Legislative candidates debate education changes

Education and how to pay for it became a hot topic at a legislative forum in Kalispell Tuesday night.

The second forum sponsored by the Inter Lake was attended by nine candidates and about 50 people. A third forum featuring county commissioner candidates will be held Oct. 23 at the same venue — Flathead Valley Community College.

Republicans talked about changes for Montana’s public education system, ranging from shifting funding sources to providing more local control to tenure reforms and other changes applying to public sector unions.

Democrats were generally receptive to the use of increased natural resource revenues for education, but they refuted other ideas discussed by Republicans.

“The more local control the better,” said Carl Glimm, the Republican candidate in House District 6. Glimm touted the need to capitalize on oil, coal and gas revenues. 

He said incentives for oil and gas investment, such as a 16-month tax holiday for companies that start operations in Montana, are important to that sector growing.

“That’s an incentive to get them here and if take that away they won’t come,” he said, citing high start-up costs. 

His Democratic opponent, Brenda Talbert, countered: “I think the reason oil companies come here is because we have oil. Wyoming doesn’t have any problems with this and they don’t have a tax holiday.”

State Sen. Bruce Tutvedt, running for re-election in District 3, interjected, saying that Wyoming and North Dakota do have variations on the tax holiday.

Talbert went on to speak against the voucher system for parents to send their children to private schools.

People need to consider that profits would be an incentive for such schools “and I do not think profit has any place there,” said Talbert, a retired teacher. 

Tutvedt said there will be legislation in the upcoming session to facilitate charter schools. He said it won’t come at the expense of public education: The schools will be outcome-tested and they likely will emerge only in communities where they are wanted and needed.

“Public education is one of the greatest things this country has ever done,” said James Mahnke, the Democratic candidate in House District 5. He said teachers are underpaid and “public education needs to be nurtured. It’s our greatest investment.”

Mahnke raised concerns about depleting natural resources, characterizing Montana as a state where “colonial capitalism” has long thrived with out-of-state companies exploiting the state’s resources.

Keith Regier, the Republican incumbent in House District 5, said he is a retired teacher who used to regard the parents of his students as his employers.

“We need to grow the private sector and the public sector will grow, too,” he said. “Is education funded adequately? For the moment, I guess I would say yes.”

Rep. Scott Reichner, the Republican incumbent in House District 9, said he believes “that it’s time to look at tenure reform,” keeping with a GOP theme of improving education outcomes through accountability.

He noted that he and his wife have 10 children, seven of whom are in Bigfork schools, so he is “very much interested” in how those schools perform.

“It’s time to look at funding education a different way, too,” Reichner said. “Wyoming and North Dakota, they do a very good job of funding education” through taxes on resource extraction.

His opponent, Democrat Rodrik Brosten, said he is “very concerned about our education system here in Montana. Our teachers are some of the lowest-paid in the country.”

Asked about the potential for restricting or ensuring the bargaining rights of state employees, House District 10 Democratic candidate Alex Schaeffer said Montana is fortunate to be one of the few remaining states that has not passed right-to-work legislation.

“I’ve come to appreciate unions as a continuous dialogue between two groups of people,” said Schaeffer, a teacher with the Kalispell Public Schools. 

Unions, he said, have a proud tradition in Montana of providing workers a voice.

“I come from a right-to-work-for-less state,” quipped Talbert, who spent most of her teaching career in North Carolina. 

“It’s not only about money. It’s also about what’s good for kids,” she said, referring to how unions often negotiate over things such as keeping smaller class sizes. “It’s about working conditions and making things work for everybody and the process of the daily job.”

 At one point, an audience member asked if any of the Democrats did not work or have a background in the public sector.

Brosten was the only Democrat of the four at the table who hasn’t.