‘This victory is for you’

Jill Underly defeats school choice advocate and pledges to fight for increased education funding

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The high-stakes race for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, which drew intense scrutiny and national attention, overshadowed the statewide race for head of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Election Night felt no different. While hundreds gathered across Madison’s Capitol Square at a party for Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford, a much smaller group waited at the Concourse Hotel to see if superintendent Jill Underly would defeat challenger Brittany Kinser. 

While both races are technically nonpartisan, Crawford and Underly were backed by Democrats. 

Most attendees at the Concourse had the New York Times election results map open on their phones, eagerly awaiting news of the results of the Supreme Court race. At 10 p.m., with a Crawford victory already secured, the small crowd erupted in loud applause and cheers as Underly, who was first elected superintendent in 2021, entered the room to claim victory over Kinser. 

“We must stand united to protect the funding that our schools and kids so desperately rely on to succeed,” Underly told the crowd. “To the educators who dedicate their lives to teaching, to the parents who support and advocate for their children, and to the students, who inspire us daily with their resilience and curiosity, this victory is for you.”

According to the most recent election results, Underly won 53% of the vote to Kinser’s 47%. 

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin pumped $850,000 into Underly’s campaign, according to WPR; Republicans supported Kinser, an education consultant, throwing $1.7 million into her pot. 

Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison, who attended Underly’s party, said the superintendent “ran on strong values of prioritizing our public schools… .In smaller communities, where schools are at the heart of the community, she is really able to engage families there, coming from a rural district herself.” 

Underly declined to participate in three debates against Kinser during her campaign, but attended one public forum with her opponent. She used the opportunity to criticize Kinser for lobbying to expand school choice and for not having a Wisconsin teacher’s license. 

“Wisconsin wants their public dollars to go to public schools,” Hong tells Isthmus. “I think as a lobbyist who has never been an educator, who has lobbied for public dollars to go to private schools — it’s not a part of a lot of Wisconsinites values.” Hong said.

Underly’s department recently lowered the threshold for what is proficient on state tests and changed the student success benchmark, causing backlash from both Republicans and Democrats, including Gov Tony Evers, a former DPI superintendent himself. 

Underly defended the new standards in an Isthmus questionnaire, arguing that they measure student outcomes to the “actual test they take in Wisconsin,” providing extra tools to educators and students in a more equitable way. 

“Assessment updates are very important and we want to make sure that parents, educators [and] students are all better informed from these assessments, and that’s a conversation we are not having as much of, as opposed to just a test score,” Hong said. 

Kinser focused her campaign on expanding school choice and improving academic performance. She said in an Isthmus questionnaire that Wisconsin “must modernize the school funding formula and adequately support all students.”

Kinser promised in a news release Tuesday night to keep working on the issues that drew her into the campaign. “I am proud of the team that I built and the positive, clean campaign that we ran,” she said. “Our kids’ future shouldn’t rest on the politicization of our education system, but on the belief that our kids deserve so much better than they currently receive. This is not the end.”

In other education election news: Martha Siravo, a disability rights activist, beat Bret Wagner for an open seat on the Madison School board with 55% of the vote. Wagner, an engineer, received 45% of the vote. 

Incumbents Ali Muldrow and Nichelle Nichols, the board president, ran for re-election unopposed.