Minnesota Governor Tim Walz appointed members of the state's Teachers Commission, which, in a public notice, will require teachers to “affirm” students' gender identities, be “race conscious,” and learn to “disrupt oppressive systems.”
The Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing Standards Board (PELSB) updated its Effective Practice Standards with new guidelines for state teacher candidates that will go into effect statewide in 2025. Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, led the appointment of all 13 PELSB members during his term as governor.
The new standards will require Minnesota teachers to take controversial positions in their instruction, such as “affirming” students' “sex,” “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.”
To become a licensed educator, the new standards also require teachers to “understand multiple theories of identity development” and take a “culturally affirmative, positive action approach.”
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Democratic vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks at a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Andrew Harnick)
Section 8 of the new standards, “Racial Awareness and Reflection,” requires teachers to “understand how ethnocentrism, Eurocentrism, deficit-based education, and white supremacy undermine educational equity.”
The practice also requires teachers to evaluate “how their own biases, perceptions, and academic training may inform their teaching practice and perpetuate oppressive systems” and to “use tools to mitigate their own actions to disrupt oppressive systems.”
“There's concern that these changes will exacerbate the teacher shortage and discourage aspiring educators from entering the profession out of fear they'll be forced to adopt an ideological perspective to do the job they love,” said Katrin Wigfall, an education policy fellow at the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in North Dakota.
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“Governor Tim Walz's Professional Educator Licensing Standards Board (PELSB) has pushed ahead with controversial changes to the state's teacher licensure requirements, despite overwhelming public backlash and criticism, that will require aspiring teachers (regardless of where they plan to teach) to include ideologically informed coursework in their licensure coursework and expect them to implement this in the classroom,” Wigfall told Fox News Digital.
The updated standards affect “all teacher candidates completing an initial teacher licensure program in Minnesota and all teachers seeking initial Tier 3 licensure through the portfolio-based licensure process.” (Lido Franz)
“The changes also make worrying and derogatory generalizations about teachers, leading them to see themselves as biased, as having intersecting oppressive identities, and as needing training on how to treat people of different demographics with respect and dignity, how to value the diversity of their students, etc.,” Wigfall, a former public school teacher, told Fox.
Under new rules from the board, which Waltz appointed, students will be taught about “power, privilege, intersectionality and systemic oppression in diverse community contexts.”
Hundreds of people gathered outside Coffman Memorial Union on the afternoon of Monday, April 29, 2024, to call for a ceasefire in Gaza before marching to Northrop Mall on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis and setting up an encampment on the lawn. (Jeff Wheeler)
The standard affects “all teacher candidates completing an initial teacher licensure program in Minnesota and all teachers seeking initial Tier 3 licensure through the portfolio-based licensure process.”
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Schools across the state are preparing to implement such policies as Walz runs for the Democratic presidential nomination alongside Vice President Kamala Harris.
