6 facts about Walz’s education track record in Minnesota

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz loves talking about the more than two decades he spent as a classroom teacher. Much of that time was in Mankato in southern Minnesota where he taught social studies and coached football.

He’s made public education a key part of his political identity, holding news conferences at schools and talking frequently about making Minnesota the kid-friendliest state in the country.

Here are six facts to know about his work as a self-styled education governor.

1) Walz signed into law a universal school meals bill

In 2023 the Minnesota Legislature passed a universal school meals bill, which meant that, for about a year now, all students attending Minnesota public and charter schools are required to provide breakfast and lunch free of charge to all their students, regardless of income.

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The program has been incredibly popular in Minnesota. The number of students eating cafeteria lunches and breakfasts has gone up anywhere from 10 to 50 percent. As a result, the program is costing more than expected. Authorities, though, say it’s also significantly reduced the stigma for students around accessing food when they need it.

In a recent interview with a New York Times columnist, Walz said after the free meal policy went into effect, “attendance went up, we saw huge usage of this and we saw classroom behaviors go down.”

Walz’s communications team says that the feedback he’s hearing anecdotally from teachers backs up his statement.

While research generally shows behavior and achievement improve when kids have access to free meals, the research isn’t there yet to back up Walz’s statements specifically in Minnesota.

“I would love to get to a point where we can validate some of the things that he’s saying directly to this program,” said Leah Gardner, policy director for Hunger Solutions, a nonprofit focused on fighting hunger in Minnesota that’s in the middle of a two-year evaluation of the new program.

2) Walz has poured big money into K-12 schools

Last year, Walz and the DFL-controlled Legislature backed historic spending on K-12 and early education. At the end of the 2023 legislative session, he signed into law a bill that put $2.2 billion in new funding toward K-12 education. This was a significant hike in education spending for the state — about $400 per student per year more than previous spending.

That bill also tied state education funding to inflation, something school administrators had been asking for for decades.

School leaders have expressed excitement and appreciation over that, but they also say the hike wasn’t enough to cover some of the requirements from the federal government on spending for special education services as well as newly passed requirements from the state government on new initiatives related to reading instruction, discipline and other issues, as well as the loss of federal pandemic money.

3) Walz’s COVID-19 policies made it difficult for many schools to operate in-person during the pandemic

Like many other governors, Walz closed in-person education across the state in March 2020 as the pandemic took hold. Over the next year he backed a policy created by his education commissioner that saw schools open fully in-person, fully-remote or a hybrid combination of those two options, depending on what COVID case counts looked like in various regions of the state.

Closing schools was especially difficult for administrators living in rural communities where a majority of parents wanted schools open, said Deb Henton, executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators.

“Our knowledge of what to do in a pandemic was extremely limited at the time, so I believe he (Walz) acted on the best information possible,” she said. “It was difficult for our school districts that at first were not experiencing any COVID cases in their districts and yet they needed to close schools and they had a community that maybe was not supportive.”

Like other parts of the country, Minnesota saw student mental health and test scores fall during the pandemic. Four years later, Minnesota’s most recent graduation numbers appear to be on the rise again. New K-12 test score data comes out this month.

Critics, though, believe Walz’s decision-making around schools and the pandemic was too restrictive and that more schools should have been encouraged to remain open and offer in-person learning sooner.

4) Walz has spent record amounts on early childhood

Walz and the DFL Legislature last year passed record spending in early child care and learning. As part of a $1.3 billion package of child care spending for families and providers, Walz used $316 million to boost wages for child care providers through the Great Start Compensation Support Program.

“He [Walz] didn’t just sit back and sign bills into law, but he actually was out there working to get these bills taken care of,” said Burnsville child care director Amanda Schillinger. “It made huge changes for our ability to pay living wages to our staff, increasing the early learning scholarship, increasing funding for child care assistance. Those things have been just, they’ve made such huge changes in our industry.”

In addition to raising wages for child care providers, Walz passed a major paid family and medical leave bill. He also supported the creation of a brand new state agency, the Department of Children, Youth and Families, which combines state agency programs for young children under one jurisdiction, a change Schillinger and other child care advocates had been seeking.

“He sat at the table with us. He sat at the table and heard what we had to say, he actually listened to us and then worked to make those things come true,” Schillinger said.

Most recently, Walz named the commissioner for this new department and launched a new initiative for military families to receive child care funding vouchers in Minnesota. But Monique Stumon, a child care director in north Minneapolis, said his work started before the most recent child care legislative wins.

“The support that he gave day care providers during the pandemic of COVID, I mean he made sure that we were recognized, he made sure that we received different types of compensation,” Stumon said.

“We still have things that we want to get accomplished, but the first steps have been enormous for us, and they have impacted so many lives, particularly little Black and brown children that so many times get left behind,” Stumon added. “And so I think he’s going to be a good leader in making sure that we have a more even playing ground.”

5) The Feeding Our Future scandal brought scrutiny of Walz’s Education Department

Critics have attacked Walz and his Education Department for not doing enough to uncover a massive $250 million child nutrition fraud in Minnesota.

The agency distributed that federal money largely through the local nonprofit Feeding Our Future. But prosecutors later alleged Feeding Our Future was a conduit for illegal payments sent to people who used the money to buy cars, luxury goods and property instead of feeding children.

The Education Department is not accused of wrongdoing, but a recent report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor found “actions and inactions” by the department created opportunities for this fraud.

6) Minnesota public colleges have seen an increase in enrollment under Walz

As part of the One Minnesota budget plan, Walz and lawmakers approved an additional $650 million for higher education in 2023 for the implementation of new programs for financial aid and workforce initiatives in the 2024-25 school year. He also passed the North Star Promise program which covers tuition and fees for Minnesota familiars earning less than $80,000 a year.

Since the funding passed, Minnesota public colleges and universities have seen a slight increase in enrollment for the first time in a decade.