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Statewide Cybersolutions: MONTANA

While Montana has used statewide videoconferencing networks for online teacher professional development and staff communication to good effect for several years now, it wasn't until this summer that it funded a statewide online distance education initiative.

In 2003, former Governor Judy Martz awarded $250,000 in federal funds to the University of Montana in Missoula to develop and pilot the Montana K-12 Online Distance Learning Initiative in rural schools. This fall, a couple of hundred students across the state enrolled in the online courses in such subjects as U.S. History, Science, Geometry, Spanish, and French.

In the meantime, the Montana School Boards Association (MTSBA) and the Montana Rural Education Association (MREA) are preparing an alternative proposal to create a statewide online distance education program in which member school districts would contribute and purchase courses reciprocally. Developers of both of these statewide distance education projects will be presenting proposals and requests for funding to the Montana legislature in January.

Distance education has been an important part of public education in Montana for a long time, says Claudette Morton, executive director of the Montana Small Schools Alliance and a stalwart advocate for Montana's public schools. Though Montana K-12 Online is the first statewide distance education project to receive funding from the state, school districts and regional consortia all around Montana have been creating distance education programs since the 1980s, she says. "Montana doesn't wait or expect the state to solve all of our problems," she says.

The MREA certainly sees distance education as an important avenue for serving Montana's many small, rural schools. On its Web site, the association features a link to The Promise and Power of Distance Learning in Rural Education, a new report by the Virginia-based Rural School and Community Trust that says the benefits of distance education to small, rural schools far outweigh the costs.

The MREA observes, "For less than the cost of a beginning teacher's salary, a rural district can offer its students a challenging curriculum and support professional development for its teachers."

As rural schools face some of the toughest challenges presented by the No Child Left Behind Act— particularly the requirement to provide a comprehensive curricula with core courses taught by teachers highly qualified in the subjects—Montana's local school boards are eyeing online education as part of the solution.

Neighboring states have created statewide distance education programs—such as Idaho and North Dakota—and the Montana School Boards Association believes that it's time Montana did, too, says Morton. "It's fairly reasonable for the school boards to look into it as certainly something that they may want to do," she says.

In January, when the developers of the two distance education projects pitch their proposals to the state legislature, Morton won't be placing any bets on the outcome. "I have no idea how it's going to shake out," she concedes.

Editor's Note: To learn more about Montana's distance education projects, read "Moving Ahead With Distance Education in Montana."

— By Denise Jarrett Weeks and Bracken Reed