by Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
Teachers unions are among the largest donors to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Democrats’ vice presidential candidate, giving over $135,000 to his campaigns for governor and, before that, Congress.
Walz, who once taught high school social studies, sides with teachers unions instead of everyday Minnesotans, some parents say.
“When it comes to education, the policies of Tim Walz show that he has been beholden to the dictates of the teachers unions,” Minnesota mom of three Jeannine Buntrock told The Daily Signal.
The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s two largest teachers unions, are joined in Walz’s state to form the Education Minnesota PAC. Their political action committee contributed the maximum allowable donation of $4,000 to his campaigns for governor in both the 2018 and 2022 election cycles, according to campaign finance reports.
Teachers unions were among Walz’s highest contributors in his congressional campaigns from 2005 to 2018. He served six terms in the House representing Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District.
During those years, the National Education Association’s own political action committee contributed a total of $60,000 to Walz’s campaigns. The amount rises to $67,450 when counting donations from individuals who identified themselves as belonging to the NEA.
The American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union, donated $60,000 to Walz’s congressional campaigns, according to an Open Secrets report. (The national branches of the NEA and AFT aren’t bound by Minnesota’s donation limits.)
Walz, 60, sided with the American Federation of Teachers on more than 90% of its issues before Congress, AFT President Randi Weingarten has said.
“There is no distinction between the policies and dictates that Walz has rubber-stamped during his time as governor and the demands of the teachers unions,” Cristine Trooien, a mother of three who is executive director of the Minnesota Parents Alliance, told The Daily Signal.
Neither the NEA nor the AFT contributed to the 2022 campaign of Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, who is former President Donald Trump’s running mate in the Nov. 5 election, pitting them against Harris and Walz.
Teachers unions likely support Walz politically because his policy objectives and priorities are aligned with theirs, said Andrew Holman, a policy analyst for the Commonwealth Foundation whose report on union finances was published in December 2023.
Walz, who was a member of both the NEA and AFT, taught and coached football at the high school level before running for office.
Walz expanded collective bargaining rights, which teachers unions use to negotiate higher salaries and benefits; opposed right-to-work laws, which allow teachers to choose whether or not to join a union; and opposed popular school choice initiatives in Minnesota, which unions claim “rob our nation’s public schools” of “scarce funding and resources.”
Walz agrees with teachers unions on abortion, transgenderism, and making sexually graphic books available in school libraries.
As governor, he signed a bill enshrining abortion with no limitations in Minnesota law. The AFT and NEA both support abortion on demand.
Walz also signed into law what opponents call a “Transgender Trafficking Bill” because it allows minors to travel to Minnesota and receive medical interventions to “transition” them to the opposite sex without their parents’ knowledge or consent. The NEA’s “Schools in Transition” guide says teachers should carefully hide a student’s gender identity from unsupportive parents.
In light of parental efforts to remove pornographic books from school libraries, Walz signed into law a bill barring Minnesota schools from complying with book removal requests “based solely on the viewpoint, content, message, idea, or opinion conveyed.” The NEA recommended that teachers assign “Gender Queer” as summer reading even though the novel, told in comic-book style, depicts gay sex.
The AFT lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep schools closed longer during the COVID-19 pandemic. As governor, Walz kept Minnesota schools closed intermittently throughout the 2020-2021 school year and into 2021-2022. Many students were subjected to intermittent online or “distance learning” for two full years.
Neither the AFT nor the NEA responded to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment before publication of this report.
The heads of America’s two largest teachers unions cheered Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee Kamala Harris‘ selection of Walz as her running mate.
“Inspired Choice!!! Gov Walz represents America,” Weingarten, AFT’s president, wrote in a post on X. “A social studies teacher and veteran from rural Minn.”
NEA President Becky Pringle called Walz an ally of teachers unions.
“Gov. Walz is known as the ‘Education Governor’ because he has been an unwavering champion for public school students and educators, and an ally for working families and unions,” Pringle said in a statement. “As a high school teacher and NEA member, Walz is committed to uplifting our public schools.”
But Buntrock, whose children attend public schools in Minnesota, said Walz’s alignment with union dictates resulted in negative outcomes.
“The results have been plummeting test scores following the COVID shutdowns, increasingly unsafe schools as teachers and administrators are prevented from reasonably disciplining students, and more and more division between students as they are treated differently according to their identity silos,” Buntrock told The Daily Signal. “More and more, the focus in schools is on social [and] emotional learning and social justice as a distraction from the loss of academic rigor.”
Minnesota Parents Alliance’s Trooien, another mom, said Walz follows “the destructive hyperpartisan orders of union bosses.”
“Walz has been presented time and again with opportunities to unite and lead Minnesota out of the chaos of 2020, but instead continues to follow a very narrow and divisive set of policy directives set by state and national teachers unions,” Trooien said. “As a result, K-12 test scores are at all-time lows; crime, violence, and taxes are at all-time highs; and families are fleeing Minnesota in record numbers.”
Walz’s press secretary did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment before publication of this report.
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Elizabeth (Troutman) Mitchell is a reporting fellow for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
Photo “Tim Walz and Randi Weingarten” by Randi Weingarten.
