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This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our Lake Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Brightlow.
Hey, good morning.
Welcome back to Up North News Radio.
Unabashedly, Wisconsin, brought to you by Courier Newsroom and carried by our friends on the Civic Media Radio Network at 7.06 on a Friday morning, March 14th.
Coming up, the weekend forecast from meteorologist Brittany Merlot.
Then our Week in Review panel gets started a little bit early this week, former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel and veteran Chicago journalist Jennifer Schulze and Mark Jacob.
And then just after 7.30, we will have a live interview with Brittany Kinzer.
She is one of the candidates for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
She is running against the incumbent State Superintendent Jill Underly.
Brittany Kinzer is an advocate for charter and voucher schools and so we will be talking about the school systems in Wisconsin, the load on taxpayers and her candidacy all coming up just after 7.30.
this morning.
But first we've got the, we've talked about the weather roller coaster so many times already in the past few days but we're doing it again and this time we're on the way back up temperature-wise and so Brittany's got more details on that and the fact that winter may not be done with us yet even after we set some record highs today.
Brittany, hi, how are you?
Oh, I'm fantastic.
Busy, though.
Mother
nature.
Man, she's going crazy.
Yeah, you
got to work for it this
week, don't
you?
I sure do.
So what we're doing today, this morning, right now, it's 30 degrees in Ashland and it's all the way...
to 54 degrees in La Crosse.
So we've got this warm front moving northward through the state right now, and it's sparking up a few scattered showers and storms.
So I have my window open right now.
I can hear some rumbles of thunder out there, and it moves through pretty quickly.
Now these are not strong.
These are not severe.
They're just getting some of the salt off the roads for us.
As we go through the day to day, we are going to see these winds start to whip out of the south, gusting up to 30 to 35 miles per
hours.
So a very windy and warm day today.
Those winds are going to warm us up to highs in the low to mid seventies.
It's going to feel great.
Little muggy too as some humidity starts to move in with that.
But also we're in a very high fire danger for a lot of the state.
So avoid burning.
Watch where you toss that cigarette butt because these are the prime conditions for a wildfire to start when you got all that dry dead vegetation.
strong winds, and then, of course, it's still going to dry out there.
And we are going to warm things up again.
Like I said, after that, we're going to have a cold front slam right into all that heat, humidity, and instability.
And that's going to fire up some strong to severe thunderstorms tonight.
They're going to move in along the line after nine o'clock into the Western areas.
It'll hit towards Madison, around 10, Milwaukee, around 11.
And we are in a slight risk for them to turn severe.
And we could see some very large hail, some damaging wind gusts up to
70 miles per hour are not out of the question.
And also if you spin up tornadoes could happen, especially south along that state line as we go through this evening.
Now the worst of it should stay into Illinois, but of course as it moves into the state, you know how that goes.
Some of them could still have some intensity with it before they really weaken as they torque it.
go towards Lake Michigan.
So up north into the north woods overnight, those storms will arrive for us after midnight or so.
We're not looking at anything too crazy.
Some of them will have some gusty winds and some decent rainfall.
We're looking at a quarter of an inch to a half an inch of rain.
So as we go through the weekend, some of those rivers could be rising too.
So pay attention for that.
Otherwise, the storm isn't over Saturday.
Still looking at light rain statewide.
It'll be mostly cloudy and temperatures falling.
Winds are going to be whipping up to 40 to 50 miles per hour tomorrow.
So we could be in a high wind warning and those are going to crash our temperatures throughout the day.
So falling temperatures, light rain starts to flip to snow in the western parts of the state in the evening and then continues through the overnight now.
These models have been all over the place with the snow.
I don't think there's going to be much moisture left with this system.
So I'm going to go with just a half an inch of accumulation possible into the north woods.
I don't even think the southern part of the state is going to see anything.
And if you do, it'll probably melt on the road.
So as we go into Sunday, it will start to be colder, right?
It's still going to be windy.
It's going to be blustery.
We're going to be stuck in the 30s.
But then Monday, we'll start to warm things up.
Actually, Monday and Tuesday, temperatures continue to climb.
But that's because another system strikes on Wednesday, where we could see significant snowfall throughout the state.
I like how you're like, I'm going to pick up on that.
I'm just going to let that hang right there.
Yep.
Thunderstorms, snow, rising rivers.
