Early voting is ongoing in the April 1 election pitting the incumbent union-supported head of the Department of Public Instruction, Jill Underly, against Brittany Kinser, a teacher who went on to lead public charter schools and a Milwaukee education organization, City Forward Collective.

Long-time education observer and journalist Alan Borsuk, now at Marquette, says he cannot predict an outcome. If Kinser wins, he said, it would be the first victory over union-backed DPI candidates in a long time — since 1981, by one count, when liberal Bert Grover beat incumbent DPI head Barbara Thompson.

In that and 10 subsequent elections, union-endorsed candidates went on to serve as five successive state superintendents. All of them won by no less than 10-point margins, and some took three-fourths of the votes.

This year, much depends on what the undecideds are learning.

Meth is injected, smoked, snorted or ingested in just about every corner of Wisconsin.

But by at least one measure the insidious problem is worse in two adjacent counties — Brown and Outagamie — than anywhere else.

In 2023, the drug most often identified in samples sent by law enforcement to the State Crime Lab was meth, which accounted for 1,378 of the 4,805 samples tested — more than cocaine or heroin or fentanyl or even THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.

Outagamie accounted for 124 of the meth samples, according to new data acquired from the Department of Justice. Neighboring Brown County accounted for 120. Barron was third with 79 and Milwaukee County, which is twice as big as Brown and Outagamie combined, had 74.

Farmers in Wisconsin sold twice as much dairy as meat products in 2023 and more of both than feed crops, the latest Annual Statistics Bulletin for the state from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service found.

Dairyland farmers sold $6.2 billion in dairy products in 2023, followed by $3 billion in meat sales.

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