When Lona Running Wolf started working with Hutterite schools, she was struck by what she saw unfolding on the colonies. She felt it was reminiscent of what transpired among her own community, the Blackfeet Nation. She saw a group with rich culture and language traditions that, she felt, risked being disenfranchised, bit by bit, by a system designed without their specific needs and history in mind.
“I was one of those people that, you know, believed the stereotypes of Hutterites,” Running Wolf said. “I just didn’t realize the similarities between the disparities we have both faced. I told them, ‘I don’t want what happened to us and our language to happen to you guys.’”
Running Wolf oversaw American Indian Student Achievement at the Office of Public Instruction before she became an educational consultant with a focus on instruction support. She’s dedicated much of her career to building programs that use language and culture lessons to help students from different backgrounds learn more. Her hope, she says, is that this type of structure leads to increased success and prevents students’ identities from being diminished.
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“That’s what equity is to me,” she said. “It’s designing a system that’s specific for those types of learners.”
The 1972 Montana Constitution guarantees the right to a free, quality and equal education through high school to every person in the state. When the state Supreme Court identified ambiguity in that promise, the Legislature was forced to go further in crafting a definition. It wrote that the state’s public education system should “develop the full educational potential of each person,” what Lance Melton, a longtime education legal expert in Montana, called “a tall order.”
For many years, schoolhouses on Hutterite colonies have been part of the local public school district and overseen by the school board. Instruction has occurred onsite at the colonies. Recent legislation attempting to simplify the management and operation of these offsite Hutterite schools has made some districts reluctant to continue this arrangement. A few say they can no longer provide public education services to colony schools, but will happily provide Hutterites with transportation to public schools in town.
When that happened, one Hutterite-run school district applied — unsuccessfully — to become a public charter school under House Bill 549 passed during the last legislative session. The application asserted that a charter run by Hutterites for Hutterites would allow families to “exercise their rights to choose the public school systems and programs which meet the unique needs of the children.”
Most Hutterites insist traditional public schools aren’t equipped to handle the cultural and linguistic differences their children bring. They say the way their students are taught — with a focus on incorporating skills used on colonies, a sensitivity to German as their first language and an awareness of cultural nuances — serve young Hutterites better than a traditional classroom. Parents also fear bullying of their children who stick out among their non-Hutterite peers.
Running Wolf uses the example of test questions on annual evaluation exams to illustrate how traditional public education doesn’t work for Hutterite students. Imagine trying to answer math questions that refer to city blocks. What if you’ve never seen those because you live on a colony, where there are no roads except for the gravel one leading into the property? It’s not that a student isn’t smart enough to answer the question; it’s that they have no context for what it’s asking.
Recalling a time she watched a Hutterite student struggle with this circumstance during a yearly evaluation exam, Running Wolf says, “She didn’t know what it was, and I couldn’t help her. It was excruciating. She couldn’t even maneuver that question because it was so far outside her worldview.”
When a school district offers to bus Hutterite students into town to attend school, does that meet its responsibility under the law? Or does a quality education mean one that is tailored to the needs of every student, even those who aren’t part of the mainstream? And what happens when people disagree?
These bright-line questions frame the controversy over what the local public school districts and, by extension, the state owes Hutterite students. But the issues they raise extend far beyond colony communities. As the state’s public education landscape transforms with a growing parental choice movement and an increasing awareness of the vast impact of a student’s background on learning, how the state views its responsibility to provide education will be a defining part of Montanans’ future.
What is quality education?
Lee Montana asked more than a dozen people, including community members and education officials, to define a quality education under state law. Some people focused on equal access to resources. Others spoke of setting up students for success in higher education or a future career. A few said it was about making sure every kid felt seen.
When it comes to funding, Montana’s system has safeguards in place designed to ensure smaller districts aren’t disadvantaged by smaller tax bases. Details of the complicated mechanism elude even the most government finance savvy, but it’s supposed to guarantee students all across the state receive enough resources to thrive academically.
On the instructional side, the Montana Every Student Succeeds Act plan guides its equity strategy. Students are grouped based on socioeconomic status, first language and whether they have a disability, all starting from a distinct academic baseline. Every group should improve year-over-year in language arts and mathematics as shown by standardized test scores. Institutions that fail to steward students to success receive additional resources to help achieve those goals.
Montana’s ESSA plan specifically notes that Hutterites, whose first language is German, account for the largest share of English language learners in the state, albeit a small one at .34% of all students.
Data from the 2021-2022 school year, the most recent available from the Office of Public Instruction, shows Hutterite schools continue to lag behind statewide averages, despite being considered some of the most vulnerable learners.
For example, students in Liberty Elementary School District, headquartered on the Eagle Creek Hutterite Colony about 80 miles northwest of Havre, made less progress in reading and math. A larger share of their students tested as novices in mathematics and the sciences.
But the achievement gap “isn’t a gap of intelligence,” according to Running Wolf. “The system itself is built for a specific type of learner. And then it’s pushed for that type of learner all throughout the United States.”
The Legislature’s definition of “quality” under the Constitution is supposed to address such gaps.
“What remains is a relevant and worthy definition of the types of adjustments that we need in order to make sure we can serve kids where they are and in a variety of circumstances and give each and every one of them what they need to develop their full educational potential,” Melton said.
Lee Montana inquired with statewide and local education officials about whether a public district’s offer to bus Hutterite students into town to attend school cleared the constitutional bar. It found no clear answer.
Two public school superintendents told Lee Montana that they understand the law to mean an offer to provide busing into town satisfies their obligation. They also said they could provide online English language resources to Hutterite students who speak exclusively German until they start kindergarten.
According to a number of Hutterites on the Hi-Line, this proposal doesn’t meet the constitutional rights of their students.