Let's get through this week.
We're looking for
the locusts.
Oh, that's later next week.
OK, got that.
All
right.
Brittany, thank you so much.
Have a great weekend.
You too.
All right.
Coming up in just a bit, we're going to be talking to our Week in Review panel, and it includes a column from Jennifer Schulze that says how your weather app could miss the next big storm and how you can
lay that at the feet of Elon Musk and Doge, the responsibility for that.
First tell you about sports, the Badger Men's basketball team is back in action in the Big Ten tournament after beating Northwestern yesterday.
They will be taking on UCLA coverage begins at 1230 on Civic Media stations in Amory, Wisconsin Rapids and Richland Center.
All right, let's bring in the aforementioned Michelle Z and Mark Jacob and former US Attorney Jim Santel All of them have such great products for you to be checking out.
They include Mark's newsletter at stopthepresses.news There is James who has amicus a law review every Saturday morning at nine across the civic media radio network And of course Jennifer has her newsletter in distinct chatter on substack look for substack.com slash at news Jennifer
a good morning to all of you guys.
morning.
All right, let's Jennifer, since we were just talking to Brittany about the weather, let's talk about your sub stack newsletter and your recent article about how your weather app could miss the next big storm.
Elon Musk, not really caring about your weather warnings, right?
The
National Weather Service is one of the most understaffed agencies in the federal government, and they are in the process of losing over 10,000 people.
That's going to amount to about 10% of their workforce.
The ultimate goal is to cut all of the federal agencies in half.
The National Weather Service is a remarkable federal agency.
with serious scientists and tech experts who I think keep all of us safe.
I did a lot of digging into how it works and where that information goes.
And I was surprised how much it underpins pretty much every piece of weather information that all of us receive.
So like I have an iPhone, I look at my Apple weather app every morning.
Every piece of that information comes from the National Weather Service.
Apple doesn't have its own meteorologist.
And so when that information goes away or it gets less reliable, it impacts all of us.
It's not just your weather app.
It's your local weather forecast, your local radio or your local TV news, websites.
The National Weather Service is the basis for every weather forecast in the country.
And so far, we're already seeing impacts of these cutbacks.
In California last week, two giant radars were out and because Elon Musk put a
spending freeze on federal agencies.
They were not permitted to order the parts to repair them.
So in San Diego, for example, people would look at their weather app and it would say it's going to be clear.
And in fact, San Diego was hit by a huge rainstorm in Southern or Northern California where the other radar is out in the Bay Area.
they weren't completely clear how the weather forecasts were might have been inaccurate because the weather didn't really vary.
You know, San Francisco was pretty steady at the time, but it just raised questions about reliability, not because the National Weather Service is making mistakes.
It's because the systems are being corrupted as we speak.
And I think that is, it's an amazing problem.
And we all ought to be screaming our bloody heads off about it.
Well, because it gets back to some basic functions of government.
And Mark, I know mostly we talk about how, you know, media and newsrooms cover matters.
I'm not asking you to go into basic American governance here, except to say that it would seem our newsrooms should be doing a better job of conveying that
you can't just rely on the private sector for everything because I know the talking point is oh yeah you needed the National Weather Service back in the day and you needed the the post office back in the day but now there's all these private sector entities that will the marketplace will take care of us and Mark are too many newsrooms just buying into this?
The scary thing here is if it does get privatized it will be weather forecasting for the rich.
And the rest of us will just be surprised by things.
There's a reason things are done by government that are shared with the entire population.
It's because it's really important stuff, like the weather.
And the idea that also when you get privatized, you'll get favored companies will get favored treatment by the government.
And that's a real
throughline on all of what's happening with Musk and Doge is that you're going to end up with companies that are favored and companies that are disfavored.
And it's a kleptocracy.
It's, you know, whoever pays, you know, the enough money to the right place is going to get favored
treatment.
And that's the real challenge here is it's one thing for newsrooms to cover corruption after it's happened, where you can see that a company was given more favorable treatment.
But when you're trying to warn of it that this is the thing that could happen, or the thing that is likely going to happen, but because it hasn't happened yet, I could see where there are publishers and station managers and owners who go, well, we don't want to get into conjecture here.
How would you otherwise cover?
the notion of how something is being made more corrupt.
patterns.
