Gov. Walz’s Legacy is That Majority of Students Can No Longer Read

Test scores in Minnesota hit a 30 year low under the former high school teacher.

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Gov. Tim Walz has made much of being a former high school teacher in his political campaigns. The DNC brought out former students of his on stage and the media has rolled out adulatory stories claiming that Walz’s time as a teacher will help him shape America’s education policy.

The recent release of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA) test scores for 2024 by Education Commissioner Willie Jett, a Walz appointee, were described by the Minnesota Star Tribune as “stagnant with only about half of students meeting or beating grade-level standards in math and reading.” The paper struggled to describe an empty glass as half-full.

The actual numbers showed that 49.9% of Minnesota students reached grade-level proficiency standards in reading, only 45.5% did so in math and only 39.6% managed it in science: a more accurate description would be that well less than half of Walz’s school students are proficient.

The educational glass in Minnesota isn’t half full, it’s more than half empty.

A majority of Minnesota students aren’t proficient in math or science and a little less than half can read at grade level. These are catastrophic numbers that show a school system that has failed at its most fundamental function despite billions of dollars in runaway spending.

The already terrible 2024 test scores are much worse when viewed in historical context.

In 2017, the year before the election that put Walz in charge of Minnesota, solid majorities of students were proficient in reading and math, and even science scores in the state were passable. Walz however ran as an educator and promised that he could do better.

In 2017, 59% of Minnesota students tested as proficient in math. By 2024, that number had dropped catastrophically by more than 13% down to 45.5%.

In 2017, 60% of students had tested as proficient at grade level in reading. Under Gov. Walz, those numbers have fallen to 49.9%.

In 2017, 54% of students met or exceeded test scores in science. By 2024, only 39.6% did for a decline of 14%.

The respective double digit education declines of 13%, 10% and 14% under Gov. Walz have taken test scores to some of the worst numbers in the state in thirty years.

And these numbers don’t tell the whole story of how bad things are in Minnesota. One analysis found that there were 19 schools in the state where not a single student was proficient in math.

Some of this can be attributed to Gov. Walz’s decision to pander to his teachers’ union allies in EM by shutting down schools and curtailing the education of a generation, but not all of it.

Pre-pandemic test scores were already showing declines and Gov. Walz has had years to turn around pandemic educational failures, but the former teacher who ran twice on fixing education failed to lay out any practical vision for turning around the failed public school system.

Test scores have been consistently falling since Walz took office. Math scores only improved by 1% since the pandemic and reading scores have been in freefall, declining year by year even since the pandemic and last year fell for the first time underwater below the halfway mark.

While Gov. Walz’s decision to close schools was disastrous, but things have gotten worse since. In his 2022 race, he ran on promises to further increase education spending. His campaign featured a commercial claiming that “as a former teacher, Governor Walz does what’s right for our kids.” But doing right meant throwing more money at political allies running a failed system.

The massive $2.2 billion education spending bill passed by Minnesota Democrats last year officially brought up spending to $7,281 per pupil, but not only is there little evidence that the per pupil spending ratio leads to improved education outcomes with some schools in the state that have been spending as much as $31,000 per student producing zero percent proficiency, but much of the money actually went to putting more of Education Minnesota (EM) teachers’ union members along with more administrators, school nurses and social workers on the payroll, and enacting a controversial “ethnic studies” program that critics say brings racism into schools.

A year later, most Minnesota students still can’t handle math, science or reading.

“My messages to families, to students, to teachers, to support staff is, ‘This is the budget for many of us who taught for decades,’ this is the budget we’re waiting for,” Gov. Walz bragged “This is the transformational moment.” It was transformational for everyone except students.

Gov. Walz and his party chose to spend $6 million on ethnic studies while students were struggling with basic skills. $135 million was spent paying ‘unemployment’ for workers off for the summer. Rather than funding schools, much of the new money funded social services, free meals, family social workers and even drug overdose prevention medications on site.

Minnesota Democrats have camouflaged social welfare spending and benefits for union members as educational spending, but there’s no sign that students have benefited from it.

The state’s powerful educational unions have claimed that Democrats are better for education, but test scores in reading hit a high of 74% and math scores hit a high of 64.7% under former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, and have been declining ever since.

Gov. Walz was following the policies of a party that took reading test scores down from 74% to 49.4% and math test scores from 64.7% down to 45.5%.

Behind the numbers is the reality that 3 out of 4 students used to be proficient in reading, now less than 2 in 4 are, and 6 out of 10 students could count, now only 4 out of 10 still can.

What will happen to those two illiterate students and those six students who can’t count?

The Walz campaign claimed that he wanted to make “Minnesota the best state in the country for kids.” But in his second term in office, the kids of Minnesota can’t read, count or do anything.

The governor inherited majority proficiency rates in education in Minnesota and brought them down to less than half. That record may have more bearing on his education policy than his past working as a teacher.

Gov. Walz’s actual educational legacy is that a majority of students can no longer read.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

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