Strong evaluation systems are foundational to improving teacher and principal quality; evaluations recognize excellence, support development, and address ineffectiveness. They must be meaningful, objective, and fair. Montana leaves the development of its entire evaluation system, including the basic framework, to local districts. As a result, evaluations lack consistent critical components. Montana must invest in its teachers and principals by requiring an evaluation framework that assesses all educators annually according to a four-tier rating of effectiveness that significantly weighs student growth and incorporates multiple measures linked to professional development. Teacher evaluations should include classroom observations and student feedback. Principal evaluations should include effective staff management. Additionally, the state's evaluation criteria should not be subject to contract negotiations, ensuring these systems will be subject to change based on student interests alone.

Basing personnel decisions on performance is critical to building schools that retain effective teachers and make student achievement paramount. Montana is behind in this area. Specifically, the state does not use teacher effectiveness to drive decisions around teacher assignment, layoffs, or tenure. Schools do not have the authority to build and maintain an effective instructional team, including having the final say over hiring decisions and the dismissal of ineffective teachers. Furthermore, when laying off teachers during a budget-induced reduction in force, the state requires that local districts develop their own layoff policies. Districts are not required to use performance, nor are they prohibited from using seniority as the driving factor. With regard to tenure, teachers receive this status after serving a short three-year probationary period. Attainment and revocation of tenure are not tied to performance. Prioritizing students and great teachers requires that performance, evident through strong evaluations, be the driving influence for all personnel decisions.

To encourage a high-quality, diverse workforce, professional pay should be based on performance rather than other non-classroom factors such as seniority or degrees held. Montana law is silent regarding automatic pay increases for teachers with master's degrees and whether school districts can adopt compensation systems that tie pay increases to measures of effectiveness. Local school boards, through collective bargaining, determine teacher salaries. To foster an environment aimed at attracting and retaining effective teachers, Montana should expressly prohibit automatic pay increases for teachers with master's degrees alone and require districts to link salary increases to performance measures that prioritize student outcomes.

Montana allows provisionally certified teachers to teach in the classroom. In some cases, content knowledge may be determined by work experience; in others, knowledge may be demonstrated with a degree in an endorsable teaching area. However, the state does not require high admission standards and could strengthen its alternative certification program admission criteria by requiring a 3.0 GPA or 2.5 GPA with five years of experience. The Board of Education established some processes for authorizing and evaluating alternative certification programs, but the decommissioning process is not well established. To improve its alternative certification programs, Montana should have a well-defined process for decommissioning programs that do not produce effective educators based on student achievement data.

Currently, parents in Montana do not have access to meaningful information about their children's schools. To give parents better information, Montana should require that every PK_12 school receive an annual report card that includes an A_F letter grade based on student achievement. Montana could also empower parents by requiring that parents are notified when their children are placed with an ineffective teacher and allowing parents access to teacher evaluation information upon request. Additionally, Montana should require districts to obtain parental consent prior to placing a student with an ineffective teacher. Montana should empower parents by establishing a parent trigger law that allows a majority of parents to band together at the grassroots level and petition to turn around low-performing schools throughout the state.

Montana must do more to ensure its students are not trapped in failing schools by increasing the number of high-quality school choice options for parents. Montana must enable the establishment of public charter schools that are autonomous from district bureaucracy and are held to high standards of accountability for student achievement. Additionally, the state should create a publicly funded scholarship program that allows low-income students trapped in a failing public school to attend a private school that meets certain accountability standards.

Children stuck in chronically failing schools should have an option to attend another school of their choice without being punished by the state through reduced funding. Montana does not currently permit public charter schools nor does it offer publicly funded scholarships that allow low-income students to attend private schools. If Montana authorizes charter schools going forward, as it should to create more choice, it should ensure that these schools are provided with comparable per-pupil funding and have access to school facilities. Montana should ensure that any future scholarships provided to low-income students are competitive with private school tuition.

The ability to turn around failing schools is often hampered by bureaucratic red tape and politics. Montana does not allow for governance flexibility. The state cannot intervene in low-performing schools or districts, and mayors cannot take over low-performing districts. To streamline performance accountability, Montana should allow mayoral control of low-performing districts and state control of low-performing schools and districts.

Given the limited resources available for public education, states must ensure that districts spend as many dollars as possible in the classroom rather than in bureaucracy and that the dollars invested drive the greatest change. Montana ineffectively restricts class sizes. Montana should provide greater staffing and spending flexibility to school districts by removing less effective class-size limits past the third grade and other restrictions that limit districts' ability to reallocate resources to their greatest needs. Moreover, Montana should empower data-driven decisionmaking by improving the financial data it collects and linking spending to academic achievement. The law should enable the state to initiate governance changes at school districts when resources are mismanaged.

Attracting a high-quality workforce will require a competitive retirement plan. Portable retirement options, such as 401(k) plans, are an essential component of compensation packages and make the teaching profession more competitive. It is a classic win-win for teachers and districts. Under current policy, Montana requires employees of traditional schools to participate in its defined benefit plan. These plans promise teachers a payout based on years of service and salary, not the actual amount contributed to or earned through the fund. If teachers leave before reaching retirement age, they risk losing a significant portion of their savings. To provide career flexibility and ensure sustainability of the existing system, Montana should move to a portable employer-sponsored retirement plan.