Democratic vice-presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz touts his credentials as a former public school teacher on the campaign trail — but the North Star State’s education performance has deteriorated under his leadership, critics told The Post.
Since Walz entered the governor’s office in 2019, students’ comprehension statewide for reading and math has plummeted, while his administration has come under fire for pushing what’s been described as an extremist, ideology-influenced curricula in the classroom.
“He spent most of the last two years working to accommodate far-left demands in his party rather than working to address real education issues in our state,” Republican state Sen. Carla Nelson, also a former teacher, told The Post.
Gov. Tim Walz has touted his credentials as a former public school teacher, but his state’s education performance has tanked under his leadership. AFP via Getty Images“The Walz agenda has included burdensome mandates on schools … [that] have since led to budget shortfalls across the state and pulled teachers away from their students to comply with requirements,” Nelson added.
Under Walz’s leadership:
- Reading proficiency among Minnesota students fell to 49.9% in 2023, down from 59.2% in 2019, according to the state Department of Education. Math comprehension similarly sank, from 55% in 2019 to 45.5% last year.
- Thirty percent of all Minnesotan students were chronically absent, or missed more than 10% of school days, during the 2021-22 school year. That’s more than double from just 14% during the 2019 school year, according to the American Enterprise Institute.
- The Minnesota Department of Education revised the state social studies standards for schools requiring an “ethnic studies” component for K-12 students, which critics say is aimed at influencing graduates with a radical worldview.
- A 2023 bill from the state Legislature mandated all schools offer some type of ethnic studies courses in public schools by 2026.
Republican state Sen. Carla Nelson criticized Walz for accommodating “far-left demands” instead of working to fix education issues in the state. Minnesota Senate RepublicansCatrin Wigfall, a policy fellow at the state’s conservative Center of the American Experiment think tank, said there has been a greater emphasis under Walz on leftist ideology and woke political statements — such as a recent “book ban” prohibition bill — than tackling legitimate challenges afflicting the public school system.
“We’re seeing a shift in our education system, from a traditional focus on excellence and pragmatic instruction to one that is more ideologically and politically driven,” she said.
Walz, who emphasizes his decade-plus as a high school social studies teacher and football coach at Mankato West High School, has also been slammed for instituting draconian measures to keep schools shuttered during the pandemic.
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He fell in line with the big teachers’ unions demands to extend schools’ closures during the pandemic, to the detriment of students’ education, critics have charged.
Minnesota’s national education rankings subsequently fell from 7th in 2021 to 19th this year, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Book, which bases its analysis on the state’s National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores.
Reading proficiency among Minnesota students fell to 49.9% in 2023, down from 59.2% in 2019, according to the state Department of Education. AP“As Governor, Tim Walz chose teachers union money over putting students first and the results have been disastrous,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told The Post.
“Minnesota students’ test scores fell to their lowest levels in decades because of Walz’s failed, anti-student agenda.”
Walz in a resurfaced interview batted down criticism over the detrimental effects school lockdown measures had on students’ learning, insisting he didn’t “buy” the complaints.
“These kids learned resiliency,” he said of remote learning, adding, “These kids learned problem-solving. They had to figure out how to get online and do this.”
Kevin Munoz, a Harris-Walz campaign spokesman, said “schools shut down because [former President Donald] Trump failed on COVID.”
