Minnesota governor Tim Walz, now the Democratic vice presidential candidate, last year signed a flagship education bill that boosted K-12 education spending by more than $2 billion, a "signature accomplishment" that he said would "improve child literacy." New test scores reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show that hasn't happened.
Just 46 percent of Minnesota's third-graders, for example, are considered proficient in reading, marking a slight dip from 2023, according to data recently released by the Minnesota Department of Education. Across all grade levels, roughly half of Minnesota students are proficient in reading, and just 45 percent are proficient in math. Those figures are nearly identical to those from 2023.
The new numbers suggest Walz's $2 billion education spending blitz did not impact Minnesota's students the way he said it would, undercutting a central part of his pitch to voters as he runs for vice president. As Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris's running mate, Walz has leaned on his educational background, touting his record as a former teacher. The National Education Association last month lauded him as the "Education Governor."
Walz indeed has prioritized education as governor of Minnesota, though critics say his policies have hurt students.
Walz's 2023 education bill required school districts to develop an ethnic studies curriculum and provided $6 million to do so. The state's ethnic study standards call on first-graders to "identify examples of ethnicity, equality, liberation and systems of power" and fourth-graders to "identify the processes and impacts of colonization and examine how discrimination and the oppression of various racial and ethnic groups have produced resistance movements."
At the same time, academic achievement levels in Minnesota have lagged behind other states.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, test scores in Minnesota fell more than the national average, according to the Washington Post. They have yet to recover, even as scores return to pre-pandemic levels—or outpace them—in states such as South Carolina, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
Catrin Wigfall, a policy fellow at the Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment, attributed Minnesota's struggles to an educational shift under Walz "away from excellence and achievement to one that is ideologically driven and that appears to prioritize advancing a political agenda."
"Even after historic spending hikes, Minnesota schools are still on the verge of financial collapse," Wigfall told the Free Beacon. "The new dollars are tied to all of these mandates that put new burdens on educators and students and aren't tied to academic outcomes."
Walz's office did not respond to a request for comment. A Minnesota Department of Education spokesperson said the agency has made "long-term investments" in education "that, once implemented, will improve academic outcomes and positively impact students for many years to come."
In addition to his left-wing educational reforms, Walz implemented extended school shutdowns amid the pandemic. Using emergency powers, Walz did not allow schools to fully reopen until March 2021. In South Carolina, schools reopened for five days a week roughly one year earlier, in July 2020. A Sept. 2022 Brown University report found that the longer schools were closed, the more their students' reading proficiency decreased.
Following the return to in-person instruction, Walz mandated masking in the state's public schools, a policy that caused exponential learning loss, according to a 2022 study.
"Another dismal [Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment] test score report from @GovTimWalz's education department—an astonishing 53.5% of Minnesota 3rd Graders are not reading at grade level," Minnesota House Republicans said following the education department's latest test score release.