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Tania Lyon used three words — “It’s pretty surreal” — to describe how it feels to see former colleague Tim Walz become the Democratic Party’s presumptive vice presidential nominee.

Lyon has known Walz, now the governor of Minnesota, since 1996. Back then, they were new teachers at Mankato West High School. Lyon taught English at the school in south central Minnesota, as did Walz’s wife, Gwen. A social studies and geography teacher, Walz coached football and served as faculty adviser to Mankato West’s newly formed Gay-Straight Alliance.

Seeing his rise from small town Minnesota — Mankato has a population of roughly 45,000 — to the presidential ticket has changed Lyon’s view of politics, she said.

“When you have someone you know who is part of that political process, it shows that it’s working the way that it was meant to work,” she said. 

Lyon, who retired last year, was not only a colleague of the Walzes, but also their neighbor. She witnessed his “big dad energy” firsthand, both at school and on their block on holidays like Halloween. 

She is far from the only educator who’s excited that Vice President Kamala Harris selected a former schoolteacher to be her running mate. Decades have passed since the last teacher-turned-politician made it to the White House. Lyndon B. Johnson, who taught school in a Texas bordertown, served as vice president and president from 1961 to 1969. When Harris named Walz her running mate on August 6, teachers showed their support with their wallets. In the 24 hours after the announcement, the Harris-Walz campaign received $36 million in contributions from 450,000 donors. The top profession of those donors? Teacher. 

In Walz, many teachers see an ally. They say his classroom experience means he can make sound decisions about education policy as Republicans vow to dismantle the Department of Education, privatize public schools and block student loan forgiveness. During his tenure as governor, Minnesota enacted policies to make school meals free, lower college costs for economically disadvantaged students and pour unprecedented funding into public education. Teachers — those who know him or know of him — are applauding Walz as a person and a politician.  

“Having Tim Walz in the White House, we will have a person who understands the realities of what’s happening in schools, not the ridiculous myths and misinformation that are being spread about what’s happening,” said Shaun Harper, a professor in the Rossier School of Education and Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. “In my research, lots of teachers are so frustrated about the lies that are being told about them, what they do, and what happens in their classrooms.”

Teacher morale dipped during the COVID-19 crisis, an era that ushered in widespread attacks against educators. Teachers’ unions faced criticism for not agreeing to quickly return their members to classrooms and educators struggled to meaningfully connect with students via remote learning. Outraged about mask, vaccine and testing mandates in schools to prevent COVID’s spread, some parents and activists began speaking out against the curriculum, accusing schools of exposing students to explicit materials and turning children into left-wing radicals. Speakers at the Republican National Convention in July echoed these sentiments, disparaging teachers’ unions and suggesting that schools want to indoctrinate youth. 

“Teachers were vilified,” Lyon said of the early pandemic years. “Teachers were asked to build a plane while flying it, basically as they constructed a completely new way of instructing. The thing that’s unique about teachers is that whenever you work with people, you’re on the front line of all of the things that are going on in society. So every social issue that impacts us politically in some way is on the forefront of a teacher’s world.”

Although teachers have faced persistent attacks from right-wing conservatives in recent years, C. Daniel Myers, an associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, said that the Harris-Walz campaign will not downplay the governor’s time as an educator.

“Being a teacher is part of the background that Walz and the Harris campaign will highlight in helping paint a picture of him that is attractive to voters, notwithstanding the more partisan conflict over what’s happened in the classroom in recent years,” Myers said. “Being a teacher is still a pretty well-looked upon profession.”

In Mankato, Walz made an impression as an educator. He coached the high school football team to the state championship in 1999, the same year that he became adviser to the Gay-Straight Alliance when schools were largely hostile environments for LGBTQ+ students. Three years later, he won the Mankato Teacher of the Year Award. 

“He absolutely inspired and motivated his students,” Lyon said. “He was a favorite teacher, and there were always positive things going on around Tim in the way that he galvanized people and really worked to center critical thinking. The political process is something that was a passion. Like other social studies teachers, he was impassioned by democracy, by freedom and by the process that those work.”

Linda Howe-Wensel, president of the Mankato Teachers’ Association, met Walz about 20 years ago. At Mankato West High School, Walz was active in the local union. There, the two connected as faculty representatives for their respective schools. Howe-Wensel is a special education elementary school teacher in Mankato. 

“It’s kind of like goosebumps. That’s kind of the feel,” she said of her reaction to Walz’s rise to Harris’ running mate. “He didn’t go to any Ivy League schools. He wasn’t brought up in an environment where being in political office was the goal. He was raised on a farm, went to just regular school and was a teacher here in small town USA, Mankato, Minnesota.”

Families in Mankato value public education, Howe-Wensel said, noting that the Walzes sent their children to local public schools. As he became a congressman in 2007 and governor in 2019, Walz never forgot Mankato, she added. He made a point to announce his gubernatorial reelection campaign at a teacher’s house in the small city about 80 miles from Minneapolis.

