State Sen. Luther Olsen (left) and state Rep. Steve Kestell

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When the Wisconsin Republican Party convention kicks off in Milwaukee this weekend, two high-profile lawmakers listed in Saturday's agenda items intend to be absent.

State Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon) will be riding with the Kingdom Riders of Waupun, a Christian motorcycle group.

Rep. Steve Kestell (R-Elkhart Lake) might take his grandkids fishing. Or spend some time with his aging Arabian horses he's been neglecting in recent legislative sessions.

Probably wise.

The two veteran legislators, the chairs of the Senate and Assembly education committees, have bull's-eyes on their backs by an alliance of tea party backers and libertarians who plan to use the convention to vent their anger over blocked legislation on hot-button education issues.

Three of 23 proposals to be voted on at the convention denounce a set of nationwide academic standards Wisconsin and other states have adopted, known as the Common Core. One proposal specifically singles out Olsen and Kestell for not following the anti-Common Core platform adopted by the Republican National Committee in 2013.

The situation is particularly odd for Olsen, who survived a recall election in 2012 — fueled by Democrats over his support for Gov. Walker's Act 10 law — only to become the target of people in his own party two years later.

The heart of the matter is Common Core, a voluntary set of academic expectations — adopted with little fanfare by Wisconsin and most states in 2009 — that are tied to new and more rigorous state standardized tests in reading and math. Those were developed by consortia of states, with the help of federal dollars.

The standards have driven a wedge between those in the Republican Party with a mix of views on the topic and tea party-aligned factions that see the standards as a federal takeover of education.

Olsen, 63, and Kestell, 58, both former school board members, say they supported the standards because the majority of public school superintendents, principals and teachers in the state support them.

"At the end of the day, I got elected to do what my district, and the state of Wisconsin, thinks is best," said Olsen, who has been in the Legislature for about 20 years.

The resolution

The Republican Party's 6th Congressional District drafted the no-support resolution for Olsen and Kestell. Parts of the resolution say:

■ Common Core State Standards are nothing more than a continuation of the past failed programs of the federal Department of Education and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction that sought to indoctrinate students instead of educating them.

■ Olsen has and continues to act as a biased champion for Common Core in Wisconsin and has failed to withdraw his involvement in educational matters in which he has a conflict of interest.

■ Olsen and Kestell do not seem to have the ability, inclination or commitment to represent the views and positions of their constituents regarding education issues in the 6th District, the state and the Republican National Committee.

Richard Church, 32, a website designer, lives in Friendship and is the chair of the Adams County Republicans.

He traced the problems membership has with Olsen back to a January caucus. He said there were questions at the meeting about the Common Core, and Olsen seemed to be pointing the finger at Gov. Scott Walker, saying the governor was the person responsible for keeping the standards.

Church said he thought Olsen was trying to say that whether or not Walker opposes the Common Core, "some of the governor's biggest supporters want the Common Core and the governor is never going to tell them 'no.'"

In response, Olsen said he represents the views of people in his district and the state, including hundreds of superintendents, principals and teachers, who have told him the Common Core is working, even if the implementation is bumpy at times.

"Sometimes (Common Core critics) are not really interested in talking to people who actually know about what's going on, because it might just contradict their beliefs," Olsen said.

Olsen said it is his belief that some of the governor's biggest supporters also support the Common Core.

The critique about the conflict of interest is because Olsen's wife, Joan Wade, works for CESA 6, one of the state's government agencies that works to support schools in different regions.

Olsen said she is not benefiting financially from his support of the Common Core. That's because Wade heads initiatives dealing with new statewide educator evaluations.

A party divided

The resolution — and the Common Core debate — has split other party members.

Daniel Feyen, chairman of the Republican Party in the 6th Congressional District, said he was obligated to circulate the district's GOP caucus resolution to every Republican lawmaker in the state, but that he didn't agree with it.

He said it was the last resolution taken up after more than three hours of caucusing, and was passed with only about 25 delegates — out of a total 822 delegates allotted for the caucus and state convention — voting in support of it.

But Danny Krueger, a Republican from Lodi who helped draft the Olsen-Kestell resolution, said he and others are "constitutional conservatives," who oppose "top down, command and control of our education system. The education of our children is the purview of the states and not the federal government."

"We are representing the Republican Party," he said. "Who is Luther Olsen representing? That's my question. And why is the Republican leadership supporting him and trying to protect him? I have a theory on that. They're afraid they might be next."

Olsen said he believes that people in the party shouldn't all have to think exactly the same way about every issue.

"Is this going to be a cleansing of the people, where you have to take a Pledge of Allegiance to the Constitution, and to the state of Wisconsin, and to the Republican Party?" he asked.

"I think people in my district support what I'm doing," Olsen said. "I have probably about 175,000 constituents. There are maybe 500 who are against me and supporting (the resolutions at the convention). Are they speaking for all 175,000 people? I don't think so."

The new standards have a complicated history.

The Legislature voted to approve a set of new, more rigorous state achievement tests to replace the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts exam. The new tests will be aligned to the Common Core standards.

The Legislature never voted on the standards themselves; those were voluntarily adopted by the state Department of Public Instruction in 2009.

Creating and adopting the common standards was driven by governors, chief state school officers, consultants and education experts who wanted to eliminate the uneven academic expectations from state to state and make K-12 schooling more rigorous.

But years into the effort, the standards encountered major resistance on multiple fronts: They're complicated, it's hard to trace the level of influence each enterprise had in creating them, they were used as an incentive for states competing for federal education grant money and implementing them on a day-to-day basis in schools requires a lot of effort.

The most abject opponents — mostly in tea party circles — say the standards amount to a federal takeover of education. Common Core supporters dismiss that claim, noting the federal government had no role in drafting the standards and local school districts remain in command of their curriculum choices.

Kestell is not running for re-election in the fall. The former school board member said he ran for state office because he was frustrated by the way he saw educational policy being dealt with in Madison. He is retiring for multiple reasons, he said, including being able to spend more time with his grandchildren and horse business.

Regarding the convention, Kestell questioned if the new way of business was to pass resolutions on every committee chair who does something certain party members don't like.

"They're going to be very busy if that's the new standard," he said.