Montana

The enthusiasm is there, now let's see the program.

Billingsgazette.com

Guest Opinion: All-day Kindergarten Valuable, But Raises Funding Concerns

Gov. Brian Schweitzer has announced his support for an initiative to make all-day kindergarten available across our state. Rural schools are well aware of the compelling research that continues to point to the importance of early childhood education, and we support the governor in identifying this priority. Many of our schools have been leaders in innovative programs designed to expand early childhood and kindergarten opportunities across our state.

Our support of all-day kindergarten and the increased funding that this will involve at the state level are, however, something that rural schools consider with mixed emotions. While the increased funding necessary for this worthy program will be touted by many as they point to the state's increased commitment to adequately funding K-12 education, the harsh reality is that this new increase, like much of the money handed to schools during the 2005 special session, continues to be distributed using a completely broken and illogical system of school funding.

Rural schools worry that the great failures of the legislative process during this interim period will continue to haunt Montana as we strive to fairly and adequately fund schools, both large and small, across this state. The fact is that the Quality Schools Interim Committee established by the 2005 Legislature failed in its mission to design a new school funding system after months of agonizing meetings and thousands of taxpayer dollars spent on the process.

Here's just a few (of the dozens) of the issues and challenges related to our state's continued use of a broken system that would shock the private citizen, taxpayer and business person if the same were true of their personal finances or business accounts:

Our state has never penciled out what it actually costs to provide the quality education as identified by the full Legislature during the regular session in Senate Bill 152. In short Montana has no clue what it should actually cost to provide a quality K-12 education as guaranteed by our state constitution!

Montana has virtually no useful information with regards to school facilities and buildings and how these critical capital expenditures relate to providing a quality education.

Funding provided by the 2005 special session, channeled through the same old broken distribution system, placed over 100 schools districts across our state in the situation of needing to return to the local voter to ask to return to previous budget levels or to request a modest increase over last years funding levels. Projections on the funds that would be given schools included huge seemingly illogical increases for some districts while slighting others, forcing them to return to local voters.All-day kindergarten deserves to be a priority for the state of Montana.

Rural schools will swallow hard and support this worthy program knowing full well that the increased funding will not be distributed fairly to our schools because of a broken funding system that, despite a Supreme Court opinion, still has not been fixed.Dave Puyear is the executive director of the Montana Rural Education Association representing school districts across the state and headquartered in Helena.