Academics on social media have been sharing their pleasure on-line after Vice President Kamala Harris introduced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her operating mate on Tuesday morning.
Walz, a veteran of the Military Nationwide Guard who represented southern Minnesota within the U.S. Home from 2007 to 2019, is a former highschool social research instructor.
Becky Pringle, president of the Nationwide Schooling Affiliation lecturers union, mentioned in an announcement shortly after the announcement that “educators are fired up and united to get out and elect the Harris-Walz ticket.”
“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,” she mentioned, including that the Democratic governor “has a track record of getting things done to make people’s lives better.”
After graduating from Chadron State Faculty in Nebraska in 1989, Walz, a Nebraska native, taught highschool in China for a yr earlier than returning house.
Walz and his spouse, Gwen Walz, each started instructing at Mankato West Excessive Faculty in southern Minnesota within the Nineteen Nineties. Walz, who’s at present serving his second time period as governor, coached the college’s soccer workforce and helped the squad win its first state championship in 1999.
Whereas instructing at Mankato West Excessive, Walz served as the primary school adviser to a newly fashioned gay-straight alliance group on the faculty within the mid ’90s.
Walz’s background as an educator has garnered extra nationwide consideration in current weeks after it was reported that he was on the quick record of vice presidential picks.
Ann Vote, a former pupil of Walz’s, informed The Washington Put up in an article printed Friday that it was “wild” for her and her classmates to assume their former instructor may grow to be the vice chairman.
“But I don’t get the sense that everyone is completely shocked,” she mentioned. “It’s sort of like, ‘Darn right he’s on that list. Absolutely he should be!’
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Supporters have touted his gubernatorial record of increasing funding for public K-12 schools in Minnesota, as well as signing laws providing free school meals to Minnesota students, implementing a paid family and medical leave program and granting free tuition at public colleges for students whose families earn less than $80,000 a year.
Nevada state Assemblywoman Selena Torres, a Democrat and teacher, celebrated Harris’ choice of Walz.
“Teachers are leaders who deliver results everyday,” she wrote on X, previously Twitter. “I couldn’t be any more excited to cheer on [Walz] as our next VP!!!”
“Teachers are going to turn out in record numbers!” one other instructor wrote on X. “I am so excited to get back to the environmental science classroom this fall with a sense of optimism for future US policy!”
Try extra reactions from lecturers and educators on X beneath:
