Public school advocates are against local school boards

Here's what I heard at Montana's School Funding Interim Commission.

Consultants used sophisticated statistical analysis to identify what they called successful school districts and took the money those spend as a guide to how much each Montana school district should spend per child. 

Students at one of the 24 high schools named as “successful” demonstrate 9% proficiency; at another, 0% proficiency. Ah, statistics! I think of the familiar saying: There are lies, da..ed lies and statistics.

What was not heard at the most recent commission meeting is that statewide student proficiency is at around 37%.

The Coalition of Advocates for Montana’s Public Schools wants $276 million more tax revenue (over $500 per household, if evenly borne). They’d raise income tax a lot, and lower property tax a little. Some property tax breaks would likely go to railroad and pipeline companies, mansion owners, lakefront vacation homeowners, and out-of-state people who own property in the state.

Schools want to raise income taxes by 16-30%, applied to about 20% of the taxpayers. The 5.65% rate would go to 6.54%, for example. A state priority is to reduce tax rates, even getting close to a flat tax. The Coalition proposal conflicts.

It’s likely costing more to report on Indian Education for All than it is to teach it.

Students kick teachers in the sternum, stab them with pencils, and throw desks at them. “These are not bad kids,” say teachers we heard, but kids who “need more supports.”

No one runs for the school board to raise reading scores, only to fire a football coach.

Student headcounts are down, but we hear some say costs shouldn’t fall accordingly.

What you don’t hear at the School Funding Interim Commission is that student headcounts are going to be much less by the time any new buildings get paid off. Demographic decline is not real to some.

Teacher absenteeism is a problem; it’s 9% in my district.

Teachers tell the commission how inadequate their pay is. Some can barely afford rent. Didn’t they know the pay scale going in? 

My father supported a family of 11 on a teacher’s salary and extra work, including my mother’s. My father and mother never, ever complained about his teacher pay or any other hardship. We often lived in inadequate housing, cold and crowded: trailers, a cabin made from a recycled MSU chicken barn, a tent, and even in the open air for a short time. We heated with pallets and driftwood and had one bathroom. 

Levels of teacher pay are not dire when factoring in the benefit package and that it’s for a 187-day contract, compared to a normal work year of 250 days. Pay is very comparable to that for other jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree.

In the 2025 Legislature, schools got an additional $100 million to boost teacher pay in the STARS Act. Where’s the thanks? Now the Coalition proposal asks for a $26,000 per teacher raise. $293 million for 11,000 teachers.

My view is that it’s the Coalition against the school boards, which means it’s the Coalition against the Coalition because it is spearheaded by the Montana School Boards Association. 

The Coalition, by demanding much greater state funding rather than local, undercuts local boards. It’s also the state constitution against the U.S. Constitution: school boards have control while the state has to fund (in some people’s reading of the constitution’s word, “provide”). These are in conflict. The adage, “Who pays the piper calls the tune,” is still true. You can’t have control when using other people’s money. Money comes with strings, so local control erodes in direct proportion to state funding.

If your voters in your district aren’t willing to pay higher school levies, as is happening about half the time in recent years, and you go to the taxpayers of the other 399 districts by imploring the state to pay, those 399 will have requirements and expectations; you cede control.

The Coalition of Advocates for Montana’s Public Schools is not promising to raise reading scores.

Tom Burnett is a Bozeman resident and a member of the School Funding Interim Commission