FY 2025 Real Local Budgets
FY 2025 Real Local Budgets
Our subscribers get exclusive access to expert commentary, policy analysis, and timely alerts about Montana government, so they can make their voices heard on our state’s most important issues.
Key Takeaways Montana education is mediocre and has been declining since at least 2011 on The Nation’s Report Card and other important achievement measures. Decades of focus on improving public school districts has not stopped this decline nor yielded results for Montana’s rising generation even with steady funding increases. The existing education establishment has not,...
Key Points Crypto, and blockchain technology more broadly, are rapidly disrupting major global industry sectors and leaders are recognizing the critical need for America to lead in Crypto innovation. Crypto industry adoption, growth, and investment in Montana will provide key benefits to the state economy and enable Montanans to achieve more independence and freedom from...
"The Court should display fairness and stability and respect the constitutional prerogatives of the other branches of state government."
"We should want “Montanan” to mean anyone, longtime residents and newcomers alike, who embrace the frontier spirit. We should want “Montanan” to mean success and wealth and prosperity and vitality."
New online resource center helps families and education providers navigate Montana’s rapidly changing education ecosystem.
Key Points The signs of Montana education’s poor performance are both widespread and alarming. In our research, it is not evident that district school boards are raising alarms about declining performance or asserting local control. At least six major obstacles prevent school boards from providing effective oversight. In the absence of local control, state associations...
Statements from Frontier Institute and Co-Signers
"Our chronically ambiguous federal and state environmental permitting laws have enabled fringe anti-forest management groups to weaponize the courts and shut down critical projects, even projects that are good for our forests and our environment."
"Montanans should be grateful, though ever vigilant, that the Shippy story is not likely to be relived here in the Treasure State."
"The focus must be on expediting good projects to remove excess fuels in our forests, not limiting the use of good tools."
"Our leaders should be cutting red tape to make it easier to build vital projects and generate more power, not less."
"School Choice is pro-student, pro-family, and pro-teacher."
Key Points Classroom teachers hold the most important positions in Montana public schools because they are the ones educating students every day. Montana teachers experience persistent low pay and even layoffs despite public school funding steadily increasing the past 6+ years. Since 2017, administration costs for Montana public schools have increased by 4.7% while money...