Strong schools build strong communities.
Every community in Western Minnesota knows what its school means.
It is Friday night lights, graduation ceremonies, school concerts, local pride, and the place where a whole town gathers. It is also where the next generation of farmers, nurses, electricians, teachers, engineers, small business owners, and neighbors learns what they need to build a life here.
When we underinvest in public education, we are not just shortchanging students. We are weakening the communities those students grow up in and may one day help hold together.
Erik believes public education is one of the best investments we can make — in our kids, our workforce, our communities, and our future.
We can do better by supporting students, respecting teachers, keeping rural schools strong, making higher education more affordable, and treating trades and technical education as the valuable pathways they are.
Erik’s Priorities
Erik will fight to:
- Strengthen public schools and protect them from chronic underfunding
- Restore and expand federal education support, including Title I
- Support rural schools as community anchors, not just line items on a budget
- Invest in teachers, school staff, and safe, modern school facilities
- Make higher education more affordable and transparent
- Expand trades, technical education, community college, and apprenticeship pathways
- Protect the freedom to teach, learn, research, and ask hard questions
- Make sure every student has a real path to a good life, whether or not that path includes a four-year degree
…by treating public education as an investment in our kids, our communities, and our future — by strengthening rural schools, supporting teachers, restoring federal funding, making college more affordable, and building real pathways into the trades, technical careers, and good local jobs.
Strengthen Public Schools
Public schools are the foundation of opportunity in communities across Western Minnesota.
They serve every child. They bring families together. They help prepare students for work, citizenship, service, college, trades, and life.
Erik believes public schools should be fully supported and fairly funded. That means making sure districts have the resources they need for teachers, staff, classroom materials, special education, transportation, mental health support, and safe buildings.
Strong public schools are not optional.
They are part of what keeps communities strong.
Support Rural Schools
In a small town, the school is often the heart of the community.
When a rural school closes or consolidates, the loss is not just logistical. Students travel farther. Families lose connection. Teachers are stretched thinner. A town loses part of its identity.
Erik believes rural schools need dedicated support because they face challenges larger districts often do not: longer transportation routes, smaller tax bases, fewer staff, aging facilities, and tighter budgets.
Keeping rural schools strong is an investment in the long-term future of the communities they anchor.
Restore Federal Education Support
Public education is primarily a state and local responsibility, but the federal government has an important role to play in making sure every child has a fair shot.
Federal education funding helps support students with disabilities, schools serving lower-income families, rural districts, and communities that cannot meet every need through local property taxes alone.
Erik supports restoring and expanding federal education support, including Title I, so quality education does not depend on a student’s ZIP code.
When federal support is cut, the need does not go away. The burden simply shifts to states, local districts, teachers, and families.
Respect and Support Teachers
Teachers are being asked to do more with less.
Too many are managing larger needs, tighter budgets, outdated materials, and growing pressure without the pay, support, or respect their work requires.
Erik believes addressing teacher shortages means taking teacher pay, recruitment, retention, and working conditions seriously.
That includes supporting federal investments that help rural and underserved districts recruit and keep qualified teachers, counselors, paraprofessionals, bus drivers, and school staff.
Students do better when the adults in their schools are supported, respected, and able to stay.
Make Higher Education Affordable
For too many students, higher education has become too expensive and too risky.
The promise was simple: get a degree, build a career, and pay back the cost over time. But for millions of people, rising tuition and student debt have made that promise harder to keep.
Erik believes public colleges and universities should be affordable for working- and middle-class families. He supports more transparency around college costs, expanded access to grants and financial aid, and serious work to address the structural drivers of student debt.
College should open doors.
It should not trap people in debt for decades.
Expand Trades and Technical Education
A four-year degree is not the right path for every student, and it should not be treated as the only path to success.
Western Minnesota needs electricians, plumbers, welders, carpenters, HVAC technicians, healthcare workers, mechanics, construction workers, and skilled tradespeople of every kind.
These are good, stable, valuable careers. They should be respected and supported.
Erik supports expanding trades and technical education through high schools, community colleges, apprenticeships, unions, and local employers.
Every student should have access to a real pathway into a good life — whether that path leads to college, a trade, military service, public service, or work close to home.
Protect Academic Freedom
Education works best when teachers, students, and researchers are free to ask questions, examine evidence, and tell the truth.
Erik believes schools and universities should not be turned into political battlegrounds where politicians dictate what can be taught, studied, or researched for partisan reasons.
Students need to learn history, science, civics, literature, and the full complexity of the world they are preparing to enter.
Protecting academic freedom is not about politics.
It is about making sure education prepares students to think clearly, ask hard questions, and participate fully in their communities and democracy.
Erik Wants to Hear From You
Education shapes the future of every community in Western Minnesota.
Erik wants to hear what is happening in your local schools — what is working, what is not, and what students, teachers, parents, and communities need from Washington.