State superintendent candidates Jill Underly, Brittany Kinser trade barbs in only forum before April 1 election

For more than an hour, incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly and challenger Brittany Kinser agreed on several issues: Wisconsin’s performance gap between Black and white students is embarrassing, supporting LGBTQ+ students is a must, and federal education funding can’t be cut. 

But then, the gloves came off. 

In the first and only public forum before the April 1 election, Underly suggested Kinser doesn’t know how public schools work in Wisconsin. 

“She makes this claim, routinely, that only 3 in 10 kids are able to read or that they are college ready. That makes absolutely no sense,” Underly said. “We’ve made incredible gains in Wisconsin. … And I think my vision has had a lot to do with that.” 

Kinser, an educational consultant from Wauwatosa, fired back, saying Underly’s assertion that she is the “voucher lobbyist” is false. Kinser said she spent a decade working in Chicago Public Schools and another 10 years working in public charter schools. 

Underly then pointed out Kinser lobbied for a bill that raised funding to K-8 private choice schools from about $8,400 per student to $9,500 per student. Funding for private choice high schools went from $9,045 to about $12,000 per student.

“I support school choice. I support families,” said Kinser, who is a moderate and is supported by conservatives in the nominally nonpartisan race.

Underly, who is supported by Democrats, also took a quick jab at Kinser for not having a Wisconsin teacher’s license as of February. Kinser replied that she had paid the state’s $185 fee and received her license.

“These are the barriers that we need to take away,” Kinser said. “As we’re saying, we need more qualified teachers.”

The online candidate forum was hosted by the Wisconsin Public Education Network, NAACP Wisconsin, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed.

Underly had been invited to several other debates but declined them all, saying her schedule did not allow her to attend.

One issue not brought up in the 90-minute forum by moderator Kevin Lawrence Henry Jr., an education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was state testing benchmarks. 

Underly has been under attack for months since DPI changed testing standards. Republicans and her opponents, including Kinser, have accused her of “lowering” standards. 

Underly has stood by the changes, saying the new standards better reflect where children are in their learning. 

But on Tuesday, Republicans sent a bill to the governor’s desk that would reset the way the state measures standardized test scores. 

The Department of Public Instruction has more than 500 employees. It is responsible for providing accurate, timely and relevant support to Wisconsin’s 421 public school districts. The Department does not set curricula or dictate policies for local districts. 

Underly said at the forum she decided to run for office in 2021 because of the funding inequity in the public school system. 

“There’s a correlation between high poverty and low test scores,” Underly said. “We have to really look at our school funding formula. We also have to look at the fact that we are funding two systems of schools: public schools, and then we’re funding a voucher system where we pay private school tuition and they don’t take all students.”

Kinser said everyone agrees the school funding formula is broken. 

“Schools are operating with limited resources, and taxpayers 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 for the governor’s office, we have to make sure that it’s updated.”