By WisPolitics.com Staff
The five candidates for superintendent of Public Instruction touted their credentials in their final debate before Tuesday’s primary without taking many shots at their opponents.
The debate, sponsored by the Wisconsin Council of Religious and Independent Schools, featured no real fireworks. Rose Fernandez came the closest of the five to taking any kind of a shot at one of the other candidates.
Responding to a question about the current cap on Milwaukee’s voucher program, Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers pointed out his work over the past eight years with the program and his desire to see the results of a study on student performance before deciding whether to lift the enrollment limits.
Fernandez said Evers had failed to mention DPI fought to keep the enrollment cap in place under his direction in working with Superintendent Libby Burmaster.
“If I’m elected, there will be no fight over that cap,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez, a nurse and virtual schools advocate, sold herself to the audience as the outsider in the race. She advocated retaining the qualified economic offer, which allows school districts to avoid arbitration if they provide at least a 3.8 percent increase to teachers in wages and benefits each year. She also advocated creating flexibility within the QEO to provide merit pay for teachers.
“I am the outsider in this race in more ways than one,” she said.
On the other end of the spectrum was Todd Price, an associate professor at National-Louis University in Kenosha. He tabbed himself the progressive candidate in the field and stressed his opposition to the voucher program on the grounds that public money should not be used to send children to private and religious schools. He also reiterated his support for a federal amendment to the Constitution requiring adequate funding for public schools.
“We must put the public back in public education,” Price said.
Evers, who lost in the 2001 primary and became Burmaster’s top aide after she won the April general election, stressed his experience with the department. He pledged to work for safe, quality schools. He also said parents expect results from their schools and said the state needs to change the way it administers standardized tests.
“We have to have accountability, not to Washington, D.C., but to the taxpayers and parents of this state,” Evers said.
Lowell Holtz touted his work at school districts around the state and said he was a proponent of data driven results. He likened the position to being the chief executive officer of a $6 billion a year company and said he wants to modernize what he sees as an antiquated system.
“We haven’t adapted to the new technology area,” he said.
Van Mobley, a professor at Concordia University and a Thiensville trustee, said his background makes him the ideal candidate to take over the agency with the multiple problems facing the state’s education system. He advocated removing technical colleges from the property tax rolls and said he was distressed by some of the decisions he’s seen come out of Madison in the current economic climate. That includes the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents decision to give the new chancellor a substantial raise after failing to follow through with promises to boost compensation for faculty. The superintendent gets a seat on the board.
“It reminded me of the behavior we saw on Wall Street,” Mobley said.
http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=149070Julie Genovese is Feingold's Circuit Court pick if you're in Dane County, but Steve Ehlke is a also a good candidate.
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/438686
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