Your property taxes are out of control, and you aren't crazy for feeling it.
Every year the bill goes up. Your house didn't get bigger. Your paycheck didn't keep up. You open that envelope and wonder how long you can afford to live in a home you already own. Retirees on fixed incomes are getting taxed out of houses they paid off years ago. Young families can't get in at all.
And it isn't just the tax bill. Power, groceries, insurance, rent. It all stacks up, and every year the people in charge make life harder and cost you more. They keep telling you everything is fine, but you see the truth with your own eyes every day.
Pick 100 regular people off the street, your neighbors, the non government types, and they'd do a better job running this state than the career politicians in charge right now. Because they know. Just like you know.
Our government isn't working for its citizens, for us. The entire system needs a rethink, with fresh ideas and whole new perspectives.
So where does your property tax money go? The biggest share goes to schools. And what are we getting for it? Less than half of our Montana kids are reading at grade level, and math scores keep dropping while school spending hits record highs every single year. This is unacceptable to everyone except the politicians and bureaucrats who get rich off the corruption.
Our kids and our teachers have been completely forgotten by the political types. If we take care of our teachers, they can take care of our children, and that's how we get off to a great start.
Fix the schools and you fix your tax bill. Our school buildings sit dark most of the day while you pay to heat them. We can make them pay for themselves, and when they do, the SCHOOLS line on your property tax statement starts shrinking.
If we can fix things for our kids and prove it works, we can start fixing the rest of Montana, too. But it starts right here.
Issue 1 ยท Education Reform
Our kids aren't learning, and our teachers are leaving. We need to take our schools back.
THE SYSTEM IN SHORT
Every Montana student gets the same education dollars, and that money goes into an account the parent controls. Parents choose the teachers. Teachers work for themselves, set their own rates, and build their reputation on results. Kids move ahead when they master a subject, not when they turn a year older. The state sets a short list of core skills every student must learn, and the rest is up to the family. Classes can happen anywhere: the local school, a kitchen table, or online from across the state. School buildings stay open around the clock and earn money that brings property taxes down.
1. THE TEACHERS: TOTAL FREEDOM AND REWARD
You know a great teacher when you see one. Your kid comes home excited, engaged, actually learning. You wish every teacher was like that.
You also know the bad ones. Your kid is bored, falling behind, stuck. Under the current setup, union protections and administrative bureaucracy shield poor performance while good teachers burn out under mountains of paperwork. Getting paid the exact same as the guy who stopped caring ten years ago.
What if parents held the power?
If a teacher isn't delivering, you take your child and your education dollars elsewhere. If a teacher is exceptional, they build a reputation, set their own rates, and run their classroom without a bureaucrat looking over their shoulder.
Teachers can register with a state database showing credentials and specialties, but registration isn't mandatory. Word of mouth and proven results drive reputation. Parents are the check, not a central school board.
Good teachers thrive, expand their reach, and earn what they're worth.
2. FUNDING: EQUAL DOLLARS, PARENT CONTROL, AND INTERSTATE REVENUE
Under the current system, wealthy property districts get higher tax yields, better facilities, and higher teacher pay. Smaller towns get the leftovers. And because Bozeman pays more, they attract better teachers. The best teachers go where the money is. So the rich district gets the best teachers, and the poor district gets whoever's left.
The kid in Roundup didn't choose to be born there. Neither did the kid in Bozeman. But one gets a better shot because of a zip code.
That's the system we're protecting?
Montana spends $13,656 per student. A huge chunk of it never touches a classroom. It goes to central administrators, compliance officers, district legal teams, HR departments, and bureaucratic overhead. Layer after layer of people who don't teach your kid anything.
Under this model, those middle men are gone. Or they become optional service providers that teachers hire if they want help with accounting or marketing. Your choice, not a mandate.
When teachers set their own rates and operate independently, competition drives prices down while great teachers actually earn more. A teacher running a pod of 20 students at $6,000 to $8,000 per student makes a strong income. Way more than they'd make in the current system. And it's still thousands less per kid than what taxpayers are paying now.
Lower cost per pupil, higher pay for good teachers, and less overhead. The math works because we stopped paying for a bureaucracy that exists to protect itself.
We fix that by assigning every Montana student the exact same base funding allowance. State and federal dollars go directly into an education account managed by you, the parent. The money follows your child to the teacher or program you select.
We also open our flexible, top tier education market to out of state students. Families from other states can enroll physically or remotely by paying market tuition. That out of state money flows directly into Montana's economy and subsidizes local school costs.
Property taxes funding facility upkeep decline as 24 hour building revenue and out of state tuition grow. That's the plan for year two.
Your money. Your child. Your choice.
3. SOCIALIZATION AND NO GRADE LEVELS
One of the first questions: what about socialization?
Kids can still go to the local school, play on sports teams, join clubs, attend dances, build lifelong friendships. The social anchor of the community stays completely intact. What changes is how they learn, not where they belong.
