Wisconsin voters to narrow the field of candidates for top education job

MADISON, Wis. — Voters on Tuesday were casting ballots to narrow the field in a three-way race for battleground Wisconsin's top education job, a post at the forefront in the state of the national fight over school funding during President Donald Trump's second term.

The top two vote-getters will advance to the April 1 general election.

The incumbent, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly, was first elected in 2021 with the support of Democrats and teachers unions. But this year she faces a challenge on the left from Sauk Prairie Superintendent Jeff Wright, a two-time Democratic candidate for state Assembly.

Brittany Kinser, an education consultant and advocate for the private voucher school choice program, is backed by Republicans. The Wisconsin Republican Party has given $200,000 to Kinser's campaign in the officially nonpartisan race so far.

Wisconsin is the only state where voters elect the top education official but there is no state board of education. That gives the person who runs the Department of Public Instruction broad authority to oversee education policy, which includes dispersing money to schools and managing teacher licensing.

Whoever wins will have to manage Wisconsin's relationship with the Trump administration as it seeks to eliminate the federal Department of Education, which supports roughly 14% of public school budgets nationwide with an annual budget of $79 billion.

The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the statewide teachers union, did not endorse a candidate in the primary. The political action committee for the union recommended that Wright be endorsed.

Wright is endorsed by the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators and the Middleton-Cross Plains teachers union.

Underly has tried to position herself as the champion for public schools. She was endorsed by the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which gave her campaign $106,000 this month, and a host of Democratic officeholders.