Burmaster Advances to General Election

Elizabeth Burmaster, in her ninth year as principal of Madison West High School, will face Linda Cross in the April 3 general election for state superintendent of public instruction.

Those two candidates advanced from a field of seven in Tuesday's primary election (February 20, 2001).

Burmaster is a former teacher and administrator in the elementary, middle and high school levels. Cross, who was a strikebreaker in the 1974 Hortonville teachers' strike, was the only candidate not invited to participate in WEAC's candidate screening process.

The WEAC Board did not make a recommendation in the primary election because it felt most candidates, with the exception of Cross, would make a good superintendent, said WEAC President Terry Craney. Burmaster, like most other candidates, agreed with WEAC on most positions.

On February 10, Burmaster participated in a candidate forum at the WEAC Minority Affairs Committee Winter Leadership Conference.

At that forum, she emphasized her 25 years of experience at all levels as a teacher and an administrator.

She said she opposes private school vouchers, school district revenue caps and the Qualified Economic Offer law. She also favors increased funding of special education programs.

If elected, she said, she would create a core leadership team representing the diversity of the school populations. She also said she would open the schools to various programs, making them community centers where parents and families can be involved in education. She said she sees this as one way to narrow the achievement gap in student populations.

Burmaster also is cautious about alternative teacher licensing programs.

"We are going to have to be sure that the alternative licensing programs are held to standards, held to rigor and most important, that they are held to quality student teaching experiences where we can really see them on the job in that student teaching experience," she said.

Linda Cross was a strikebreaker in the 1974 Hortonville teacher strike, which has long stood as a symbol of WEAC's commitment to collective bargaining. For this reason, she has never been invited to take part in any of WEAC's political activities, and again this year was excluded from WEAC's screening process in the state superintendent's race.

Resource page on 2001 state superintendent race

Posted February 21, 2001