Looking at the DPI

One of the big elections next year will be for the Secretary of the Department of Public Instruction.  WEAC has had that office locked up with its supporters for decades. 

The good news is that there appears to be a very strong candidate in the wings who looks to be ramping up to challenge the incumbent. 

Rose Fernandez, currently President of the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School families will be leaving her post later this month. She will be running as the reformer candidate for Secretary of the Department of Public Instruction. Fernandez is not a Republican or associated with the GOP in any way.  She’s an advocate for school reform, which is exactly what the DPI needs leading it. 

The formula of GOP legislator/operative v. WEAC-sponsored candidate has resulted in losses for educational reformers for years. The press always turns it into the GOP versus the Teachers.  With Fernandez’s entry into the race, that all changes.

Here’s a little background on her.  :

As the leader of a grassroots’ parent-student-teacher coalition, Rose has taken on the education establishment…and won an impressive victory for public school children and teachers. When public cyber charter schools, otherwise known as virtual schools, were threatened by a WEAC-backed lawsuit, Rose Fernandez led the counter attack. Together with her fellow coalition members, she mobilized a legislative, legal and public relations strategy that saw the union and the education bureaucracy crushed by a rare feat in Madison, a bipartisan legislative compromise.

Rose was educated in both private and public schools. She later graduated with University Honors and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing with a Minor in History from Northern Illinois University in 1979. Rose passed her Wisconsin state nursing board examinations on her first try and began her career in an inpatient medical unit at Milwaukee Children’s Hospital. Fernandez completed her thesis work by the spring of 1989 and earned a Master of Science in Pediatric Nursing degree from UW-Madison. In February 1990, Rose was promoted to Patient Care Manager of the Emergency Department Trauma Center of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.

She runs a small business with her husband of 17 years, Javier, who is a firefighter in Waukesha. Their five kids attend both private (Waukesha Catholic Memorial) and public (Wisconsin Virtual Academy) schools.

This is a golden opportunity.  She’s the best shot to shake up the status quo at DPI we’ve had in several decades.