Underly wins state schools chief race
Winner takes over for Evers appointee
Jill Underly, the superintendent of Pecatonica School District, defeated former Brown Deer Schools superintendent Deborah Kerr in the race to become Wisconsin superintendent of schools Tuesday.
With more than half the votes tallied, Underly was up 57% to 43%, and the Associated Press called the race.
Underly will take over for Carolyn Stanford Taylor, who was appointed to the state superintendent position by Tony Evers when he became governor. Evers held the post for nearly a decade.
Underly’s campaign, endorsed and heavily funded by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, spent seven times what Kerr’s campaign spent. Additionally, outside groups spent almost four times as much on ads favoring Underly than on ads favoring Kerr.
The level of spending — over $1 million in ads alone — was unprecedented for a Wisconsin superintendent race.
Though the position is technically nonpartisan, the candidates clashed over whether taxpayer dollars should go to independent charter schools and to vouchers for students to attend private schools in school choice programs. Underly opposed expansions
of these programs while Kerr said she supported school choice.
Underly was endorsed by teachers unions, which traditionally oppose vouchers as they reduce funding available for public schools.
Kerr was backed largely by conservatives, but also touted a couple endorsements from Democrats: state Sen. Lena Taylor, who supports school choice, and former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who has supported expanding charter schools.
Major changes to voucher programs would require legislative action. The new superintendent will write budget proposals for education funding and can issue guidance on a number of issues, including pandemic safety, virtual learning, curriculum and teacher licensing.
In the course of the rancorous campaign, the political parties of Wisconsin filed ethics complaints against each of the candidates.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin argued Underly should not have used her Pecatonica district email address to ask other superintendents for their personal contact information, which she later used for discussion about her election bid.
Days later, a complaint from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin argued Kerr should not have used her Brown Deer district email address to discuss business for her new company, Lead Greatly LLC.
The candidates also had major disagreements about the future of the state superintendent position and the Department of Public Instruction. Kerr proposed moving or rehiring most of the more than 400 employees at the agency away from Madison and into offices around the state. Underly criticized the plan as disruptive and costly.
The new superintendent will start in July.
Milwaukee School Board
In other education news, Aisha Carr led Dana Kelley in the race for the north side District 4 seat on the Milwaukee School Board, with one ward and all absentee ballots still to be counted late
Tuesday.
Carr had 1,087 votes while Kelley had 727. A spokesperson for Carr's campaign said they were waiting for more ballots to be counted before declaring victory.
Carr, Opportunity Youth Program director at Silver Spring Neighborhood Center, previously taught in MPS and lost a run for school board in 2017. She has been criticized in both election cycles for ties to organizations that support school choice programs. Carr said she supports the concept of vouchers, though the system needs more accountability.
Kelley, the health care equity organizer of North Side Rising, ran as part of a socialist slate and was endorsed by the teachers' union. In her campaign, she proposed a Green New Deal for MPS, focusing on infrastructure issues such as lead and ventilation, curriculum focused on climate equity, healthy foods and energy sources.
In the race for the east side District 5 seat on the Milwaukee School Board, Jilly Gokalgandhi led Alex Brower, but both sides were in a holding pattern late in the evening.
With just a few hundred votes separating them, Gokalgandhi and Brower said Tuesday night that they would wait for absentee ballots to be counted before declaring victory or conceding.
Gokalgandhi, Equity in Education team member at American Family Insurance Institute, emphasized in her campaign that she would bring needed perspective to the board as a woman of color who moved to the U.S. from Mumbai as a child. She proposed a new program for female and gender non-conforming students to accompany the existing Black & Latino Male Achievement Program.
Brower, who ran as part of a socialist slate, was endorsed by the teachers' union. He has worked as a substitute teacher for seven years, though that work dried up during the pandemic.
He's now the director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans. In his campaign, he proposed adding student seats to the school board and holding community-wide votes on certain issues.
Two other seats on the board also were up for election, with no incumbents running and only one candidate in each race. Walker's Point Center for the Arts executive director Marcela Garcia ran uncontested for the south side District 6 seat now held by Tony Baez. And recently retired Milwaukee Public Schools teacher Harry Leonard ran uncontested for the southwest District 7 seat held by Paula Phillips.
The winners will be sworn in April 26.
Judicial seats
A law clerk and part-time municipal judge backed by major Republicans looked poised to unseat incumbent Judge Jeffrey Davis from the Court of Appeals.
Shelley Grogan, a law clerk at the state Supreme Court and part-time municipal judge in Muskego, targeted Davis as liberal because he was appointed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, even though she sought the same appointment. Davis considers himself a judicial conservative, with a background representing corporate clients at a major law firm.
With more than half of precincts reporting as of 9 p.m. Tuesday, Grogan was leading Davis 57 percent to 43 percent.
The District 2 court hears appeals from trial court decisions in 12 counties, from Kenosha to Manitowoc, excluding Milwaukee County.
Though all judicial elections are technically nonpartisan, Grogan made the appellate court race feel very partisan. She was endorsed by her boss, conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley; U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson; and other leading leading Republicans.
Grogan also attracted donations from major GOP supporters like Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, owners of Uline; and Diane Hendricks of Beloit, owner of ABC
Supply; and from the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
Former Gov. Scott Walker's son Alex ran Grogan's campaign.
Davis had endorsements from State Supreme Court Justices Patience Roggensack and Annette Ziegler, both conservatives, and Republican state Sen. Alberta Darling.
In the race for Milwaukee County's Branch 3, Katie Kegel easily beat Susan Roth for the open seat, earning about 60 percent of the vote.
Kegel, 35, is an assistant public defender in Waukesha who first filed to challenge Judge Clare Fiorenza, before she retired.
Roth, 38, is a private practice criminal defense lawyer and partner at Smith Kohn Ross. She first filed to run for the seat long held by Jeffrey Conen, after he left for private practice, but switched to the Branch 3 race after Evers appointed Jon Richards to replace Conen.
Roth won the endorsements of more than two dozen sitting and retired Milwaukee judges, the district attorney and the Milwaukee police union.
But Kegel, who campaigned on a decidedly progressive platform, had the backing of several labor unions and prominent elected Democrats.
Milwaukee County Board
Human resources professional Priscilla E. Coggs-Jones was leading Youth Justice Milwaukee's Darrin B. Madison Jr. in Tuesday's special election to represent District 10 of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors.
Absentee ballots had yet to be counted at press time.
Coggs-Jones had 52% of the vote, compared to Madison's 48%, according to county figures.
Once the absentee ballots are counted, the winner will be the last person standing in a race that initially included five contenders vying for the seat left open by the resignation of former Supervisor Supreme Moore Omokunde after he won the District 17 state Assembly seat.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley called a special election to fill the seat that represents a swath of Milwaukee from West Wisconsin Avenue on the south to West Congress Street on the north.