The emergence of Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as the new-look Democratic ticket upended the 2024 presidential race. The Democratic ticket was trailing former President Trump in national and key state polls before President Biden ended his campaign. Now, just a few weeks later, the race is basically tied according to the RealClearPolitics polling averages as Democrats gather in Chicago for the party’s national convention. The Biden-for-Harris swap also added an unexpected education angle to the election. As anyone who’s watched a Walz stump speech knows, he was a public school teacher and football coach before he entered politics, serving in the Minnesota state legislature, U.S. Congress, and now as Minnesota’s governor. That’s more education experience than President Trump, Vice President Harris, and Senator (and Republican vice presidential nominee) JD Vance combined.
How did his time in the classroom and state government shape his thinking on education policy? And what does his education record in Minnesota tell us about the priorities of a potential Harris-Walz administration? We posed these questions to Minnesota education players and observers — people in the state who have watched, worked with, and covered Gov. Walz. We can’t promise this captures the full range of perspectives; in fact, we’re sure it doesn’t. A number of people declined to go on the record and criticize someone they think might be the next Vice President or someone they must work with as governor if the Trump-Vance ticket wins in November. Still, the responses are interesting and reveal something about someone who was a popular teacher and is a generally well-liked governor, even by many of his critics.
Jump to:
Ember Reichgott Junge
Joe Nathan
Beth Hawkins
Suzanne Tacheny Kubach
Krista Kaput
Lars Esdal
Chris Stewart
Ember Reichgott Junge, former Minnesota state senator and author of the nation’s first charter school law
Overall, I think a Harris-Walz ticket will be better for public charter schools than the current administration. When Tim Walz was in Congress, I personally lobbied him and other Minnesota congresspeople on public charter schools. At that time, he was quite supportive.
When he was elected governor, he was strongly supported by the teachers unions, so I feared that things would change. Overall, I have found Gov. Walz staying somewhat neutral and distant on the charter school subject. He is not hostile, nor is he proactive like Presidents Obama or Clinton. I once asked to meet with him on the topic and he referred me to the commissioner of education. I understand from the leader of the Minnesota Association of Charter Schools that they have a decent working relationship with the charter school office of the Minnesota Department of Education. I don’t know Kamala Harris’ position on the issue, but I don’t think this is an issue that will be top of mind for Walz as an education influencer. Of course, these are only my personal observations, but they leave me somewhat hopeful for opening new doors for charters at the federal level should Harris and Walz be elected.
Joe Nathan, Center for School Change co-director and columnist for several Minnesota newspapers
As a person who has talked and worked directly with Gov. Walz, I’d call him fair, even-handed, and student focused. He and I met for an hour before he was elected, and he asked his transition team to meet with me. In my role as a newspaper columnist, I’ve also interviewed him four or five times.
When some Minnesota districts complained that they had to send too much money to charters to pay for students with special needs who transferred there, Gov. Walz worked out a compromise. The state of Minnesota put millions of additional dollars into funding for students with special needs, so that districts had to pay less when students transferred while charters continued to receive significant funding.
In Minnesota, the governor appoints the Education Commissioner. Under Gov. Walz, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) has treated charters as part of public education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, then-MDE Commissioner Mary Cathryn Ricker regularly convened both district and charter public school leaders to discuss next steps.
Governor Walz also listened to the group of (mostly charter) high school students challenging the state’s refusal to provide unemployment aid to students who were laid off because of the pandemic. The state refused to provide either state funding (because of a weird 1939 law) or federal funding. Students researched and pointed out that federal funds should be awarded. When the state balked, they took the state to court and won. Gov. Walz then worked with the students to get the 1939 law changed.
Gov. Walz is strongly supported by the state’s teachers union, Education Minnesota. He opposes vouchers. I think charter advocates have found him to be, as noted above, fair, even-handed, student focused, and a person who recognizes that charters are part of public education.
Beth Hawkins, The 74 senior writer and national correspondent
Here are two things that are simultaneously true about Tim Walz:
Big Dad Energy, posing with a pink piglet at the state fair Oink Booth, pushing a cub reporter’s car out of a ditch full of snow: Walz is actually that guy. He is a three-time winner of the Minnesota Congressional Delegation Hot Dish Contest. He’s a regular at the dog park.
It’s not shtick. And yet it is a persona Walz is conscious of and gifted at bending for political ends, when occasion merits.
Nowhere is this duality more on display than in his education politics. In 2023, he negotiated $2.2 billion in new education funding (for perspective, bringing total spending to some $23 billion) and then held firm on costly new policies that extended family and medical leave, paid vacation, and unemployment benefits to all school employees — even seasonal workers.
