Emmer Slams Walz: ‘$4 Million to a Daycare That Can’t Spell Learning’

Paul Riverbank, 12/27/2025Silent daycare, misspent millions, mounting violations: Minnesota faces deeper questions on oversight and trust.

Still, this obscure daycare—virtually unknown except for its misspelled sign—collected nearly $4 million in government money since it opened. This year alone, $1.9 million from the state. According to the paperwork, some 99 children are meant to fill those rooms. Yet anyone stopping by—like Nick Shirley, a mild-mannered YouTuber with a fistful of documents and a rolling camera—finds little but empty space and locked silence. Shirley stands at the entrance, points his lens at the shadows, and shrugs. All quiet.

His short visit takes an unexpected turn when a woman—her role at the daycare uncertain—bursts out from a neighboring doorway, shouts about ICE, and orders Shirley off the property. “Go away, you’re not welcome here, shame on you,” she hollers, barely pausing to see whom she’s addressing. It’s never entirely clear if she’s with the center, a friend, or just someone fed up with prying eyes. Either way, the exchange feels fraught, hasty, and hard to pin down.

It’s not just the sign or the awkward welcome that raises eyebrows. Records, some half-buried in state archives, show the “Quality Learning Center” has racked up a long list of violations—95, give or take—most ranging from hazardous cleaning supplies left within reach, to missing or incomplete logs for children supposedly under their care. Yet, oddly enough, the facility’s license shows active and secure through 2026. No one from the department steps up to explain the contradiction, and calls to the posted number lead to a robotic dead-end.

Fox News Digital, poking around, gets the same answer—a voice on the line, not human, insists the call can’t be completed. Meanwhile, local journalists put the total public money funneled towards this one little daycare at somewhere near $8 million since 2019. Hard numbers, blurry story.

It might read like a one-off, but Minnesota right now is a state on edge over a wave of welfare and daycare fraud scandals that barely make regional headlines anymore. The biggest to break—Feeding Our Future—brought federal investigators to the city looking for vanished food aid money. Now, daycares like Quality Learning Center are under the same uncomfortable scrutiny. The Treasury and the U.S. Attorney’s office are both knee-deep, asking pointed questions nobody seems able to answer.

Nick Shirley, in his understated way, says he’s just scratching the surface. He claims that in a single day, his searching uncovered $110 million in suspect payouts tied to quiet buildings and missing kids. He’s not alone in his concerns. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, veteran of Twin Cities politics, fired off a social media challenge—$4 million to a misspelled “Learing Center”? “Care to explain this one, Tim Walz?” he posted, forcing Minnesota’s Democratic governor into the conversation as frustration mounts from Minneapolis’s leafy neighborhoods to rural corners far outside the metro bubble.

In the background, the case stirs other, deeper divides. The latest investigations land hard in the state’s Somali-American communities—where public anxieties about immigration policy, federal enforcement, and claims of discrimination already run high. Hope Walz, the governor’s daughter, helped pour fuel on the fire in December by openly criticizing ICE in a now widely-circulated video message. Community tensions, rarely discussed so openly at the Capitol, now spill over as fraud probes ramp up and suspicions fall, sometimes unfairly, on entire neighborhoods.

But for most people, the questions remain doggedly simple, even as headlines flare and fade. With millions disappearing into blank storefronts, one wonders: Who’s keeping watch? Where, exactly, did the money wander off to? And why—after all these years and audits—does the state still tighten the locks, but not the rules?

So far, there are no easy answers. As federal agents tiptoe through accounts and state agencies stonewall reporters, the only evident constants are the quiet building, one sign that’s spelled not quite right, and the visible gaps in oversight that, right or wrong, make ordinary Minnesotans anxious about whose hands control their public trust.

If you’re driving along a quiet street in Minneapolis and squint past the rain-streaked windows of a squat red-brick building, you might spot a sign that tries, but doesn’t quite, spell “Quality Learning Center.” “Learing,” it reads—bold, golden, and for now uncorrected. By midmorning, you’d expect the chatter of children—maybe a parent lingers at the curb, maybe a staffer shepherds toddlers inside. But passersby who take the time to look don’t hear so much as a squeak. The whole place sits silent, door locked.Still, this obscure daycare—virtually unknown except for its misspelled sign—collected nearly $4 million in government money since it opened. This year alone, $1.9 million from the state. According to the paperwork, some 99 children are meant to fill those rooms. Yet anyone stopping by—like Nick Shirley, a mild-mannered YouTuber with a fistful of documents and a rolling camera—finds little but empty space and locked silence. Shirley stands at the entrance, points his lens at the shadows, and shrugs. All quiet.His short visit takes an unexpected turn when a woman—her role at the daycare uncertain—bursts out from a neighboring doorway, shouts about ICE, and orders Shirley off the property. “Go away, you’re not welcome here, shame on you,” she hollers, barely pausing to see whom she’s addressing. It’s never entirely clear if she’s with the center, a friend, or just someone fed up with prying eyes. Either way, the exchange feels fraught, hasty, and hard to pin down.It’s not just the sign or the awkward welcome that raises eyebrows. Records, some half-buried in state archives, show the “Quality Learning Center” has racked up a long list of violations—95, give or take—most ranging from hazardous cleaning supplies left within reach, to missing or incomplete logs for children supposedly under their care. Yet, oddly enough, the facility’s license shows active and secure through 2026. No one from the department steps up to explain the contradiction, and calls to the posted number lead to a robotic dead-end.Fox News Digital, poking around, gets the same answer—a voice on the line, not human, insists the call can’t be completed. Meanwhile, local journalists put the total public money funneled towards this one little daycare at somewhere near $8 million since 2019. Hard numbers, blurry story.It might read like a one-off, but Minnesota right now is a state on edge over a wave of welfare and daycare fraud scandals that barely make regional headlines anymore. The biggest to break—Feeding Our Future—brought federal investigators to the city looking for vanished food aid money. Now, daycares like Quality Learning Center are under the same uncomfortable scrutiny. The Treasury and the U.S. Attorney’s office are both knee-deep, asking pointed questions nobody seems able to answer.Nick Shirley, in his understated way, says he’s just scratching the surface. He claims that in a single day, his searching uncovered $110 million in suspect payouts tied to quiet buildings and missing kids. He’s not alone in his concerns. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, veteran of Twin Cities politics, fired off a social media challenge—$4 million to a misspelled “Learing Center”? “Care to explain this one, Tim Walz?” he posted, forcing Minnesota’s Democratic governor into the conversation as frustration mounts from Minneapolis’s leafy neighborhoods to rural corners far outside the metro bubble.In the background, the case stirs other, deeper divides. The latest investigations land hard in the state’s Somali-American communities—where public anxieties about immigration policy, federal enforcement, and claims of discrimination already run high. Hope Walz, the governor’s daughter, helped pour fuel on the fire in December by openly criticizing ICE in a now widely-circulated video message. Community tensions, rarely discussed so openly at the Capitol, now spill over as fraud probes ramp up and suspicions fall, sometimes unfairly, on entire neighborhoods.But for most people, the questions remain doggedly simple, even as headlines flare and fade. With millions disappearing into blank storefronts, one wonders: Who’s keeping watch? Where, exactly, did the money wander off to? And why—after all these years and audits—does the state still tighten the locks, but not the rules?So far, there are no easy answers. As federal agents tiptoe through accounts and state agencies stonewall reporters, the only evident constants are the quiet building, one sign that’s spelled not quite right, and the visible gaps in oversight that, right or wrong, make ordinary Minnesotans anxious about whose hands control their public trust.