DOGE Should Be Very Good for Montana Educators

If there's one thing that has seemed to unite teachers on the Left, Right, and in the middle- it is the unfunded mandates targeting our teachers from Washington, D.C. over the years. That's why Montana's Superintendent of Public Instruction says it is so important that power is returned to the states.

We caught up with Montana's newly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction Susie Hedalen. I threw the audio into an AI platform to transcribe the conversation, and it actually did a pretty good job of recapping our conversation.

We discussed the positive changes in education under President Trump's administration, including the nomination of North Dakota's Kirsten Baesler to oversee K-12 policies. We expressed support for reducing federal overreach in education and returning control to the states. Superintendent Hedalen highlighted the reduction in reporting requirements and the continuation of USDA food services. She also discussed Montana legislative efforts, such as House Bill 357 for career and technical education funding and House Bill 300 to protect girls' sports.

Superintendent Hedalen: "I've made it clear that we are supporting President Trump's efforts to reduce federal overreach in education, and we're excited about the opportunity to return education back to the states and local communities. We have staff ready to go that work in each of these areas of the federal programs, and I am advocating and voicing the importance of some of those programs that our schools do truly rely on. And we have not received any notice of reduction in funding for those programs at this time, but just a potential transfer to the states, like we discussed, and I was able to verify that with Senator Sheehy and talk to our Congressional Delegation this week about it as well. It was pretty fun to have them at the Office of Public Instruction, and we've already gotten great news about reduced reporting. There's already been cuts to the reporting requirements. And Senator Sheehy offered to advocate for me to really go after one of the ones that's been terribly burdensome for schools and administration and has no real outcome or impact of the Civil Rights Data Collection. And so that would be a huge win if we're able to get that taken off the table."

The full audio of our chat can be heard in the final few moments of the below audio: