Opinion: We need a teacher in the White House. Tim Walz would be an ideal vice president.

The Minnesota governor’s background as a Gender and Sexuality Alliance advisor, his commitment to inclusion, and his dedication to LGBTQ+ rights makes him a perfect running mate alongside Vice President Kamala Harris.

As we send our children off to start a new school year, all I can think of is Tim Walz’ students introducing him at the Democratic National Convention last month. We need a teacher in the White House – more specifically, a GSA advisor. I should know. I’ve been both. 

I’m a former teacher and former Gender and Sexuality Alliance advisor. Today, I lead Fair Wisconsin, our state’s only statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights and political advocacy organization. I may not be running for vice president, but I am absolutely certain that both Walz and I learned what we know about leadership from our time in the classroom. Here are a few examples of what I mean, and of how Walz turned teaching into governing.

The ability to find a book that reflects who you are (and who you can dream of being) is an integral part of any library and any curriculum. Governor Walz signed a law preventing book banning on the basis of ideology, stating that “censorship has no place in our libraries. As a former teacher, I’m clear: We need to remember our history, not erase it.”

Students need their basic needs to be met before they can access learning. A hungry kid just can’t learn the same way as a kid who isn’t worrying where their next meal is coming. As a teacher, Tim Walz took on extra coaching jobs to help pay off student lunch debt. Governor Walz signed a law providing universal free school meals to Minnesota students. The joy on his face when the kids bombarded him with hugs after that signature lives rent-free in my brain.

Supervising active shooter drills is a challenging experience. The kids are terrified. It makes a twisted kind of sense – they are practicing their behavior in the event of a terrorist attack, which is what a school shooting is. As a member of Congress, Walz was previously endorsed by the National Rifle Association, but that changed after the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. He called it a reckoning. The lesson learned here is about the ability to change your mind when presented with a compelling argument. I find it beautifully fitting that Walz credits his daughter for teaching him this lesson. As teachers and as parents, we believe deeply in the importance of listening and of critical thinking. Governor Walz put both into action by signing multiple gun law reform measures, including universal background checks and a red flag law, during his tenure.

In every training we attend on school culture, teachers learn to never be a bystander to bullying. Intervene. It is how we keep kids safe. Today, bullying has taken on a governmental form in far too many states—where bodily autonomy is stripped from pregnant people in the form of bans on abortion care, and where the right to choose their own medical care is stripped from trans kids and their parents in the form of bans on medically-accurate care for trans youth. Governor Walz signed shield laws to protect these rights, calling the day he signed these bills “a good day for freedoms.”

Tim Walz taught high school social studies, coached football, and served as the GSA advisor at a high school in small-town Minnesota in the late nineties, not the easiest time to be publicly taking a stand for LGBTQ+ students. Not that there is ever an easy time; I was a GSA advisor in a small Wisconsin town in the late 2000s, my first year of teaching, when a parent tried to get me fired for being gay. Advisors and LGBTQ+ teachers are currently fighting erasure, silencing, and outright attacks in a war ostensibly about culture, where the collateral damage could be counted in the health and well-being of LGBTQ+ youth. This is a crisis we must address. The 2021 GLSEN National School Climate Survey makes it very clear that students in schools with GSAs reported “higher levels of self-esteem, lower levels of depression, and a lower likelihood of having seriously considered suicide in the past year.” GSAs also increase feelings of safety and belonging in schools. It’s pretty easy to see that Walz still places a high priority on fostering feelings of belonging; he ended his speech at the DNC by committing to work to “make America a place where no child is left hungry. Where no community is left behind. Where nobody gets told they don’t belong.”

The lessons a teacher learns are exactly the things a vice president needs to know. It’s a good thing Tim Walz learned them, too, and put them to good policy use as governor of Minnesota, because now we can vote for the Harris-Walz ticket confident he’ll turn those lessons into national action. 

Fair Wisconsin knows we need a teacher in the White House, and I’m ready to send Tim Walz as Kamala Harris’ vice president.

Related: What Wisconsin needs to know about Tim Walz, our next-door neighbor and Kamala Harris’ running mate