Minnesota students' reading levels remain stagnant under Tim Walz's literacy initiatives

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) signed a bill last year that added more than $2 billion to K-12 education spending. He called that a "signature accomplishment" that he said would "improve child literacy.” The Washington Free Beacon reported Monday that the spending has not improved literacy and some students are worse off than they were before. 

Just 46 percent of third-grade Minnesotans are rated as proficient in reading, which is lower than it was the previous year, according to data recently released by the Minnesota Department of Education. When considering all grades, about 50 percent of students are proficient in reading and just 45 percent are considered proficient in math: these figures are virtually unchanged from 2023.



The data strongly suggests that Walz’s education spending spree was ineffective in improving the education of students. This could, in turn, reduce Walz’s appeal as a former teacher, a talking point that he has relied on when discussing the education of America on the campaign trail with Kamala Harris. 

As governor, Walz has certainly been focused on education, but not necessarily to the betterment of education. He has often emphasized left-wing policies over basic education, and his 2023 education bill featured ethnic studies curriculum that cost the state $6 million. 

Even kids in the first grade were not spared the ideological hammer of having to "identify examples of ethnicity, equality, liberation and systems of power" while those in the fourth were told 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."

During the Covid pandemic, Minnesota test scores were well below the national average, according to the Washington Post and have yet to return to normal. Other states that are less inclined towards left-wing policy, like South Carolina, Mississippi, and Tennessee. These states have rebounded beyond pre-pandemic levels, the Free Beacon noted.

Catrin Wigfall, a policy fellow at the Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment, said Walz’s education policies have the educational priority "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 insisted schools in his state continue with school closures well into March 2021. As the Free Beacon observed, a Sept. 2022 Brown University report found a direct correlation between the length of school closures and a decrease in reading proficiency: the longer kids had to learn in solitude at home, the worse their reading became.