Demuth proposes teacher performance pay, wants changes to free school meals

House Speaker Lisa Demuth on Thursday said as governor she would bolster school safety, implement a teacher “pay for performance” model and allow districts to opt out of mandates, like paid family leave.

Academic outcomes for Minnesota students have stagnated since the pandemic, with fewer than half of Minnesota public school students meeting grade-level reading and math expectations last year. Many school districts have yet to return to pre-pandemic test scores.

Demuth, the GOP nominee for governor, cited her decade of experience on her local school board — prior to serving in the Legislature — as a needed qualification for getting student achievement back on track.

“We’ll be focusing on the fundamentals of reading, math and science. We want to make sure that we are spending wisely with fewer mandates. We’ll provide safety for all students in all schools,” Demuth said at a Capitol press conference Thursday.

Demuth is facing Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar in November. Klobuchar has pledged to raise student achievement, ban cell phones in classrooms and work with school districts to limit screen-time. Demuth said she would encourage school districts to limit screen-time, rather than a blanket ban.

Demuth said the state will also implement teacher performance pay, because “better teachers deserve better pay.” She was unable to say what metric would be used for teachers to receive additional pay. Some states and districts use student academic performance or classroom observations to determine a teacher’s pay, in part.

Education Minnesota, the state’s teachers union, has endorsed Klobuchar for governor.

Asked whether she would continue Minnesota’s free school meals program passed during the Democratic-Farmer-Labor trifecta in 2023, Demuth said children from wealthy families shouldn’t be eligible.

“When a family is making six- and sometimes seven-figure incomes, their kids do not need free meals,” Demuth said.

Demuth said as governor she would opt into more federal education funding, like the new $1,700 tax credit for taxpayers who donate to scholarship-granting organizations. The tax credit was passed last year in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and it allows nonprofits to use the money donated to offer scholarships for public or private school programs.

The Minnesota Department of Education has said the tax credit, which is a circuitous form of a private school voucher program long championed by conservative activists, would disproportionately help wealthier Minnesotans.

Demuth’s education plan also says she will remove “‘woke’ standards adopted by the Walz status quo.” Asked what standards the plan refers to, Demuth said her administration will do an evaluation of the state’s education mandates and remove standards that “are pushing our kids away from the basics of reading, math and science.”

Demuth’s plan also includes changes to the state’s teacher licensing board to ensure the board is working to “prepare the next generation of workers and not the next generation of activists,” referring to conservative assertions that the schools are being used to indoctrinate Minnesota students in progressive politics.

The House speaker highlighted that her plan focuses on school safety and said public, private and charter schools would be eligible for state school safety aid. In recent years to help address budget shortfalls, DFL Gov. Tim Walz has proposed cutting state aid to private schools, but those cuts didn’t pass the Legislature.