She's never run for office. Can state superintendent candidate Brittany Kinser pull it off?

Yahoo

21-03-2025

Brittany Kinser's work in Wisconsin began with a lot of door-knocking.
It was 2013, and she was the principal of a new charter school opening on the city's South Side. She needed students and lacked a big marketing budget to recruit them in a highly competitive school landscape. So she printed off a Google map of homes in the area and knocked on doors to talk to families about their education options.
Kinser, 47, is knocking on Wisconsin doors again. She's seeking voters this time around, not students.
Kinser is running to be state superintendent of public instruction, challenging incumbent Jill Underly, a Democrat, in the April 1 election. Her career up to this point has mostly been in the classroom or school administration, including nearly a decade in Chicago Public Schools and about 15 years with charter schools. She's currently an education consultant focused on literacy initiatives.
"I know how to start a school, but I don't know how to run for office," she said.
Kinser officially jumped into the race last December with little political experience, no war chest and no campaign team. She also lacked a party affiliation, at least initially. Kinser volunteered for Barack Obama in 2008. Her campaign donation history shows support for both sides of the aisle, from Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin to former Republican legislator Dale Kooyenga.
Kinser calls herself a moderate and is backed by conservative groups, including at least $200,000 from the state Republican Party so far. She is campaigning alongside Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate in the state Supreme Court race. High turnout in that race, coupled with a sense of public fatigue over the status quo in education, could disrupt the historical pattern of Democratic-aligned candidates comfortably cruising to victory in state superintendent races.
Kinser's campaign arose out of frustration over how how few children can read and how long the problem has persisted. Only 39% of Wisconsin students were considered proficient in 2022-23. She was angry, and went for a run last summer.
There, the idea of running for state superintendent came to her. The miles passed, and it wouldn't go away.
"I could just stand on the sidelines and keep complaining and texting people and being mad, or I can jump into this race and take action, right?" she asked.
Raised in Crystal Lake, Illinois, Kinser was the daughter of two Democrats. Her childhood dream was to be the doctor who cured AIDS. A visit in eighth grade to a school where a friend's brother with special needs was enrolled changed her mind.
Kinser earned her bachelor's degree in special education from Eastern Illinois University in 1999, then joined Chicago Public Schools as a special education teacher. After seven years in the classroom, she became an instructional coach for the district.
A colleague of Kinser's was in the midst of opening a math and science academy through a Chicago public charter school network. She invited Kinser to tour some of the network's existing schools, a suggestion Kinser initially responded to with horror because of what she'd heard from her years in the Chicago Teachers Union.
Kinser's colleague wore her down, and she eventually agreed to a tour. She found the school welcoming, so she took a job coaching new teachers in science and special education within the charter network.
The charter school job marked a turning point in Kinser's career, one that eventually led her to Wisconsin.
Three years into the job with the Chicago charter school, Kinser got an offer in 2012 to work with Rocketship Schools, a nonprofit charter school chain based in California. When Rocketship decided to launch its first school outside the state in Milwaukee, they tapped Kinser to open it.
Former Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce President Tim Sheehy has been on the school's board of directors since its founding. He remembered sitting in a classroom full of rowdy kindergartners and a new teacher during the first year. Kinser walked in and took control, coaching the teacher and calming the students.
"It's hard to describe the chaos of starting a new school, which made her leadership even more impressive," he said. She made more decisions than a traditional public school principal, from budgeting to hiring to fundraising.
Charter schools are public schools that get some freedom from traditional rules. In exchange for delivering higher-than-average student results, they don't have to answer to traditionally elected school boards. Critics say charters poach students and siphon public money away from traditional public schools.
More: Here's what charter schools are and how they work in Wisconsin
Rocketship Wisconsin showed promising signs in its early years. About 29% of Rocketship students scored proficient or advanced in English/language arts on the state Forward exam in 2015-16, compared to 19% in Milwaukee Public Schools and 43% across Wisconsin.
But scores have dropped in more recent years, according to state data. About 15% of Rocketship students scored proficient or advanced on the same exam in 2022-23 compared to 16% in Milwaukee Public Schools and 39% for Wisconsin.
Kinser acknowledged the lost ground, which she attributed to a shift away from evidence-based curriculum, such as the science of reading. She left Rocketship in 2022 to lead City Forward Collective, a Milwaukee education nonprofit.
Underly's campaign has blasted Kinser's Rocketship work, pointing to a 2016 investigation by NPR that examined the charter chain's emphasis on technology and test scores. The story described instances in which students retook tests to boost scores, a company policy tying some of teachers' pay to growth in test scores and limited bathroom breaks to maximize learning time.
Kinser's campaign called the story a "debunked blog post" that was "riddled with errors." The charter network CEO responded in an op-ed that there few retakes approved, no company policy on bathroom breaks and a 90% student return rate that demonstrated high satisfaction with Rocketship.
Kinser consulted with both Democratic and Republican operatives ahead of jumping into the race. About 70% told her not to run, she said. They warned of political attacks, which landed even before last month's primary, when Kinser's opponents drew attention to her credentials.
An educator's license is not required to serve as state superintendent. Kinser had an administrator's license when she led Rocketship. But it expired last summer, and she's never had a Wisconsin teacher's license. (Kinser applied late last month for the renewal of her administrator's license, according to DPI records.)
Colleston Morgan worked with Kinser when she led City Forward Collective. The nonprofit advocates for and funds charter schools and vouchers. It also pushes for increased school accountability measures. Morgan said Kinser builds relationships with both political parties.
Morgan and Kinser lobbied for a school funding bill in spring 2023. He remembered a Republican legislative leader laughing when Kinser said she wanted a $200 million increase in state payments to independent charter schools and voucher payments that cover the cost of tuition for students from lower-income families to attend private schools. The money would help close the gap between what public schools receive on a per-pupil basis, and what charters and vouchers receive.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed the bill into law as part of a broader package that saved Milwaukee from a fiscal crisis. The plan included $250 million for charters and vouchers, in addition to boosts for about half of Wisconsin's public school districts that historically had received the least base funding.
The GOP lawmaker, whom Morgan declined to name, came up to Kinser afterward, saying he had laughed because he really didn't think it would get done.
"Very few people want to do bad things for kids in this work, but I would say it's not as many people who are able to actually truly translate those good intentions into impactful action inside of a political process," Morgan said. "And her ability to do that is as strong as anyone I've ever seen."
Kelly Meyerhofer covers higher education in Wisconsin. Contact her at [e-mail] or 414-223-5168. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @KellyMeyerhofer.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Why Brittany Kinser is running for Wisconsin superintendent in 2025