Issue 1: Education Reform

The government affects almost everything in your daily life, starting with your wallet. Taxes and spending. It’s time we look at both ends.

My name is Darren Karr, and I’m running for Governor of Montana in 2028. My campaign is built on a simple premise: your taxes are absurd, our state budget is bloated, and the bureaucrats in Helena are getting rich while Montana families struggle with the cost of living.

I want citizen feedback on every policy I propose. Read this, test the ideas, and tell me where I’m wrong. Let’s get to it:

EDUCATION REFORM

Montana ranks 33rd nationally in education. Dropped 13 spots in a single year. We spend $13,656 per student every year. Yet only 37% of our kids are proficient in math, and 46% in reading. Our top-ranked high school sits at #733 in the country.

We’re not getting what we’re paying for.

We can turn this around. We can make our kids the best educated in the nation for a fraction of the cost. But to do it, we have to clear out the politicians, bureaucrats, unions, and middle men who profit from the status quo.

We’ve all been trapped in a box, doing things the way they’ve always been done simply because that’s how they’ve always been done. Let’s get out of the box. Then let’s get out of the building the box is sitting in. That’s where we find real solutions to turn this shitstorm around.

Here’s how we do it:

1. 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 $100-150 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 by 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. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

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. 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. No “being held back.” Just learning at the pace that actually works.

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.

6. 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?

Here’s what nobody talks about. That $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 $6,000-8,000 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. 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.

Here’s where it gets interesting. We 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 not a promise for someday. That’s the plan for year two.

Your money. Your child. Your choice.

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.

This is what freedom provides.

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.