Now, grade levels.
Grouping kids strictly by age exists because it's easy to manage, not because it works. A 10 year old reading at a 7th grade level gets bored in a standard 5th grade class, while a child struggling with math gets pushed ahead before mastering the basics. THIS is a huge part of why our kids are failing.
We replace assembly line age grouping with mastery based progression.
Ready for the next level? Move forward immediately. Need more time on a topic? Take it. No stigma and no "being held back," just learning at the pace that works for your kid.
A 9 year old doing algebra and a 14 year old taking extra time with writing can both succeed without being broken by a rigid system.
Your kid isn't a calendar. Stop educating them like one.
4. FLEXIBILITY: YOUR ZIP CODE IS NOT YOUR DESTINY
Right now, if you live in Jordan, Wibaux, or Noxon, you get whoever happens to teach locally. If they're great, you're lucky. If not, your child is stuck. That model made sense in 1950. It makes zero sense today.
A student in Grass Range can take advanced calculus online from a top math educator in Bozeman without leaving home. A homeschool parent in Malta can enroll their kids in a writing workshop taught out of Missoula. A shop teacher in Billings can mentor students across ten counties.
The classroom doesn't have to be four brick walls. It can be a workshop, a kitchen table, a leased room, or a video stream. Geography stops limiting what a kid can achieve. And talented rural teachers can earn strong incomes without leaving their home towns.
5. THE STANDARDS: CORE FOUNDATIONS
The state sets a clean, minimal baseline students must master before advancing:
Reading and literacy. Mathematics. Financial literacy, meaning budgeting, credit, understanding markets. Physical health and activity. Foundational American civics and history, meaning how our government operates, constitutional rights, and core historical principles.
That's it. The essential tools required to function as an independent adult. The rest is up to you. What do you want your child to learn beyond the core? Find a teacher who teaches it.
6. OUR SCHOOL BUILDINGS: 24 HOUR COMMUNITY ASSETS
School buildings and land cost Montana taxpayers nearly $300 million a year just to maintain. Helena alone faces $100 million in deferred maintenance. Statewide, we run a $100 to $150 million deficit every year just keeping the lights on and the heat running.
That money comes straight off your property tax bill. And what do we get in return? Buildings that sit dark most of the day. Empty nights, weekends, all summer long.
What if we turned these facilities into round the clock revenue generators instead of taxpayer drains?
Classrooms can be leased across multiple time blocks throughout the day and night. Independent daytime teachers, evening adult trade instructors, late shift remote educators. All using the same physical space.
License local residents to operate the gym, cafeteria, auditorium, vocational shop, and school supply hub. You and your neighbors, not out of state mega corporations.
Rent out facilities after hours for community sports leagues, weddings, concerts, evening trade classes, weekend farmers markets.
Friday night football still happens. Except now, the facility pays for itself.
That revenue goes straight back into the local system. Within a few years, that line on your property tax statement marked SCHOOLS starts shrinking rapidly. Same building, same gym, same football games, but now it works for the community instead of taking from it.
EVERYBODY WINS
Parents win. You control the funding. You choose the teacher. You decide what your child learns beyond the core foundations.
Kids win. They learn at their own pace. No more held back in a class that's too slow. No more lost in a class that moved on without them.
Great teachers win. They keep what they earn, build their own brand, set their own rates, and run their classrooms without drowning in administrative bureaucracy.
Unions win. Teachers finally achieve what unions have promised for decades: real market rate pay, professional autonomy, total respect, and freedom from bureaucratic control.
Taxpayers win. Property taxes go down. Schools generate revenue around the clock instead of continuously consuming taxpayer dollars. The kids in the community flourish.
Local entrepreneurs win. Your neighbor runs the gym. Your cousin operates the cafeteria. Local small businesses thrive using community facilities.
Small towns win. Rural kids get access to the best teachers statewide, while great local teachers can expand their reach and earn real incomes without leaving their communities.
Out of state families win. They get access to Montana's flexible, high performing education model, bringing new tuition dollars into our state economy.
THE RESULT
Imagine driving by your local school on a Tuesday night. Lights are on. The gym is hosting a community basketball league. The auditorium has an event. An evening welding class is running in the shop. Local residents are earning income, learning skills, and gathering.
Your property taxes go down. Your child learns at their own pace from teachers you selected. Good teachers get rewarded for excellence.
We will ensure every student upon graduation is ready to enter the workforce, go to college, go to trade school, or enlist. Every single student. (Thanks Governor Huckabee Sanders)
Schools become a community asset, not just a cost.
This can be done. We can rebuild any sector of our state government with the right leadership. But it requires stripping away the monied interests and entrenched bureaucracies protecting the status quo. They won't go quietly. They'll fight to keep their power and your money.
Let them fight. We outnumber them.
Freedom for Montanans.