Pridemore, Evers Share Little Common Ground In Superintendent Race

Voters will go to the polls tomorrow to select a state Superintendent of Public Instruction. The candidates differ on many issues including education funding, voucher expansion, and the state’s new math and English curriculum.

The nonpartisan race for Wisconsin’s top education official pits the incumbent state superintendent Tony Evers, who was a teacher and school administrator for years, against Republican Representative Don Pridemore, a former engineer who serves on the Assembly education committee.

The two candidates do not agree on much. Pridemore unabashedly supports Governor Scott Walker and voted for his law that ended collective bargaining for teachers and other public workers. He also voted for the current budget that cut state aid to public school districts by $800 million. Evers has worked with the governor on some initiatives, but is critical of Walker’s collective bargaining law, his budget cuts, and his plans to expand the voucher program.

In a recent debate they sparred over the Governor’s proposed next biennium budget, which would largely freeze funding for public schools while dramatically expanding the voucher program for private education. Pridemore says he is on board with Walker’s plans.

“In general I do support the Governor’s budget. I am a conservative. I do look at budgets with a very sharp pencil, and I’ve eliminated much funding that I thought was unnecessary in budgets that I’ve had control over.”

However, Pridemore says he would support boosting funding for public schools in the future, after he says the state’s finances have improved. Evers says that the state has a surplus and public schools need to be a top priority.

“I think the notion of having many, many years of revenue limits, and then last time we lost $800 million to our schools and to our kids and lost almost 3,000 teaching positions and support staff positions–that’s where we’re coming from. To go into a budget that has zero dollars for public schools and [a] $1,400 per pupil increase for voucher schools and private schools–that just doesn’t compute to me as State Superintendent.”

Evers wants to increase state aid around $225 per student. Some Republican lawmakers are discussing tweaking Walker’s budget to give more money to public schools. Also yet to face significant debate is the governor’s plans to expand vouchers to nine new Wisconsin communities, and to increase the amount paid to private schools per student. It’s another Walker proposal Pridemore wholeheartedly supports.

“I think we need more competition in education. To think that public schools once dominated the educational process in the state of Wisconsin because there’s been almost total control over a lot of things that go on within our education system from the teachers union that has not been positive, that has not had a long term positive effect on our ability to educate our kids.”

However, Evers contends that competition has not helped in Milwaukee, where the Parental Choice Program has operated since 1990.

“If you look at the achievement level of students in the voucher schools and students in Milwaukee public schools, it’s essentially the same, or in many cases worse. I’m not saying I’m going to close down the Milwaukee voucher program or anything like that. I’m a political realist.”

But, Evers says it would not be best practice to further expand that model. The two candidates also disagree over the role federal and state government should play in education policy. Pridemore wants more local control and cites the state’s new math and English language arts curriculum, called Common Core State Standards, as a case of government gone wrong. He calls it a socialist program that will “dumb down America.” Evers says that Common Core raises standards.