Advertisement In each recent case, the Wisconsin Education Association Council mobilized supporters and bought a barrage of ads to swing the race for their preferred candidate for superintendent of public instruction.
Now, observers say, the reformer - virtual and home school advocate Rose Fernandez - may have the best chance yet to defeat the union-backed administrator - deputy state superintendent Tony Evers - in the April 7 election.
"The formula for the outsider to win is not just from her own constituency, but from voters who would like to vote against the establishment," said Mordecai Lee, a professor of governmental affairs at UW-Milwaukee and a former Democratic state lawmaker. "This race has all the makings of that kind of campaign."
But as it has in the past, the teachers union will try to shore up support for Evers with a big television ad campaign that launched Friday and runs through April 6, the day before the election.
Stations in Milwaukee and Madison have said WEAC purchased about $27,000 worth of ads at each station, but the total cost of the statewide buy is not known. A Green Bay station also confirmed a WEAC ad buy, but didn't disclose the cost.
It's unclear whether a similar effort will be made by conservatives or voucher and virtual school advocates on behalf of Fernandez. That's help experts said she will need because of the WEAC ads.
Fernandez said WEAC's support of Evers shows he'll be beholden to the union if he's elected. Her campaign is using e-mail, personal appearances and social networking Web sites to spread the word about her candidacy, she said.
Evers denies WEAC would have undue sway at the state education agency if he's elected, saying he has support from a wide array of educators because of his experience, and that "as an insider I have been able to do some significant reforms."
An Evers campaign adviser also questioned whether a Fernandez victory would mean more state tax dollars going to private companies that provide curriculum for virtual schools.
Position officially non-partisan
The state schools superintendent oversees Wisconsin's 426 school districts. The superintendent can't write laws, but the job comes with a bully pulpit that allows the superintendent to guide the writing of rules and regulations on everything from teacher certification, academic standards and the state's voucher program.
Officially, the superintendent's post, and the election, is non-partisan.
But Evers has picked up the endorsement of top Democrats along with WEAC and other unions that have traditionally supported Democratic candidates. Fernandez is backed by conservatives and Republicans, but she's also gotten the support of conservative Democratic Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer of Manitowoc.
A February poll commissioned by The MacIver Institute for Public Policy, a think tank that promotes limited government and free market ideas, found that 30 percent of the 500 likely voters planned to vote for Evers while 25 percent would vote for Fernandez. The poll has a margin of error of 4.4 percent.
Fernandez, a nurse by training who has never held an education job, is calling for merit pay for teachers, reform of Milwaukee public schools, more rigorous state academic standards and lifting the caps on taxpayer-funded vouchers and virtual schools.
As the former leader of the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families, Fernandez said she's running to make sure the state uses its education dollars wisely and to bring needed changes to education policy.
She also is opposing Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's proposal to eliminate the qualified economic offer, which allows districts to impose a pay-and-benefits increase of 3.8 percent if bargaining doesn't produce a deal.
Evers, a former Verona superintendent and deputy state superintendent since 2001, supports Doyle's QEO idea and says the school finance system needs an overhaul - and perhaps an infusion of cash.
He said he wants to spur more high school graduates by pairing schools and colleges and improve Milwaukee schools by keeping class sizes small, enhancing after-school programs and making teaching more consistent across the district. Voucher, charter and virtual schools programs need more accountability, he said.
The post pays $122,516 annually.
Teacher's union powerful
In the two most recent elections to fill a state superintendent vacancy, the backing of the state teachers union turned a close election into a victory for the union-backed candidate.
In 1993, Marshall superintendent John Benson won a nine-person primary with 25.3 percent of the vote. Horntonville English teacher Linda Cross, who supported vouchers and prayer in schools and who once crossed a picket line of striking teachers, finished second with 21.5 percent.
WEAC backed Benson in the general election, and he took more than 53 percent of the vote.
Eight years later, after Benson stepped down, Cross won the seven-person primary. But in the general election, with WEAC's support, West High School principal Elizabeth Burmaster won by a wide margin.
Burmaster decided not to seek re-election and was selected president of Nicolet College in Rhinelander.
This year's race will turn on three factors, experts said: WEAC's ad campaign, voter turnout and whether the mood of the voters in support of "change" carries over from the fall election and helps Fernandez.
"You always want to be the candidate of change right about now because everyone's unhappy and Rose Fernandez is the candidate of change in this campaign," said Mark Graul, a Green Bay-based Republican political consultant who is not working on the superintendent's race.
Fernandez couldn't win a large-turnout election in November, said Ed Miller, a UW-Stevens Point political science professor. "But in a spring election, anything can happen," he said, citing the usual low voter turnout. "It all comes down to voter mobilization."
While conservatives have traditionally cared less about the race than the teachers union, Fernandez's home school constituency "has all the intensity of religious fervor" and will provide her strong support, Lee said.
Gregg Underheim, a former GOP lawmaker from Oshkosh who ran unsuccessfully against Burmaster in 2005, also said a strong push by conservative talk radio hosts in Milwaukee and Madison could help Fernandez.
That effort appears to have started last week, with conservative host Mark Belling of Milwaukee releasing e-mails he obtained showing Evers had asked a Green Bay education administrator to assist in planning a fundraiser and increasing turnout. Candidates aren't supposed to use state resources to campaign.
Evers said he sent the e-mail from his personal e-mail account and didn't do anything wrong.
Fernandez said she had no contact with the office of Rep. Don Pridemore, R-Hartford, which is under scrutiny for using taxpayer resources for political purposes after it issued a press release attacking Evers.
MEET THE CANDIDATES
Tony Evers
Rose Fernandez