Look, if I can see where people say, well, you know, the post office and the Weather Service and everything, somebody would say, well, fine, why do we why do we have
Courts then, let everybody settle their disputes on Judge Judy and things like that.
Jim, you know from your standpoint, there have to be government institutions for basic law and order.
And here's the other thing that people sometimes forget.
One of the many reasons to have courts where you can settle disputes is for commercial and business reasons.
In those states that have strong business laws that are enforced by the judges,
Contracts mean something.
What happens?
The economy, again, it's hard to draw the line, but the economy goes up.
Why?
Those places attract businesses, they attract employers, they attract companies that know that they can rely upon the judiciary and the court system and yes, litigation to enforce their interests.
That's one of the other major purposes of litigation, get rid of that.
And it also has an economic impact.
upon communities.
All right, we will continue our conversation with Jim Santel, Mark Jacob and Jennifer Schulze coming up in just a moment here on Up North News Radio and then our interview with State Superintendent Candidate Brittany Kinzer will follow just after 7.30.
This is Up North News Radio.
I'm Pat Kratlow.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get
started.
On the occasion of what would have been Quincy Jones's 92nd birthday He was the producer behind one of the best albums ever Frank Sinatra live at the Sands and
that tune from there as well.
As we come back to a couple of veteran Chicago journalists, Mark Jacob and Jennifer Schulze and former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel.
Hey, a reminder to sign up for our daily newsletter up North News WI.com and pick up what we work on every day and then my new political newsletter on Sunday mornings as well.
James Santel, a former U.S.
attorney, has his show, Amicus a Law Review, Saturday mornings at nine, here across the Civic Media Radio Network.
Jennifer has her sub-stack newsletter in distinct chatter and Mark has author, he's the author of the Stop the Presses newsletter, stopthepresses.news and Mark, I want to start there because, and I'm going to amend the name of your, the title of one of your columns this week.
It originally said, when the media take mega liars at their word.
I would amend that slide when the media and Chuck Schumer take mega liars at their word as Chuck Schumer caves and says he'll supply the votes for the Republican budget bill to be passed and let Republicans continue their rampage through the government.
I'm sure that will be what most news outlets are carrying today.
Maybe the only major leverage they have is the filibuster in the Senate and the fact that it would take 60 votes, you know to get past that and So for him just to go along with the Republicans and not negotiate things.
I mean Pat this Continuing resolution that's gonna fund the government for the next six months That is not the same one as we had before what that is
There's certain aspects of it, like it attacks the District of Columbia government.
And it's really going to put the squeeze on them.
At the very least, he could negotiate that away.
And instead, he just says, well, these are all bad choices, so I'm going to take this one.
And the thing about it is that
I mean, people are desperate for politicians who will fight for them, not politicians who will just, you know, shrug their shoulders, explain why they can't do anything and then go along.
I mean, this is not a go along time, Pat.
This is, this is a time for fighters and Chuck Schumer isn't one.
No.
And in doing so, what he said was, well, if the government shuts down, well, then Trump and Musk will hold all the cards and they'll just do whatever they want.
And Jennifer, it appears to me.
That's what they're doing anyway.
So there's there's a bit of a lack of leverage as Mark says
Well, I I listened to Chuck Schumer last night when he was interviewed in a very interesting segment with Chris Hayes and I do think there is a point to be made that it could actually get worse with a government shutdown and that
Trump literally could close government agencies and never reopen them.
And that would be worse.
But yes, Pat, you're right.
We are already in a government shutdown of sorts.
Could it get worse?
It could.
And so I get Schumer's point.
I also think he's not reading the room.
That might be the thing.
And to Mark's point of even at least a token filibuster to try to at least get a couple of things changed might have been helpful.
But
Mark, you went on to write another column, which I'm going to have you talk about first and then take it over to Jim.
Trump's retribution now targets law firms.
What was that about?
Yeah, this is really dangerous, you know, where Trump is picking out lawyers and law firms that have represented Hillary Clinton in the past or special counsel Jack Smith.
And he's
Just putting the squeeze on him.
He's like banning some of their lawyers from federal buildings and he's removing their security clearances, which means they can't represent really sensitive clients with government contracts.
And in effect, he is attempting to scare away quality lawyers from representing people he doesn't like.
And it's part of the whole.
sweeping assault on free speech and on the justice system.
And I mean, this is this is really what fascists do.
