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SUMMARY: Governor's critics want compliance, campaign fodder, not leadership.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer is under fire from Educrats and Republicans to “show leadership” in coming up with a new system for funding public schools.

What the Republicans want, of course, is for the Democratic Golden Boy to say or do something they can whack him for - anything. They're looking for something to oppose, not to support. Nobody should believe Republicans are milling around, waiting for the Democrats' Red State Wonder to tell them how high to jump.

Meanwhile, the Public Education Cartel is calling for Schweitzer's leadership, but what it really wants is his compliance. They have a school funding plan, one that involves pumping a whole lot more of your tax dollars into school budgets, and it seems rather unlikely that they'd prefer something different from the governor. At least they wouldn't if they stopped shouting long enough to listen to what the governor's been saying. The leading advocates of school funding reform are transparent in approaching this matter as an extension of union contract talks, with wages and benefits for teachers and school staff overshadowing all tangible measures of school quality. Consistently, these folks emphasize input over output, measuring the quality of education by dollars spent rather than results achieved. Without greater emphasis on how the money gets spent and the results it achieves, actual improvements to education will be elusive.

In any event, let the record show that Gov. Schweitzer is offering leadership on the school-funding issue. It started shortly after he took the oath of office last winter, when he announced that state government would live within its means. He reiterated that point during a recent visit with us when he noted that the

$82 million increase for public education he signed into law last spring comprises the second-largest increase in school funding in state history and suggested he doesn't see a whole lot more money in the offing. Coming up with a better funding system is the Legislature's job, but the governor certainly has been a meaningful partner in the effort.

The whole school-funding issue springs from a state Supreme Court opinion last year declaring the existing system inadequate to meet the Montana Constitution's education guarantees. Two of the deficiencies cited by the court have already been addressed, Schweitzer says, by legislation defining the “quality education” the constitution guarantees and with $5 million the Legislature and he ponied up for Indian Education for All. What's left is admittedly the hardest part - coming up with a new system of adequately and equitably funding schools. Schweitzer didn't draw any hard line in the sand for us, but he did say, “I'm not sure more money will come in for that” on top of the $82 million previously padded onto education funding that already consumes the lion's share of the state's annual budget.

Whether you call it leadership or discipline, the governor's declaration that he won't call the Legislature into special session until Democratic and Republican lawmakers agree on a funding plan also is quite constructive. This isn't the kind of matter best worked out on the fly in the chaotic crush of a brief special session. The Legislature created a special committee to work out a solution because it merited more thought than lawmakers were able to give it during the regular, 90-day session earlier this year. Better to craft a well-though-out plan that can be subjected to public scrutiny, that legislators can study and discuss with constituents, and can that can lead to political consensus before tossing it into the legislative sausage-grinder. A good system two years in the making is much preferable to something worse adopted in haste. Some interests - the governor's political opponents and the education lobby come to mind - may see opportunity in the chaos of an open-ended special session called without consensus on legislation, but we don't.

This is the Legislature's job, not the governor's. (Nor, as we recently pointed out, is it the courts'.) Our sense is that those clamoring for the governor to ramrod things are being a tad disingenuous. Their pleas seem manipulative. We don't for a moment believe they would be any more receptive to a detailed proposal from him than they have been to his gentle but firm guidance to date.

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