Frontier Institute partnered with 50CAN and Edge Research on a new survey about the state of education opportunity in Montana. This survey provides a unique window into what parents understand to be the strengths and weaknesses of Montana’s education system, and how those views compare to parents across our region and across the country.
Here is what parents told us:
- Montana parents have low confidence in their child’s school. Parents are generally less satisfied with their local school than the national average. When it comes to college and career readiness, Montana parents have less confidence in their school’s ability to prepare their child to succeed compared to the national average.
- Montana has low levels of parent engagement in education. Montana trails national averages in parents who review information about school performance or who attend parent organization meetings. This portends a deficit in accountability for school performance and likely contributes to feelings of dissatisfaction.
- Low Income Montanans have a higher demand for school choice. If given the choice, 46% of low income Montanans would send their children to a different school than the one they currently go to, while only 36% of mid-high income Montanans feel the same. Despite higher demand for choice, 41% of low income parents feel they have no choice in what school their child attends. Wealth appears to significantly influence who actually gets to exercise school choice in Montana.
- Parents are most satisfied with out-of-school activities which offer a high degree of choice. Aspects of Montana education earning the highest marks from parents were not school year programs, but out-of-school activities such as afterschool services at church, summer program participation, and sports. These highly rated sectors are all areas in which parents generally do enjoy a high degree of choice for their kids, as opposed to the school sector which has long had nearly no active school choice.
These results reveal an important insight: increasing choice could lead to more parental engagement and satisfaction about Montana education.
The survey is organized into five categories of learning that families tell us are crucial for them and their children: 1) school quality and opportunity, 2) tutoring, summer and mental health, 3) out of school activities, 4) information and engagement, and 5) college and career readiness. A total of 331 parents and guardians of school-aged children in our state were surveyed between July 8 and August 22, 2024 as part of a nationwide research effort that reached more than 20,000 respondents.
A digital copy of this report is available at transformeducationnow.org or for download below. Visit our partners at 50can.org to view the nationwide report and access the full data set.