I mean, this is this is a total fascist move for him to be attacking law firms because they represented people he doesn't like.
And I would no doubt claim, Jim, that there are attorneys who have said they voted for Donald Trump, who are now saying, I didn't think he was going to do this targeting specific law firms.
This is Perkins law firm based in Seattle.
A lot of political work representing Hillary in th not good news here plainl if we think again, one of the six part two, the the the says the first thing we do the lawyers.
Don't people
It is not.
It's actually an affirmation that if you get rid of the lawyers, we can establish anarchy.
Dick The Butcher said that.
This is Perkins Coe 2025.
Thankfully, once again, we've got somebody pushing back on our present invocation of that kind of behavior.
You've got a Beryl Howell, who is a district court judge.
And she says this, regardless of whether the president dislikes the firm's clients, issuing an executive order targeting the law firm
based on the president's dislike of the political positions of the firm's client or the firm's litigation positions is retaliatory and runs head-on into the wall of First Amendment protection.
Beryl Howell stopping that, once again, another federal judge saying, no, no, you can't do this along the way.
Here's the second literary reference for the morning.
She also invokes the Queen of Hearts from Ellis's Inventors in Wonderland, who repeatedly says,
off with their heads at the slightest inconvenience.
Our president following in the role of the Queen of Hearts and Dick the Butcher in doing that, thankfully, we've got a federal judge saying, I'm standing the way of you're doing that, Mr. President.
How the hell did we finally come to the point where the let's kill all the lawyers line from Shakespeare?
It's now seen for what it actually stands for and is no longer just a funny, you know, punch line to make lawyer jokes.
What does that say, Mark, that we're back to having sympathy for lawyers again?
Well, we ought to be have sympathy for lawyers because Trump is using lawyers to assault the news media, to assault.
I mean, this just drives me crazy that he's like sued CBS for editing their own interview with Kamala Harris.
I mean, it is crazy town as far as all the lawsuits that Trump has filed.
And so we need lawyers to fight against it.
I mean, that's where the real battle is right now is in the courts.
Yes, it is.
Yep, it's not.
It's certainly not happening in the US Senate.
And it is in all these many courtrooms, all of which lead to the US Supreme Court.
But perhaps enough presidents and common sense can be laid out in the meantime.
One can only hope.
Mark Jacob, Jennifer Sholesy, Jim Santel, thank you so much.
As always, thanks for coming in early.
Have a great weekend.
Always a pleasure.
All right.
When we come back, we will be talking to Brittany Kinzer.
She is the candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, taking on the incumbent, Jill Underly.
That's right after this.
You're up
north.
Got one more from Quincy Jones.
He was everywhere, everywhere all the time.
And Sol Basanova was one of his hits from the early 1960s and then resurrected for Austin Powers, the series of movies there.
Brittany Kinzer will be joining us in just a sec.
Just got a note saying they're running just a bit late and working on a technical matter, but we will be talking with her shortly about her run for state superintendent of public instruction, taking on Jill Underly in the election on April 1st.
It was one of the areas that was discussed the other night in Madison, part of our first ever live event at the Overture Center in Madison.
And again, we're very thankful for everybody who helped put that on and would strongly urge you to head over to the Up North News YouTube page and give it a look or a listen.
And if I'm not mistaken and don't hold me to it, but I'm pretty sure the folks at Civic Media here, we're going to put up
the forum as a podcast as well so that you can listen to it on demand.
It was a series of three 30, well, three 25 minute panel discussions and one was on the future of education.
One was on the economy and jobs and one was on reproductive health care rights.
And I think it would be a good use of your time because your time has been taken up watching these commercials.
And these commercials deal with matters that just don't come before a state Supreme Court that often, whereas the things we discussed very much do.
And so we really get into the real stakes of why you should be voting on April 1st in that state Supreme Court election and the very real differences between the candidates in the race for state superintendent of public instruction.
There are also dozens and dozens of school referendums on the ballot across Wisconsin in various school districts.
There are local elections and then there are as well the constitutional amendment.
Yes, once again.
you're being asked to decide whether to amend the Wisconsin Constitution.
This one deals with voter ID and it's one thing to pass a law that would make it harder to vote because you have to go get this particular, you know, this ID card or that ID card to vote.
It's one thing to pass it as a law.
It's another to put it in the state constitution and
that's what Republican legislators have done and so that will be on the ballot come April 1st as well.
