Two candidates advance in Wisconsin superintendent of public instruction election

The top two finishers in a Feb. 18 nonpartisan primary, incumbent Wisconsin State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly and challenger Brittany Kinser, have advanced to the April 1 general election. The winner will be elected to a four-year term overseeing the Department of Public Instruction. 

Underly, a longtime public educator currently in her first term, is backed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. According to unofficial totals published by the Associated Press as of Feb. 19, she had received 38% of the vote in the three-way primary.

Kinser, a former educator and the former head of the school choice advocacy group City Forward Collective, is backed by the Republican Party of Wisconsin and City Forward’s political arm, which spent thousands of dollars on pro-Kinser phone calls before the primary. She received about 34.6% in the primary.

Jeff Wright, the Sauk Prairie School District superintendent, received 27.4% of the vote and did not advance.

The superintendent of public instruction oversees teacher licensing, supports 421 local school districts, and crafts the state’s $8 billion annual educational budget, according to a report by  WUWM 89.7, Milwaukee’s NPR affiliate. 

Underly’s campaign site touts achievements leading the department, including attaining the highest graduation rate (90.5%) in Wisconsin history and raising the state’s U.S. News & World Report public education ranking from 14th in the nation in 2020 to 6th in 2024. 

She calls herself “the No. 1 advocate for public education” and opposes school vouchers, which use taxpayer dollars to fund private 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 told the Wisconsin Examiner on Feb. 11. “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.”

Kinser’s website focuses on a call for higher educational standards and says, “Brittany is the only candidate for DPI Superintendent who supports school choice for Wisconsin families.” 

She has backed using more public dollars to fund private education, telling the Examiner on Feb. 10 that students receiving vouchers in Milwaukee “do not get as much money as the students that are going to MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools].” 

“I am pro-kid, so if there are kids going to vouchers, I will be pro-voucher school too, because that’s what families are choosing,” Kinser said during a Feb. 6 WisPolitics forum.

Kinser did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Most studies have shown public funding programs for private education do not improve student achievement, and that they even reduce it. Because private schools are not required to adhere to the same curriculum standards as are public schools, the quality of education can vary widely. 

A February 2025 analysis by the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate found that more than 10 years after Louisiana implemented a statewide voucher program, just 14% of voucher students in grades 3 through 8 had reached the state’s education achievement targets in 2023. That figure was nine points lower than the percentage of students reaching targets at public schools serving low-income communities.

A 2018 analysis of Indiana’s school voucher program by researchers at the University of Notre Dame found that students who used vouchers to move from public schools to private schools suffered a loss in achievement compared with matched students who stayed in public schools. It noted, “This loss persisted regardless of the length of time spent in a private school.”

“Wisconsin has always valued strong local public schools, and that’s where the vast majority of our students learn,” Underly said in an emailed statement. “Every dollar sent to private voucher schools is a dollar taken away from public schools, which educate all kids—regardless of ability, income, or background. Instead of siphoning resources away, we should be investing in the schools that serve every child.”