Wisconsin’s scores were aligned to NAEP, and its performance level expectations were among the highest in the nation. Underly has said tying Wisconsin’s standards to NAEP’s created a “misalignment” in how success was measured and that the state’s standards were excessively high when compared to other states.
The changes, however, drew pushback from Evers and Republican lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester).
“I hate to even talk about things that aren’t my purview anymore in the Department of Public Instruction but I just think there should have been some information and dialogue happening with all sorts of people before that decision,” Evers said at a press conference in January. “It’s hard to compare year to year if one year you’re doing something completely different. “I think it could have been handled better.”
“Superintendent Underly wants to make it harder for parents to understand when their school is succeeding or failing,” Vos said at a press conference earlier this month. “She wants to make it easier for failing schools to somehow seem like they’re succeeding.” He said he wants to see “speedy discussion” and “bipartisan support” for raising Wisconsin’s educational standards.
“I would hope that no one, the most liberal person or the most conservative person, would want to dumb down our standards so kids aren’t able to read, and the parents aren’t able to even know whether or not their kids are succeeding,” Vos said.
Critics of the change have also complained that the new cut scores “lowered” educational standards in Wisconsin and have made it difficult to compare data to earlier years.
Republicans’ proposal
Republicans’ new proposal would require that Wisconsin revert its educational assessments to using the cut scores, score ranges and qualitative terms that DPI used for report cards published for the 2019-2020 school year.
The bill would also require DPI to align the Forward exam cut scores, score ranges and pupil performance categories to the cut scores, score ranges and pupil performance categories to those set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
When it comes to the PreACT and ACT with Writing in English, Reading, and Mathematics, the bill would require DPI to use the same cut scores, score ranges, and pupil performance categories that DPI used in the 2021-22 school year and for DPI to use the terms “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced” for pupil performance categories on these assessments.
“There is no doubt we have many great schools in Wisconsin but when every school is given a ‘C’ or better it makes it impossible to have an honest discussion of where we need improvement,” the lawmakers wrote.
Wittkes said in a statement that it was “troubling” to see “changing testing protocols is the path the State Superintendent has chosen in response to students’ poor reading and math performance.”
“Let’s set the bar as established by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) and make a better effort to understand student needs for academic improvement,” Wittke said.
Underly has repeatedly defended the changes, and did so again in a statement rejecting the claims that Wisconsin’s standards were lowered and criticizing lawmakers for seeking to interfere with the changes that were made.
“As I have repeatedly said, standards have not been lowered,” Underly said, adding that the process for changing the standards was “transparent” and changes reflected the recommendations of experts.
“The updated assessment, developed with significant and transparent communication with the field, is more accurate and reflective of student performance for Wisconsin families,” Underly wrote.
“As it relates to report cards, we share legislators’ belief that the system can be improved but the right answer is not to look to the past, but to work together to create the best system for the future,” Underly said. “It’s disappointing but unsurprising that some politicians believe they know better than our educators. When historic numbers of teachers are leaving our state or classroom altogether, they should be investing in education, not picking political fights on false premises.”
Underly is running for a second term as DPI superintendent and faces two challengers — Brittany Kinser and Jeff Wright — in a February primary. Both candidates said they support the bill.
Kinser said she “strongly” supports the effort to restore the standards that were in place under Evers.
“As a former teacher and principal, I know students rise to the expectations set for them,” Kinser said in a statement. “Lowering standards deprives our kids of the opportunity to be college- or career-ready, and that is unacceptable in Wisconsin. Our kids deserve more, not less, and I look forward to working with the legislature to pass this proposal.”
Wright said the changes came at “the worst possible time” given that schools are still trying to assess students’ progress after COVID, but said it’s “unfortunate” that lawmakers are stepping in.
“This is happening because of the absence of system-wide collaboration and open communication,” Wright said. “I look forward to working with our Legislature as a nonpartisan problem solver to do what is right for our schools.”
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