If you're looking for more information about what's on your particular ballot, whether there's a local referendum, who the local officers are, where to vote, check whether you're registered, find out how to get registered, go to the Wisconsin Elections Commission website and that's myvote.wi
dot gov that's my vote dot w i dot gov and it is incredibly easy to put in just a little bit of information and you will be able to be an informed voter who shows up at the right place is registered and ready to go come april first again britney kinsley coming up in just a moment to talk about the election for state superintendent of public instruction
The Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 126 to 106 last night to snap a three game losing streak.
Meanwhile, it's conference basketball tournament time for the Marquette Golden Eagles.
They had former star Dwayne Wade sitting in the front row as the Golden Eagles ranked 25th nationally, rallied to beat Xavier 89-87 in a quarterfinal game at Madison Square Garden.
They next to face tonight, St.
John's in a semifinal for the Big East.
And meanwhile, the Badger men's basketball team, they will be in action against UCLA in the Big 10 tournament in Indianapolis.
Coverage begins at 1230 on several civic media stations and the civic media app.
Go to civicmedia.us to learn more.
739 is the time.
And here joining us now is Brittany Kinzer, who is a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction.
Again, that election taking place on April 1.
Brittany Kinzer has taught special education in the Chicago Public School.
She has served as principal of a charter public charter school in Milwaukee, has served as CEO of City Forward Collective, a nonprofit advocacy group with a mission statement that says it seeks to support Milwaukee public charter and private voucher schools.
For folks who are wondering, by the way, Jill Underly did join us last month and we are happy that Brittany Kinzer is joining us this morning.
Brittany, good morning.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for your patience.
Our apologies for the technical hiccup there, but it's great to have you here now.
So I want to start as I always do with candidates to give you just a brief opportunity to introduce yourself and talk about
Basically, you focus on why you decided to run.
Most people don't have to run for office.
Other people feel like there's some specific reason why they feel like they're the best person for the role.
So taking that angle, what brings you to this race?
the tarot.
I'm very familiar.
cough.
So my name is Brittany Kinzer.
Thank you so much for having me today, Pat.
And thank you, dear listeners, for listening to us today.
So I have been in education my entire career.
Like you said, I started off as a special ed teacher in Chicago Public
schools for 10 years.
Then I, you know, I worked in the district level for a while over multiple schools as a science and special ed lead.
I then had opened a math and science academy in Chicago also.
And then like you said, I have been I worked at
public charter schools here in Milwaukee.
And then I was an executive director, then a CEO of City Forward Collective.
And now I'm running an initiative called 95 Wisconsin.
And that's actually what brought me to a place of where I thought I needed to run for state superintendent.
This time last year, I was not thinking about running for state superintendent.
It was not on my list of things to do.
I was just actually planning 95 Wisconsin.
And what that stands for is that we know from research that if children learn how to read using the science of reading.
you know, phonics, reading comprehension, 95% of children can read well enough to go to college or have a career, 95%.
And right now, unfortunately in Wisconsin, we are in a reading crisis.
We only have three out of 10 children reading well enough to go to college or have a career.
And then in Wauwatosa, I live right next, I've lived in Milwaukee too.
for the past 12 years, we have the worst reading outcomes for our Black children in the entire country.
Only 5% of Black children are reading well enough to go to college or have a career.
Like this, I consider this a crisis, something that we should all be leaning into and helping.
And so I started this program, 95 Wisconsin, that includes one-on-one tutoring by certified teachers to students who are behind.
program that was working in Oakland, California.
Steph Curry and his wife, he's now my favorite basketball player.
They put $35 million into reading.
playgrounds and healthy food.
And one of my former colleagues, now she's my partner in this initiative, Sarah Scott called me around this time last March and said, I can barely sleep.
She's like the program that I've implemented, kids are growing two levels in reading in one semester.
That doesn't happen.
These are kids who hadn't grown, who hadn't grown.
And it's, so I said, we need that here in Milwaukee and in Wisconsin.
And so I brought that here.
with 200 children that are getting one-on-one tutoring over five schools and then I go in and make sure that students are the sorry that students are receiving phonics and I'm supporting teachers and school leaders.
Well let's start there with the I mean 200 children this this is great now you're running for an office that oversees you know so many more children there is a reading crisis throughout the entire state there are these racial disparities and
There are, there are, you know, real budget constraints as well.