Superintendents wept as they tried to explain to the public how it was that, historic increases notwithstanding, they still needed a boost in the local levy.
Walz appointed a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers as his first education commissioner, but then quietly accepted her resignation as some urban unions fought school re-openings.
His administration has not demanded that schools address demographic gaps in student achievement, even as they have yawned wider after school returned to “normal.” But neither has it attempted to roll back school choice, hobble charter schools, or curtail assessments.
Walz took advantage of a once-in-a-blue-moon Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party “trifecta” — control of Minnesota’s executive and legislative branches — and an eye-popping state revenue surplus to deliver what, to education reformers, doesn’t pass muster as bold change for schools. Minnesota’s K-12 policy advocates are long used to disappointment, though.
Like it or hate it, the governor and his inner circle understood it was a record to run on and put Walz on the state party circuit to preview what they — and now Vice President Harris — bet is a record that is both solidly progressive and broadly appealing. Whether they bet right remains to be seen.
Suzanne Tacheny Kubach, former executive director of the PIE Network and current MN artist
A huge miss when I was a regular in the reform world was not lending our voices to the elements that support a child’s well-being and school experiences — not just test scores, etc. At the time, I felt we had so little time and needed to bring focus.
Now? Yes, absolutely feed all children! If we want to eliminate achievement gaps, then focus on things that eliminate the stigmas wealth introduces into schools (and yes, that includes tampons!). Speaking up for those things reminds people we understand children as the complicated human beings that they are. The more a family is strained for income, the harder schooling is for all.
Governor Walz is the real deal — a real Minnesota deal! (I posted a Minnesota language primer on Threads [Meta’s app], including the many meanings of the word “deal.”) And seriously, that’s another thing about him: He’s in every way a great role model for kids. Kind, empathetic, and hardworking.
Krista Kaput, Bellwether senior analyst
When Tim Walz announced his bid for the Minnesota governorship in 2017, I did not support him. I did not vote for him in the primary and begrudgingly voted for him in the general election. However, my perspective shifted after working with his administration during my tenure at two Minnesota-based education policy and advocacy nonprofits. I now regard him as a competent governor dedicated to improving kids’ lives, particularly those from historically marginalized communities.
Under Gov. Walz, Minnesota has enacted significant pieces of legislation promoting educational equity, several of which I had the privilege to work on. These include implementing universal school meals, non-exclusionary discipline policies for our state’s youngest learners, free menstrual products in schools, expanding ethnic studies, increasing opportunities for advanced coursework, investments to diversify the teacher workforce and address shortages, and expanding access to higher education, to name a few. His approach embodies the late-Sen. Paul Wellstone’s belief that “we all do better when we all do better.” These policies uplift individual students and the broader community by fostering an environment of inclusivity and support.
Despite these accomplishments and my confidence in him as a leader, I acknowledge that Gov. Walz has fallen short in some areas. For instance, during the 2024 session, he signed a bill reversing a 2023 law that prohibited adults, including school police officers, from using prone restraints on students unless necessary to prevent bodily harm. The new law permits police officers to use such holds, albeit with mandated new training. I view this as a significant step back for Minnesota’s students, particularly given our state’s history of disproportionately disciplining Black and Indigenous students.
With that said, I support the Harris-Walz ticket. Their leadership will prioritize the needs of working families and advance a vision of equity and opportunity for all.
Lars Esdal, Education Evolving executive director
Gov. Walz on education has been committed, consistent, and fair. His “One Minnesota” plan for education reads a bit like a kitchen-sink approach — but that’s not necessarily a critique, and, ultimately, he and his administration have helped secure a lot of great wins for Minnesota’s youth.
Chris Stewart, Brightbeam CEO (excerpted from a piece originally published here)
When Tim Walz first became governor, I worried he would be an ideologue who would end “standardized” testing, kill charter schools, lower standards, and replace accountability measures with fuzzy, feel-good, non-educational interventions. That would be disastrous for civil rights and racial progress, but it tracks with a state that believes warm hugs and vibes are the best remedies for lagging student achievement.
Given his past as a public school educator and supporter of teachers unions, I worried he would turn over education policy to people who believe every proposed reform is an affront to Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.
He didn’t do that. In fact, on education issues, he’s been wholly unremarkable. I don’t mean that in a bad way.
To the extent that Walz has had an education agenda, it hasn’t harmed my two biggest issues — public school choice and student outcomes. The pandemic put a boot on our back end, like in other states, but he ably led the state through responsible school closures and openings and provided recovery aid to get students back on track.
