Zinke Announces Education Plan

Press Release

This morning Ryan Zinke, candidate for Montana's lone Congressional seat, announced his five point plan to improve education in Montana. The plan seeks to prioritize local control for schools and eliminating the "one-size-fits-all" education model being pushed by the federal government.

"We need to free our schools and teachers from excessive regulation and paperwork and let them spend their time making sure our children graduate with the skill sets they need to tackle the world," said Zinke "We must not allow the federal government to mandate the implementation of a cookie-cutter curriculum that results in teaching-to-the-test, not to the student. All students learn differently and our teachers need flexibility so students are treated as individuals, not just future test statistics."

The plan focuses on:

Allowing Local Control & Flexibility of Funds: Ryan recognizes that we have watched numerous failed attempts at top-down, federal management of schools. Department of Education efforts at reform such as No Child Left Behind and their support of Common Core are prime examples of how a "one-size-fits-all" federal education policy doesn't benefit our state or our nation. Ryan also supports giving local school districts more flexibility in how they use federally allocated funds.

Supporting Our Rural Schools: Our rural schools often struggle to maintain the resources that they need to compete for key federal grants. Ryan supports the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) to increase educational resources in rural schools. Ryan also supports increasing natural resource development in Montana, which generates hundreds of millions of dollars for schools across out state.

Expanding Curriculums with Technology: In today's world, information is doubling at unprecedented rates. Our schools need to be able to offer cutting edge courses to meet the needs of individual students. Ryan is a strong supporter of establishing Virtual Academies and increasing the utilization of technology in schools to offer a more diverse curriculum.

Supporting Research & Development Grants: Montana's university system is on the cutting edge of many research and development projects, and Ryan Zinke believes that the support of these opportunities is critical. These same research projects provide the basis for new technologies, business, and create jobs in Montana.

Addressing Economic Hardship & Education: When there are financial struggles at home, and when children are homeless or lacking basic necessities, it makes it more difficult to succeed in school. We need to work towards solving this problem by tackling it at its source--the economy. Ryan believes that we need to abandon onerous federal regulations like ObamaCare that cost businesses money and incentivize businesses to keep their workweeks under forty hours. Instead we should remove the regulatory burden and encourage businesses to expand their operations so they can provide their employees a stable forty-hour workweek and benefits that will support a family.

"I believe that by focusing on increasing job growth and reining in the federal government we can promote an economy that will not only lead to more jobs but also higher wages for parents and an economically sound home environment for our children, " said Zinke, "We need to focus on the type of future we want our children to have and then strive to fix the problems that are preventing a better future for our children."

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