Re: The State Superintendent of Public Instruction Race
Tony Evers received the most votes in February’s Primary for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Second place finisher Rose Fernandez will be his opponent in the April 7 election.
Evers’ 34 years of experience as an educator, including 8 years as Deputy State Superintendent, has been touted by various groups.
Evers has garnered endorsements from:
- School Administrators Alliance SAA represents more than 3,000 public school principals, special education directors, business officials and superintendents throughout Wisconsin
- Wisconsin Education Association Council WEAC is the state’s largest teachers union.
- Wisconsin Library Association WLA is a statewide organization of approx. 2,000 individual and institutional members
- Wisconsin Alliance For Retired Americans (Announcement by Evers campaign,see http://tonyevers.com/pdf/WARA_Endorsement.pdf
Virtual schools advocate Rose Fernandez has been described as an outsider or reformer.
But in an interesting report called the Five Million Dollar Pyramid, One Wisconsin Now/OneWisconsinNow.org raises concerns about our tax dollars and a network involving Rose Fernandez, private education advocates, lobbyists.
The Executive Director of One Wisconsin Now contends, “ Rose Fernandez is part of a well-financed network to keep our public tax dollars going to for-profit companies like K12,Inc. Wisconsin education tax dollars should stay in Wisconsin and not go to out-of-state, for-profit companies.”
The site says, "As president of the Coalition of Virtual School Families, Fernandez headed up a movement that worked to push through legislation authored by Rep. Brett Davis (R-Monroe) to guarantee virtual schools continue here. The Virginia-based K12, Inc. was the for-profit company contracted to create curriculum for the Wisconsin Virtual Academy. In its prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, K12, Inc. anticipated $5 million in 2008 revenues from Wisconsin taxpayers. [K12, Inc. SEC Prospectus, 12/12/07, pg. 69]
One Wisconsin Now's Executive Director calls it a “vast network determined to push as much of our public education tax dollars to private companies as they can.” “Their goal is to reduce accountability, erode confidence in public education and put our children’s futures in the hands of companies whose only concern is profit.”
