State superintendent Jill Underly is fierce defender of public schools amid Trump cuts

• State Superintendent Jill Underly faces education consultant Brittany Kinser in the April 1 election.
• Underly brings a 25-year career in public schools, including time as a rural school superintendent.
• First elected in 2021, Underly is seeking a second term.

MADISON — The question came halfway through a panel where high school students peppered State Superintendent Jill Underly on a range of education topics: With the federal education department dissolving, how do you see your job changing over the next few years?

"My job has just become all the more important because we have to defend public education," Underly told the auditorium of students on March 12, about a week before President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday dismantling the department. "We have to defend your right to a free public education, a high-quality public education, and we're going to have to fight for the funding."

As Underly, 47, seeks a second term leading the state Department of Public Instruction, she has leaned into the political chaos unfolding in Washington by casting herself as a reliable and experienced candidate capable of leading Wisconsin schools through Trump's second term.

Underly, a Democrat, faces education consultant Brittany Kinser in the April 1 election. Kinser calls herself a moderate and is backed by Republicans. Kinser has said she's confident Wisconsin can weather federal changes as long as schools continue to receive their current level of federal funding. She called Underly's politicization of the situation unhelpful and unprofessional.

For Underly, though, it's personal. Her 25 years of education experience goes beyond stints as a high school social studies teacher and rural school superintendent. She worked for four years in the DPI's federal programs division specializing in Title I grants. The funding is a lifeline to schools serving large low-income student populations. The department also distributes funding for students with disabilities. Underly has two children in public schools, one of whom is on the autism spectrum.

"Politics has always been in education," Underly told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "When it comes to the politicization, I think what guides me is that doing what's best for kids is my north star, and that shouldn't be political."

From doctor dreams to first-generation college student to teacher

Underly grew up in Munster, Indiana, a town across the Illinois state line near Chicago. Her dad was a union electrician in the steel mills; her mom, a homemaker.

Underly's dad lost his job during a recession, so he traveled the country looking for work. She was about 7 years old at the time. The experience resonated with Underly later in life, making her more sympathetic to the struggles families face and how that can affect students' education.

Underly's first job was delivering newspapers for The Munster Times. A truck dropped the papers at her house around 4:45 a.m. The job taught her the importance of dependability: Show up every day.

Growing up, Underly fostered dreams of being a doctor or Extension agent. Her high school geography teacher told her she would make a good teacher, a suggestion she initially brushed off.

Underly's high school speech and debate team traveled to Indiana University for a competition. It was the first time she had set foot on a college campus and stayed overnight in a dorm.

The experience gave Underly the confidence to pursue college. The local teachers union helped pay part of her way with a scholarship for students interested in education.

In 1995, Underly enrolled at Indiana University, where she studied history. She substitute-taught throughout college and became the first in her family to graduate with a bachelor's degree.

Leading rural school district, Jill Underly saw Wisconsin students had uneven access to education

In 2015, Underly became superintendent of Pecatonica Area School District, leading about 400 students in rural southwestern Wisconsin.

Almost immediately, she faced competition with suburban Madison school districts, where teachers work in fancy new air-conditioned facilities and opportunities abound for students, from athletics to AP courses to career and technical education.

Pecatonica families who could afford to do so drove their children to those districts, compounding Pecatonica financial problems. Underly lost teachers, too, who left for salaries as much as $10,000 more.

As another rural superintendent told Underly, "We're the triple-A ball club for the Middletons and the Veronas and the Waunakees."

A few years removed from earning her doctoral degree in education leadership and policy analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Underly tackled the problem through a research lens. She put together a list of every Pecatonica parent over the past five years who used the state's open-enrollment program to send their child elsewhere. Then she called each of them, conducting dozens of interviews to ask why they left and what it would take to bring them back.

Again and again, the answer was childcare. Underly convinced her school board to expand the district's half-day 4K program into a full-day program. It actually didn't cost the district any more money. While more money was needed to pay for a full-time teacher, it was offset by cutting the midday bus route.

Full-day 4-K was an answer to the district's declining enrollment. But Underly saw the program helped increase elementary student achievement scores. Reading proficiency rates rose from 38% in 2015-16 to 47% in 2018-19, according to state data.

"It's not rocket science," Underly said. "By providing these types of programs, kids were thriving and families were happy."

Underly testifies on rural schools districts, sparking interest in policy

Unable to shake the disparities between urban and rural students' opportunities and their suburban counterparts, Underly testified in 2018 about the state's broken school finance formula in a meeting of the Blue Ribbon Commission on School Funding, which the Legislature created to craft school finance recommendations.

Julie Underwood served on the commission. She is a UW-Madison faculty expert on school law and finance who led the university's School of Education from 2005 to 2015.

"(Underly) did quite a remarkable job, to the point I came up and talked to her afterward about her testimony," Underwood said. When she has questions about rural school policy, she now turns to Underly for perspective.

Longtime State Superintendent Tony Evers became governor in 2018, throwing the 2021 DPI race wide open. Underly ran and won with 57% of the vote.

Criticism comes in Underly's first term at DPI

In Underly's three years leading the DPI, she's faced a fair share of criticism.

The largest blowback stems from Underly's overhaul of the state’s proficiency benchmarks for standardized tests last year. Kinser and Republicans have said the changes "lowered standards" because the new cut scores students need to be considered proficient are lower than under the previous system.

The GOP-controlled Legislature recently passed a bill to restore state testing to the previous system. Evers has also criticized Underly, specifically for how the changes came about without enough public input and because raw changes complicate comparing student achievement across years. Even so, Evers said he would “probably veto” the bill because he believes the DPI should be an independent agency.

Underly said the changes came at the request of Wisconsin teachers and more accurately reflect student achievement. Her campaign has raised questions about moving back to the previous system, which aligned with a national test, because the Trump administration has canceled one of those national exams and put the testing director on leave. The DPI is aiming by the end of this school year to apply the new cut scores to the previous four school years, allowing districts to see a five-year trendline.

Underly has also been criticized for how well she works with the Legislature. She said she has never met with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester. State superintendents are independent constitutional officers who, she said, don't generally meet with lawmakers — but she has staff who frequently do.

She often cites a 2023 law as proof she can cut through Capitol gridlock and work in a bipartisan way. The law set aside $50 million for reading instruction. But only $1 million has been released, with the rest tied up in a lawsuit between Evers and the Legislature.

"It wasn't perfect, but that's how it works, though, right?" she said. "It's all based on compromise."

Kelly Meyerhofer covers higher education in Wisconsin. Contact her at kmeyerhofer@gannett.com or 414-223-5168. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @KellyMeyerhofer.