This is a very easy endorsement to make. We are urging Shepherd readers to vote for Tony Evers for state superintendent of public instruction on Tuesday, Feb. 21. Evers is a strong advocate for public education and is a check on the abuses of a Republican-controlled government. He faces two challengers who largely support the Betsy DeVos-funded Republican privatization agenda, which means more publicly funded private voucher schools and additional experiments with our kids’ education.
Evers has a long history in public education and worked his way up from a classroom teacher to school principal to eventually getting elected to be the state superintendent of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction in 2009. Since then, he has worked hard to provide fair, appropriate funding for our students at the same time Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators gutted public education budgets, from K-12 to our technical colleges and UW System. Although Dr. Evers is an independently elected, constitutional officer with power over the education system—and has decades of experience as an educator—the Republicans unwisely tried to curtail his power and failed to support his well-considered policy plans. Had the Republicans implemented Evers’ Fair Funding for Our Future proposal, we wouldn’t have these great disparities in funding among our school districts and the state would be properly funding our public schools. Instead, Republicans decided to support publicly funded private voucher schools and went back on their promise to hold them accountable.
We strongly support Tony Evers in the Feb. 21 three-way primary election and in the April 4 general election, when the top two vote-getters will appear on the ballot. Evers is a strong advocate for a fair, well-funded education system that reaches all corners of the state, from the classrooms of the City of Milwaukee to the rural schools “Up North.” We encourage you to vote for Tony Evers on Tuesday, Feb. 21.