“He’s just such a down-to-earth person,” she said. His familiarity with the plight of working people, his supporters say, contributed to his backing of universal free school meal legislation. 

“Making sure that we can always give kids some food is huge,” Howe-Wensel said. “Some people don’t want to say they need help, and they really do need help. And then who’s suffering when the parents are too proud to say they need it? It’s the children that are suffering.”

Lyon also described Walz as authentic, recalling that as a teacher, he cared about the well-being of others and continued to be a “servant leader” as a congressperson and governor.

Walz has suggested that JD Vance, the U.S. senator from Ohio and running mate of former President Donald Trump, is not an authentic representation of the nation’s “hillbilly” communities. During a viral appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” last month, Walz said that the small-town ethos is not about hate or division. The Trump-Vance ticket’s support of privatizing education, he added, reveals how out of touch the “Hillbilly Elegy” author is with rural life.

“They talk about private schools,” said Walz, who was born in rural Nebraska. “Where in the heck are you going to find a private school in a town of 400? Those are public schools. Those are great teachers that are out there making a difference and gave us an opportunity to succeed.”

Myers called Walz “a particularly credible messenger” on how privatizing education through school vouchers would affect rural populations. Harper agrees.

“I am from a very small town in rural South Georgia,” he said. “Walz is right that in a small town like mine, there is no version of school choice. You have to go to the schools that are there, and there aren’t vouchers to have children go from one rural county to another rural county. Again, in Walz, what we get is a person who understands the totality of the education ecosystem in America.”

Walz’s stance on vouchers has earned him strong support from teachers’ unions, Myers said. Denise Specht, president of Education Minnesota, the statewide labor union of teachers and other school personnel, said that when Walz ran for governor, the union of over 84,000 members didn’t endorse him right away. Specht explained that this wasn’t because the union doubted him. They did, however, want to make sure they could deliver the votes to get him elected.

“He was familiar with Mankato, where he taught, but we needed him to get to know educators and students all over the state, so we spent a lot of time working with him as a candidate, and then ended up endorsing him,” Specht said. “Through that, we got to know him really, really well, and now we see ourselves as a partner of his. He calls us when he’s got questions. He doesn’t always take our advice, but he listens to it.”

She said that his experience in the classroom has influenced him as a politician, whether that’s providing free menstrual products in all public school bathrooms or signing the Paid Family and Medical Leave bill that allows parents to take time off when their kids are sick. Last year, Walz approved a $2.3 billion education budget, Minnesota’s largest single public school investment ever. That budget allows students from families with household incomes under $80,000 to attend college in the state for free. 

“He’s got a wonderful labor record,” Specht said. “I know educators all over this country, and we are the envy of the nation when it comes to things that have been happening at our legislature. For us as educators, the historic investments that he made in public education were felt deeply by us, whether it was being able to hire more staff, bringing on more mental health support staff to help with students, raising educator pay. Those are things that really, really, really mattered.”

She applauds Walz for expanding subjects of bargaining so that school personnel can negotiate learning conditions such as class sizes without having to strike and allowing hourly school workers like bus drivers, cooks, custodians and paraprofessionals to qualify for unemployment insurance during the summer. 

“The hourly wage school workers in Minnesota were singled out from unemployment in ways that construction workers and others weren’t, and it was a really big hole that got closed up,” Specht said. “Hourly wage workers in our schools are already at the lowest end of the pay scale. They’re usually bargaining for pennies, nickels and dimes on the hour, so to have that unemployment insurance available for them over the summer was a win for them. But we also saw that as a win for school districts, because those are the positions that are the hardest to fill.”

Speaking to members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union in Los Angeles last week, Walz said that he and Harris want workers in all states to be able to partake in collective bargaining, while the Trump-Vance ticket wants to strip workers of protections. Meghann Lee, a teacher-librarian in Los Angeles, said that she’s thought a lot about Walz and the significance of having a teacher on a presidential ticket. 

“I’m so excited by Walz,” she said. Sitting in a recent staff meeting, she pondered his journey from teacher to running mate. “All of us could one day be in the White House!”

While Walz’s supporters view his education policies as successes, conservatives have used his record to frame him as too progressive, Myers said. In response, Walz can characterize the legislation he’s signed as pragmatic and common sense.

Walz’s policies do make sense, according to Harper, co-editor of the new book “The Big Lie About Race in America’s Schools.” Offering free college to students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds ensures that many youth who would have counted out higher education earn degrees and join Minnesota’s skilled workforce. Passing universal free lunch legislation is likely to improve academic outcomes in K-12 public schools, since well-fed students learn more effectively, Harper said.

“The research makes it painstakingly clear that what kids eat in school has an effect on their academic performance,” he said. “So if you have access to a healthy lunch, for instance, you’re going to have more energy.” 

Lyon, Walz’s former colleague, said the governor is profoundly relatable: Many people, particularly teachers, see themselves in his story. 

“They also may see their own influential teachers in his story,” she said. “He’s a person who galvanizes people because he’s passionate, and that passion is authentic. You can’t fake that.”

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