The Montana-ization of Frémont education begins!
Education will likely be the largest component of our 2020 budget. This bill establishes a new department within the Frémont government to oversee centralization of education standards and funding which is based on
Montana's education model, including a region-wide pension program that will replace all state pension programs.
As I've previously stated in the budget thread, while our basic education funding model will resemble that of Montana's, our education dollars will be redistributed on the basis of individual district needs. This is the driving philosophy of Wyoming's own successful funding model, which spends between $15,000 to $18,000 per student per year in K-12 education and recaptures money from wealthy districts and reallocates those to poor or underperforming school districts. This way, no matter the zip code, no matter the size of the community, no matter where the student is from, and no matter what a student's socioeconomic status is, all will be guaranteed access to a quality education in our great Commonwealth.
Obviously the bill in its present form is not complete, but we will find the unknown knowns and concoct a proper funding formula as we continue drafting the 2020 budget in the main thread.
One of those unknown knowns is precisely how much money we will need to fund extracurricular institutions such as libraries, art centers, and schools for children with special needs, which will fall under the purview of the Department of Education. For that we might need help from the GM Department.