One of Scott Walker's educational role models doesn't agree with him on everything
When asked on Wednesday who is influential and to whom he listens when it comes to education policy, Gov. Scott Walker named a well-known advocate for improving schools for disadvantaged students in Milwaukee.
Former Milwaukee School District superintendent and Marquette University education professor Howard Fuller, Walker said at the New Hampshire Education Summit, is someone he admires and is the kind of person he would look for when naming a Secretary of Education if elected president.
But Fuller said in an interview with the State Journal on Wednesday that he hasn’t spoken to Walker, whom he calls a friend, in a couple of years, and wouldn’t accept the Cabinet position if it were offered. Fuller also took to Twitter after Walker’s comments to make it clear he doesn’t agree with Walker on some education issues, as well as other measures Walker has supported and pushed as governor that have become key to Walker’s campaign for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.
Fuller supports the Common Core academic standards, which Walker opposes, and opposes expanding school vouchers to students who aren’t from low-income households, which Walker supports and has pushed in two budgets during his tenure as governor.
“Scott Walker & I have fought together for parent choice over the years, but I do not support universal vouchers,” Fuller tweeted Wednesday afternoon. “I am against voter ID, I support raising minimum wage. I do not support drug testing for people on welfare. I support Obamacare, I support the common core, I support #BlackLivesMatter. I am neither a republican or democrat.
“I don’t want any of my friends trying to stand up for me. I speak for myself. Always have and always will,” Fuller tweeted.
A spokeswoman for Walker’s campaign did not immediately respond to questions about which education issues the two agreed on and discussed.
Fuller said he wouldn’t comment on Walker’s education record or on issues on which they agree.
“I don’t know, because I haven’t talked to him in a long time,” Fuller said in the interview.
Fuller said Walker’s comments set off a “mini firestorm” of tweets and text messages, and that he used Twitter to make sure his positions on important issues to him were known.
“It’s kind of a weird position because I’m not trying to be negative toward Scott Walker,” Fuller said in the interview. “I’m just making sure that everybody’s clear what my position is (on those issues) … it’s clearly not the position that the governor has.”
At the summit, during which Walker and five other GOP presidential candidates answered questions about education policy, Walker was asked if he had anyone in mind for secretary of education, who he listens to, who influences his thinking on education policy and who has “inspired” him “to take on some of these fights.”
Walker said he couldn’t say whom he would likely name to the Cabinet position, but “You can tell people the kind of people you’d be looking at. I’ll do that for all different Cabinet positions just as I did for governor years ago closer to the election, but it’s a long list of folks,” he said. “There are folks I’ve looked at even in my own state.”
Walker then said he admired Fuller and American Federation for Children chairwoman Betsy DeVos, a voucher supporter who has been a top donor toWalker.
Fuller was a champion of the Milwaukee voucher program when it was created in 1990, and said he and Walker agreed on school vouchers until Walker moved to raise the household income limits for the program after becoming governor.
Fuller was a public opponent of that move in 2011, which Walker touted at the New Hampshire summit as a way to make the middle class more “vibrant.”
Walker also spoke at length Wednesday about his signature Act 10 law to curtail collective bargaining for most public employees, including teachers.
Fuller declined to offer an opinion about whether he supported that measure — saying he was torn.
“It’s very difficult for me because I come from a family where (public sector) unions were a critical part for my mother and her friends ... but when it comes to teachers unions ... I’m sort of split,” he said.
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