It's
something that we've, we've talked about frequently on this program and that is, you know, for somebody who's running for state superintendent of public instruction is somebody who will oversee Wisconsin's public schools and try to increase the quality of, of schools throughout the entire state, uh, public, private
otherwise.
Uh, now.
when you were with City Forward Collective, I was looking at a report.
Yes.
Okay.
Oh, I see.
Thank you for that.
But that number hit me in the $35 million, which again, I wish we all had somebody that could do that, but we can't.
depend on the benevolence of the very wealthy to educate all of our children.
There's only so many tax dollars that go around and yet, you know, City Forward Collective was among the organizations that spent a lot of time lobbying for a bill that became law.
It put a big increase in taxpayer funded per pupil funding for the voucher school program.
The choice systems now encompass well over 50,000 Wisconsin students.
not all of them from lower income families, which was the original beneficiary of what was once a small and educational program, but it has now grown to something that is rapidly closing in on a billion dollars a year.
So what I really wanted to find out from you is if elected state superintendent, can Wisconsin continue to afford two school systems?
One is a choice program that is closing in on that billion dollar mark.
Is that sustainable?
So when you're talking about the bill, so the bill that I helped advocate for kids in Milwaukee, we have half of our children in Milwaukee using another program besides the traditional public schools.
And these are families, I wanna make sure we're putting a face to the names when we're talking about this.
These are families who are living in low socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods.
So in Milwaukee,
they're not living above the poverty line who are going to these schools.
No, but there are plenty statewide who are when they have a choice.
There's also rural
Yes, and I'm trying to bring
No,
terms of what you support
It wasn't
And we were able to inform and mobilize hundreds of families.
It was noted by NPR that there was an army of families in green shirts coming and asking the Joint Finance Committee, please
please fund our families equally.
We're plagued with schools that are not giving our children what they need.
And so I just want to make sure that we are clear on that.
The governor signed it.
He's a Democrat.
Five Democrats voted yes.
The Republican legislature.
And in that bill, it was helping close that gap for our Milwaukee families, where that is decoupled from the taxpayers.
And so then,
Also, that money, we got mental health money.
We got money for all students.
Many good things came out of that bill.
So I just want to make sure we're being clear about that.
We are very clear
on that increase and on the increase, the modest increase that went to public schools as well.
But the root question remains whether the school choice programs
writ large are still affordable if they continue to grow.
I think back to the former chair of the assembly education committee, Steve Castell, who said in his exit interview, the math doesn't work and we have more states than ever where Republicans and school choice advocates are saying we believe in choice, we believe in taxpayer funding, but
it can only go to a certain point before it starts eating up the rest of the state budget.
And I've only got a minute until the break and I hope you'll stick around for after that.
But is there some kind of a way that we can prevent this from taking over other state programs that are also important?
advocating for.
Yes,
I'm not going to run for any of those.
This is just where I get into this because kids aren't reading and we're talking about all these other things.
And I'm like, Oh my gosh, we have all these kids who aren't reading.
We need to be talking about this, but.
Um, I get
that.
And you know what, Brittany?
I apologize.
I'm going to interrupt simply because we're up against a heartbreak and I want you to give your full answer, but I've got to hit that break in 15 seconds here.
Yes, we
set this aside for two minutes.
And when we come back, Brittany Kenzer, we'll talk more about the, uh, sustainability and affordability of public education and private education in Wisconsin.
This is up North news radio.
We'll be right back.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
It's a James Ingram with a hit that was also produced by Quincy Jones one more time on what would have been his 92nd birthday.
It is Monday, I'm sorry, it is Friday, March 14th.
See by the end of the show, the glasses, they don't see those little tiny letters in the corner of the screen sites.
quite so well.
752 right now and normally we would be talking to Dan Schumacher.
We've covered some sports already.
We're letting Dan sleep in and we are joined by Brittany Kinzer, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Candidate in the April 1st election.
Brittany, before we had to interrupt you and I apologize for that, but we were getting to the point, not a bunch, the need for quality education, of course, is a given.
So we're getting into the affordability of how much can taxpayers afford the both the school choice programs or voucher programs and public education.
What can a state superintendent say to legislators about the financial sustainability of these two systems?
