...declining enrollment...

[dupuyer griz]

Yep. And all those who say "We'll lose our community if we do" drive past how many vacant one room school houses every day? Local school board members and administrators who would lose their jobs are keeping all these tiny little schools open. It seems like nobody has the intestinal fortitude to do this.

Served as a school board member for a community class c school for nine years. For your information, school board members don't get paid so I doubt there is much concern if they "lose their jobs". I and the people I served with simply have the best interests of the students as our major concern. If we don't please the public at large, we get voted off the Board.

I didn’t make the comment about school board pay, maybe it was directed to another comment I missed. It would however save a good amount of money cutting back on superintendent pay. Probably would get rid of some of the shitty ones as well, there’s more than enough of those around.


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Think of this. How many curriculum directors does this state need? How many special ed directors does this state need? How many school districts does this state need (sure as hell not 420). Want you community schools? Fine! Make the damn county superintendent an actual county superintendent and all these little schools in a county like Lewis and Clark, Flathead, Gallatin have building level administrators. This is pure bullshit the way it is set up now. Consolidate all the dead weight administrators and worthless school boards. OPI out to be the actual central office for the state.

Preach


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[dupuyer griz]

I agree about the sales tax and the fact it can become a runaway. How, in a state of 1 Million people can we afford to pay for 2 major universities and what, 5 smaller colleges? Ag is the #1 industry and you can't raise taxes on Ag land and #2 is tourism. We have sales tax in this state already in gas and lodging taxes but we leave a lot on the table from out of state people. I would like to see legislation to cap state income tax or even let local land-owners pay taxes on the value of the land when they purchased it and not at the ridiculous prices when out-of-staters drove up the land values. Let them pay taxes and slap an out of state surcharge to help pay some bills.

Thought: sales tax, show state of MONTANA id, no sales tax.


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[CatGrad-UMGradStu]

Served as a school board member for a community class c school for nine years. For your information, school board members don't get paid so I doubt there is much concern if they "lose their jobs". I and the people I served with simply have the best interests of the students as our major concern. If we don't please the public at large, we get voted off the Board.

I didn’t make the comment about school board pay, maybe it was directed to another comment I missed. It would however save a good amount of money cutting back on superintendent pay. Probably would get rid of some of the shitty ones as well, there’s more than enough of those around.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Think of this. How many curriculum directors does this state need? How many special ed directors does this state need? How many school districts does this state need (sure as hell not 420). Want you community schools? Fine! Make the damn county superintendent an actual county superintendent and all these little schools in a county like Lewis and Clark, Flathead, Gallatin have building level administrators. This is pure bullshit the way it is set up now. Consolidate all the dead weight administrators and worthless school boards. OPI out to be the actual central office for the state.

Preach


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I would preach but it is much easier to just pack the U-haul and move to a state without a union representative in every school for the certified and classified staff, all the damn administrators that will never know half as much as I do about standards and benchmarks, curriculum alignment or how to get along. Everybody has to be the boss and they would rather be the "boss" by being a podunk school administrator, board member, county commissioner, "city" commissioner than save the state millions of dollars every year by consolidating. We fucking consolidate for athletics but we can't share a certified teacher with another district? The inmates are running the jails and nuthouses.

 

[IdaGriz01]

... I would preach but it is much easier to just pack the U-haul and move to a state without a union representative in every school for the certified and classified staff, all the damn administrators that will never know half as much as I do about standards and benchmarks, curriculum alignment or how to get along. Everybody has to be the boss and they would rather be the "boss" by being a podunk school administrator, board member, county commissioner, "city" commissioner than save the state millions of dollars every year by consolidating. We f***[*] consolidate for athletics but we can't share a certified teacher with another district? The inmates are running the jails and nuthouses.

Worse yet, for most of those jobs, there's no real accountability. Granted, that's at least in part because we have no good "metrics" to decide who's doing a good job, and who's not. Which take's it right down to the teacher level. Back when my wife and I ran a small regional science fair, we had a lot of contact with classroom teachers at all pre-college grade levels. While none could offer any metrics, I never visited a school where there was not a consensus among the staff on who were the really good teachers, and who were the losers. But that hardly mattered ... longevity and collection of in-service training units pretty much decided everything.