OPI pointed to a decades-old Montana Attorney General opinion which allows a local school board to close a colony school.
Parallels with Native students
Other than Hutterites, American Indian students, who account for about 14% of all K-12 students in Montana, are named in the ESSA plan as needing specific support.
Native people have endured generations of systemic roadblocks in the public education system that have hindered their ability to reach their full potential. Through the 1960s, they were removed from their homes and told their ways of learning were wrong. Once rich with Indigenous languages, Native communities were forced to disavow those languages. Public schools perpetuate national origin stories that erase the presence of Native people in this country and often fail to include Native viewpoints in history and culture lessons.
Montana has taken some strides. The 1972 Constitution includes a provision that encourages all public schools to incorporate Indian Education into all grades and subjects. The Indian Education for All Act passed in 1999 by the state Legislature was supposed to give teeth to the aspirational language of the Constitution. It allocated funding to every district to be used for IEFA instruction and to develop a curriculum in concert with Native community members.
But, in 2021, a class action lawsuit was filed against OPI and the Board of Public Education on the premise. It alleged state agencies had failed to ensure school districts were providing Indian Education. School districts were using IEFA-specific funding for other things and neglecting their responsibility to incorporate Native history and culture into their instruction. A hearing is set for August 2024.
Montana also gives school districts an additional $200 per American Indian student enrolled in an effort to close the “educational achievement gap” with more resources.
Running Wolf tried to create cultural and linguistic programs in tribal schools during her time at OPI given this stated priority. Research shows positive self-identity is correlated with improved academic outcomes. More simply put, students whose culture is reflected in their teaching do better.
That’s why she pushes back on the notion that Native students are destined to perform poorly.
According to the 2022 American Indian Student report from OPI, 55% of Native students scored at the lowest proficiency level in reading compared with 24% of non-Native students. In math, these scores were 64% and 29%, respectively.
These scores come from the annual standardized state assessment, the same test that Hutterites take.
“I don’t know how this tool could ever be looked at as reliable with students like Hutterite and Native American students,” said Running Wolf, who consults for Liberty Elementary. “When the language itself is not written in the worldview of a student, they’re not going to perform well.”
Charter school plan denied
When these principles of prioritizing worldview are taken to their natural endpoint, a clear argument emerges: Montana’s Constitution guarantees a tailored learning environment to every subset of the student population with culture, background or beliefs that diverge from the mainstream.
That’s the charter school movement in a nutshell. Students are entitled to an education that best serves them. If they aren’t receiving it in a traditional classroom, alternatives should be made available.
Melton agreed public charters are the natural next step for these students.
“You can’t develop the full potential of each person on the average,” he said. “There’s been a lot that we have done to implement these ideas. But (charters) allow you to encapsulate it, label it, let people know it’s open for business.”
Liberty Elementary School District's charter application called for the creation of a network that would encompass seven colony schools across north-central Montana, drawing from various school districts and crossing counties. All would be overseen by Liberty Elementary, while schooling would take place onsite at each colony.
It outlined a vision of a “hospitable, holistic K-8 educational environment” that would cater to the needs of Hutterite students as English language learners and incorporate pedagogy reflective of their values, traditions and lived experiences.
Liberty's proposal was denied by the Board of Public Education, one of only a small handful to not get the green light earlier this year. BPE said it failed to demonstrate how its academic program, business operation or community support would lead to a high-quality charter.
Much of what the charter application proposed as alternative teaching methods include strategies already used in Hutterite schools. Students from multiple grades would be located in the same classroom. German materials would be used alongside traditional English-based content to ease the transition between languages. Peer-to-peer mentoring was central with older students helping younger students understand instruction and learn English.
On assessment, the application acknowledged the obligation to adhere to state standardized exams. However, it also called for more frequent testing to measure student progress in a way that more closely mirrors how Hutterites use their education through experiential learning and testing.
The seven colonies that would be part of this colony network were so invested in this charter idea that they each agreed to contribute up to $2,500 per student enrolled at the charter location.
How much religion?
Public charter schools in Montana are legally required to be secular, but there are examples in Montana and elsewhere that show how the ostensible dividing line between church and state can be blurred.
A Catholic public charter was approved in Oklahoma last year, and a North Carolina charter tried to require a dress code for female students as part of building a culture of “chivalry.” The United States Supreme Court ruled that Montana couldn’t exclude religious schools from an education tax credit donation program.
Under HB 549, all students in a public charter must receive instruction that complies with state standards, and the Board of Public Education has oversight authority as the authorizer. But the charter’s school board and parent community have great influence over curriculum and culture.
Hutterites from Liberty Elementary School District did tell Lee Montana that one thing that drew them to the charter model was the ability to have a little more influence over what their students learn day-to-day and weave their traditions and language into the curriculum.
For example, the proposed class schedule in the application included a daily “Value Meeting” every morning for 20 minutes and 45 minutes of dedicated German language integration four days each week.
Hutterites are deeply religious and abide by more conservative cultural values. On whether a colony charter or any other, for that matter, could end up being a way to direct public dollars toward religious educational institutions, Running Wolf is adamant it’s a red herring. She likens the suggestion to how Native peoples' belief systems were targeted as a way to sanitize their culture. Running Wolf said that teachers across traditional public schools incorporate values into their instruction, but are rarely accused of teaching religion, because those ethical lessons tend to be seen as part of the mainstream.
“It’s (Hutterite) culture,” Running Wolf said. “And who has the right to go in and tell somebody that their culture is wrong?”
Liberty Elementary School District 10 says it plans to re-apply as a public charter under HB 549 for the 2024-2025 school year. Applications are due to the Board of Public Education in June.