So if anyone has gone to my Kinzer for WIKids.com, you'll see that one of my issues is modernizing the funding formula because it is very complex.
And I want to help modernize that and be a leader in that.
As I've traveled around the state, I've been to over 40 counties, 12,000 miles in the car.
So if I haven't met you, I look forward to meeting you.
So I believe that choice and students who are attending choice or charter schools should be taken off the property taxes like Governor Evers did from Milwaukee 10 years ago.
He said it was a state program and the state should pay for it.
I am on.
I am on the record for being the only candidate that signed on for decoupling in the last bill.
I was a part of Wisconsin Charter School Advocates at the time, and we wanted to decouple that,
just like Milwaukee has.
But I have to ask about decoupling then.
Why should one set of schools be funded in large part from local property taxpayers while these private schools are funded from basically the same general fund that pays most of the state's other bills?
To me, that seems rather apples and orangey.
He recommended, and I know others have asked for that.
Other people have been, when I've been out, when I was doing the advocating two years ago in the last budget, that is what communities were asking for.
They were handing out flyers.
I was up in Managua asking for this, that they wanted it to be decoupled, because all kids have value, right?
And so I just want to make sure that is what people were asking for.
I am not an expert in this.
and I will have a team around me that will be really smart having people on the finances.
I am a lifelong educator.
I have worked in schools that have very, very small budgets.
I couldn't go to referendum.
I had to fundraise.
And so where we had budgets, but I understand that there are definite concerns and challenges and struggles with the budget, I'm sorry, with the funding formula.
And that's why I said I want to be a leader.
in that so
that's let me get to then to one small part of that budgeting because this one gets talked about a lot and in the last session public school districts were when it came to special education were bumped up to 35 percent reimbursement whereas in a lot of choice schools that reimbursement rate for special education is upwards of 90 percent and I I wonder if you would either advocate if elected
for that 90% same reimbursement for public schools, or at least 60%, which is not only what the governor's proposing, but what Assembly Speaker Robin Voss's Blue Ribbon Commission advocated for several years ago.
Can you two advocate for special education reimbursement to be increased for the public school system?
I keep thinking, what year is it?
Two years ago.
And when I opened up my own charter school, we had 20% of our students receiving special education.
We spent a million dollars in our first year.
We only had 300 kids, right?
And the next year, we only got reimbursed at like 30%.
It was only 300,000.
I believe yes we need to we need to actually look at is reimbursement the best way but this is an outdated system also like if you look across the country at best practices it was something before I decided to run I was working with a couple different policy groups on what can we do because this does need to be solved it is something as I have been traveling across the state no matter if I'm way up north
or down south in Kenosha or over in the west, you know, southwest side of our state, right?
And so I will, yes, of course advocate for the best way to fund special education.
It should be, it should be higher.
I don't know if it's reimbursement though, because schools are spending money this year and you don't get reimbursed till next year.
So you have to take it out of a general path.
Like it's just not sustainable path
and
the services that they need.
And so I will be a leader in that.
But I do think there's probably a better way than reimbursement.
Also, the 90% for choice schools, if you look, not that many schools are taking that because it actually isn't, you're not.
So this is also complex.
I've never worked in a private school.
So I had to go and ask about this.
It doesn't actually work in the way like you don't get the.
the per pupil, you get the 90 percent.
It's very complex.
I don't
We need to make it
way less complex.
We need to make sure that we're funding our students with special needs.
And I promise that I will use my relationships, my influencing skills, my my passion for making sure all kids are getting a great education and my lifelong like since I was in eighth grade, I knew I wanted to be a special ed teacher.
So
with that, we've run out of time for the show.
There's so much I'd love to talk about.
And I know you're going to continue talking about between now and April 1.
But thank you very much for spending a little
by the time with us, Brittany Kenzer, candidate for state superintendent of public construction.
Thanks again.
Have a great weekend.
Travel safe and feel better
And thanks to all of you for joining us on Up North News Radio for this Friday as well.
Next week, we will be talking again to Dr. Kristen Lyrely on Monday, and then we've got a whole slate of great guests throughout the coming week as well.
And it'll be St.
Patrick's Day.
come Monday as well.
So wear your green and come join us.
But first, have a great weekend.
Enjoy the warm temperatures and be weather wise for some of the storms that may come up later today.
Have a great weekend.
See you Monday morning here up north.
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