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Former Whitnall Schools Chief Eyes State Schools Superintendent Post

Lowell Holtz Says He'll Challenge Incumbent Tony Evers

By
Chuck Quirmbach/WPR

A retired school superintendent from suburban Milwaukee, Lowell Holtz, is planning a run for state schools superintendent next year.

Holtz most recently ran the Whitnall School District in Hales Corners. He said the Department of Public Instruction’s incumbent head, Tony Evers, has gone overboard with a teacher evaluation project called Educator Effectiveness.

“It is a good program,” Holtz said. “But you can overdo it, and take teachers from planning lessons to planning how they’re going to address Educator Effectiveness.”

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Holtz said he’s running to bring more local control to school districts. At a news conference Tuesday, Holtz was asked about his support a few years ago for the now-controversial Common Core educational standards program.

“Everybody was excited about it at that time, when it came in, because what they did was dangle the Race to the Top dollars in front of states, and our state bit on the bait and took it,” Holtz replied. “I don’t think we should have pushed it as hard as we did.”

Holtz is running in the nonpartisan DPI race as what he calls a “Kidservative,” which Holtz says means he wants to serve kids. But a conservative, former Republican state lawmaker Don Pridemore, who lost to Evers in the 2013 DPI contest, is backing Holtz’s campaign. Germantown School District Administrator Jeff Holmes is also challenging Evers for the job.

Evers has said he’s looking forward to running for re-election. He said that during the past seven years, he’s created a broad coalition of diverse stakeholders to provide more exciting opportunities for children across Wisconsin.