Support Tony Evers

DPI Superintendent Evers Deserves Re-election

Holtz is Wrong for Wisconsin

Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction provides institutional and financial support to the state’s public schools. It is led by a non-partisan superintendent who gets elected every four years. Tony Evers is the current superintendent and is running for re-election on April 4^th.

Superintendent Evers has done a great job negotiating the troubled waters post-Act 10, trying to keep public education afloat while school budgets were slashed, teachers vilified and local control obliterated by Governor Walker and the GOP controlled legislature. Evers’ steady leadership has been the only bright light in the wholesale assault on public education, especially in urban areas.

Evers has a solid plan to rescue public education and to stand up against the forces that would continue the slide into privatization and profiteering now led by Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s wholly unqualified pick to lead the U.S. Department of Education.

Make no mistake, the privatizers here in Wisconsin and nationally have their sights on the money we spend to educate our children. They sell it grandly through claims about the wonders of school choice, competition and “free markets.”

School choice has been and continues to be a disaster, siphoning money out of public schools and giving it to religious private schools in the form of vouchers to parents. The voucher, when presented to the private school, takes the student’s state funding from her former public school and gives it to the private one. Vouchers rob the public schools of the economies of scale that make them manageable financially. Take a student’s $7,000 state aid out of a public school and they still have to hire the same number of teachers because that one or two students less in a classroom does not mean the remaining students should not be taught. 

The privatizers for choice also siphon money out of public schools through charter schools. They too are funded with tax dollars that would otherwise go to neighborhood public schools. Neither charter nor voucher schools are held to the same standards as public schools. Neither has to offer the help or services special needs students require. These private schools do not have to take every student who applies and can kick students they do not like out mid-year. Those students return to public schools without the public money given to the private schools returning with them, further stretching the already thin public school budgets. Study after study shows that private charter schools do not produce better performing students than public schools.

Vouchers and charters are the new form of school segregation. They appeal to many who don’t want their kids mingling with students of color, those with special needs or those with multi-colored hair.

Superintendent Evers has called for an end to this drain on public school funding as part of his package to completely redo public funding of public education. He correctly observes that the current school funding formula cannot support our public school system, much less one that includes vouchers and charters.

Evers calls for a drastic overhaul of the current school funding formula to correct for the disparities between urban and rural schools. He wants more resources for underperforming schools, not less, and opposes turning them over to private school operators who will take out profits at the expense of students learning. Evers wants to provide support to rural districts facing enrollment declines so they can continue to provide quality education to all who come through the doors.

Superintendent Evers supports educators, recognizing they are the lifeblood of our public schools. Public schools need adequate funding in order to retain and support experienced teachers who not only teach our kids but mentor young teachers just starting out. He is very concerned about the significant drop off in students entering schools of education and wants to make teaching attractive as a profession once more. 

You can learn more at www.tonyforwisconsin.com and https://dpi.wi.gov/statesupt/about

Evers’ opponent is Dr. Lowell Holtz. Holtz’ website is full of buzzwords, but short on substance which is surprising given his years in public education. He appears to favor the privatization views of his conservative supporters and refuses to answer questions from those he does not like. He also seems short on integrity having been involved with the meeting with anonymous business leaders and his former rival, John Humphries, where there was discussion of six figure employment should Humphries drop out of the race. Then there was his use of a school district email to Republican donors seeking financial support which was followed by complaints from one of the school boards where he worked about his unauthorized donation of the school’s bleachers to the private school Holtz’ children attended.

Holtz website can be found at www.kidservative.org.

The choice on April 4^th is clear. Please support the reelection of Tony Evers as DPI Superintendent and help him keep public schools public and make them strong again. They are, after all, the bedrock of democracy.

Waring R. Fincke is a retired attorney and vice-chair of the Democratic Party of Washington County.