PROF. GIORDANO: American education's decline under Governor Tim Walz

Nicholas Giordano is a professor of Political Science, the host of The P.A.S. Report Podcast, and a fellow at Campus Reform’s Higher Education Fellowship. With 2 decades of teaching experience and over a decade of experience in the emergency management/homeland security arena, Professor Giordano is regularly called on to speak about issues related to government, politics, and international relations.

As Governor Walz and Minnesota education officials are focused on inculcating students with far-left socialist/Marxist propaganda, the core mission of education has been neglected which has led to a decline in student performance. For the first time in 40 years, Minnesota now ranks below the national average in student proficiency. Under Governor Walz’s leadership, since he first assumed office in 2019, Minnesota went from being ranked among the top ten in education to 19th place. 

Student proficiency levels have consistently dropped, more than half of Minnesota students fail to meet math and reading standards, and 19 school districts could not produce a single student proficient in math. Only 15% of Minnesota’s 8^th-grade students were proficient in U.S. History, and 23% in Civics. These numbers are abysmal.

Unfortunately, many of our leaders refuse to acknowledge how our education system has been hijacked by radical ideologues. However, Minnesota serves as a stark example of what happens when dangerous ideologies are substituted for genuine education. Governor Walz’s support for a radical K-12 ethnic studies curriculum is not just a state issue. 

It should serve as a warning to the entire nation that the focus is no longer to equip students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. Instead, it shapes the student body into activists, and it leaves students ill-equipped to defend our country or the core American principles that have defined America for the last 248 years, including self-government, liberty, and freedom.  

Since 2021, Walz’s Department of Education has been collaborating with the Education for Liberation Network (EdLib) to redesign its curricula and pushback on what EdLib deems “the status quo of colonial education.” This new curriculum, infused with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) dogma, updates standards to encourage students to view America through the lens of systemic oppression and perpetual victimhood based on categories like “identity” and “resistance.” 

EdLib believes that education should be placed in the context “the struggle for social justice and connect it to action that leads to social change.” In their Abolitionist Toolkit for Educators, topics include revolution, resistance, dismantling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), defunding the police, reparations, “adultism,” and “woke wonderings”.

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Rather than indoctrinate students with anti-American beliefs, Minnesota’s students, as well as all American students, would be better served by a curriculum that instills a deep understanding of the principles that have made our nation strong. Students should be taught the totality of our history, including all the complexities of our young nation. They should be taught to formulate arguments based on truths and not feelings, and they should be taught to think critically. 

Civic education requires students to be Constitutionally literate as this knowledge helps them understand their rights and responsibilities as citizens, the structure of the government, and the principles that guide our nation. The founding fathers, who were ordinary men that became statesmen, crafted the Constitution to ensure a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, which is something every student should appreciate and understand.

Advocates of the DEI agenda often claim that our history is being whitewashed in schools. However, I challenge anyone to poll students today, and you will find that they were taught about slavery, the Trail of Tears, segregation, Japanese internment camps, and other American atrocities. What you won’t find, however, is a deep understanding of the Constitution. 

In fact, many students were never even required to read it. Consider how government impacts every aspect of our lives, yet only 9 states require a full year of civics instruction in high school, 30 states only require a half year of civics in high school, and 11 states have no official civics requirement.

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As a political science professor, I’ve been a vocal critic of a failed education system that has deviated from its foundational mission – educating students to become informed, productive, and engaged citizens. 

For too long radical activism has replaced actual learning, which has had a negative impact on our students and detrimental consequences for our nation. Under the guise of progressive reform, traditional education has been dismantled in favor of a far-left agenda that prioritizes indoctrination over facts, truth, critical thinking, merit, and academic rigor. 

If we knowingly continue down this path, we risk losing the very principles that have sustained our Republic and enabled our society to thrive. 

How can we expect our nation to survive when the majority of Americans are ignorant of the principles and history that define it? 

Minnesota’s approach to education should serve as a warning, not a blueprint, for our country. In order to produce informed, productive and engaged citizens, we must reject the ideological agenda that has been thrusted on the student body and return to core academic principles and a comprehensive understanding of our nation’s history and Constitution.