Sadly, top-to-bottom, there's no incentive for change. They're all playing with "house money" -- i. e., OPM ("other people's money," in case you've not heard that one). That, of course, goes for all levels of government. You cannot run everything "like a business," but without properly-designed and implemented incentives, and accountability, no organization is likely to be run well. Elected officials are accountable, but that just means their incentives are based on what they think will get them re-elected.

 

[Dutch Lane]

I met a recent college graduate from Connecticut who just moved to Helena for a year while his girlfriend does an americorps year here (when is the last time a college graduate from Montana went to serve Connecticut in americorps? I asked him what he thought of Montana and the West. He smiled and said his home state has a population of 3.5 million and has an area the same size of beaverhead county, 5,500 sq miles. Yet we have 56 counties and hundreds of school districts and duplicate county administrators and etc. I really don’t know what the answers are but it seems that Montana limps along without ever taking a hard and practical look at what is the most efficient way to administer government. If the state was run like a major corporation it would be consolidated into 3 or 4 counties and school districts, and duplicate ministerial services would be consolidated and a centralized The local control would be a thing of the past and I believe rural Montana would be devistated, but is has been on the decline for decades.

 

[Topey711]

Dutch, the rural counties are already "devistated". Declining enrollment in schools, no jobs, and a shrinking tax base. Many counties are struggling to provide basic services; road maintenance, plowing, jails, even keeping a sheriff's department. It's sad to see these once proud hard working communities have to beg for government handouts just to keep the doors open.....

 

[CatGrad-UMGradStu]

That made me think of Bruce Springsteen and "My Hometown" for sure...even Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" but then I decided to ponder more important things like where have all the people moved to so they can get a job...

 

[zengriz]

...montanas # 1 export...
...young and educated...
...job seeking grads...

... :shock:...

 

[CatGrad-UMGradStu]

...montanas # 1 export...
...young and educated...
...job seeking grads...

... :shock:...

This has been the way of this state's educational philosophy since I was young. Even our coaches have to go elsewhere to attain a modicum of success. MSU produces football coaches. UM produces basketball coaches. The NAIA schools produce a mixture.

Those schools and programs who spike for a few years with pedigrees running the show experience a severe statewide backlash and have to learn how to fill out federal grants just to survive.

 

[bgbigdog]

...montanas # 1 export...
...young and educated...
...job seeking grads...

... :shock:...

This has been the way of this state's educational philosophy since I was young. Even our coaches have to go elsewhere to attain a modicum of success. MSU produces football coaches. UM produces basketball coaches. The NAIA schools produce a mixture.

Those schools and programs who spike for a few years with pedigrees running the show experience a severe statewide backlash and have to learn how to fill out federal grants just to survive.

It was that way long before you were a twinkle in a parent’s eye. I’m probably not be only transplant who’s used the phrase, “can’t eat the scenery” when someone asked me how I could have ever left.

I’m hopeful still that the new-fangled thing called the internet will allow the state to keep some of its best & brightest.

 

[CatGrad-UMGradStu]

...montanas # 1 export...
...young and educated...
...job seeking grads...

... :shock:...

This has been the way of this state's educational philosophy since I was young. Even our coaches have to go elsewhere to attain a modicum of success. MSU produces football coaches. UM produces basketball coaches. The NAIA schools produce a mixture.

Those schools and programs who spike for a few years with pedigrees running the show experience a severe statewide backlash and have to learn how to fill out federal grants just to survive.

It was that way long before you were a twinkle in a parent’s eye. I’m probably not be only transplant who’s used the phrase, “can’t eat the scenery” when someone asked me how I could have ever left.

I’m hopeful still that the new-fangled thing called the internet will allow the state to keep some of its best & brightest.

The dean of the business school at MSU when I was an undergraduate told us if we wanted to remain in Montana to make sure we got an office with a window because that view is worth over 40k less in wages. I graduated in the late 70s.

I'd like to help the kids stay here but it would seem hypocritical on my part. There are many beautiful places in this country and many of them put our fishing to shame...