The Bickersons In the Race for Superintendent at the Department of Public Instruction

Yesterday I endorsed incumbent Tony Evers for the Superintendent of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. He is a true friend of public schools and will be an effective counter balance to President Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos.

But two of his opponents, despite actually being educators, continue to prove themselves unqualified to run DPI, and they are proving themselves to be unqualified for public service of any kind (heaven forbid they even continue in education going forward).

Back in December 2016, candidates John Humphries and Lowell Holtz, concocted a scheme where one candidate would exit the race in exchange for a six figure job in the DPI and a fair amount of authority. Of course that didn’t pan out and I can’t imagine why not…but now their stories are simply divergent, the timelines and explanations are at odds, and they have both devolved to accusing the other to be a liar!

Two state superintendent candidates publicly called each other liars on Friday — days before the two are set to face each other in a three-way primary with incumbent Tony Evers.

At the news conference, candidate John Humphries called opponent Lowell Holtz “a liar” who is falsely blaming unnamed business leaders for Holtz’s proposal for one of them to get out of the race in exchange for a six-figure, taxpayer-funded job should the other win.

Holtz fired back, calling the Friday event a “three-ring circus” orchestrated by Humphries.

Humphries on Friday provided reporters with emails and a timeline that he said shows Holtz is lying about who came up with a December proposal under which one of the two men would exit the race in exchange for a job with the Department of Public Instruction that would pay $150,000 per year and come with full benefits and a driver should the other win.

The job offer also would have put one of them in charge of potentially five of the state’s largest school districts and give him powers that do not currently exist in state law to take over districts and school boards.

“It’s unfortunate to see Dr. Holtz continue to misrepresent who he is and how he operates,” Humphries said. “If Holtz has any documentation to substantiate his claim that his proposal was, in fact, provided to him by business leaders, he should provide that. Otherwise, the preponderance of the evidence would clearly suggest that, once again, Holtz is lying.”

But Holtz shot back after the press conference, saying Humphries “is focused more on the politics of personal destruction” than on improving education.

Neither one of these guys should be allowed anywhere near a classroom much less put in charge of Wisconsin education and our hard earned tax dollars…I haven’t seen such nonsense since the Republican presidential debates!

So vote tomorrow for Tony Evers for Superintendent of DPI!

Share:

Related Articles