Writing Coaches of Montana seeks community members in Flathead County to participate in its coaching program with the mission of helping local public school students in Columbia Falls, Evergreen, Kalispell and Whitefish improve their writing skills. 

Specifically, the program seeks to help students think critically about their writing assignments so they can become confident and competent writers across disciplines. Flexibility is built into the Writing Coaches of Montana volunteer experience. Once trained, there is no minimum hour requirement or coaching schedule. Instead, volunteers are informed by staff as teachers make requests and then volunteers choose which assignments, schools and grade levels, 4-12, they coach. No experience is necessary.  

To become a volunteer, community members can attend an upcoming training session on Thursday, Sept. 19, 5:30-8:30 p.m. via Zoom. For individuals who cannot attend on Sept.19, WCM will offer in–person workshops regularly for the remainder of the school year. WCM staff will be available for follow-up questions at any time.  

“I love the writing coaches’ organization and all they’ve done for my students,” said Kristi Sanders, Kalispell Middle School teacher. “It is wonderful to watch my teenage students light up as they share their writing with someone who really listens to them and hears their intent with respect and enthusiasm.”  

Community members interested in learning more about the program and to volunteer can contact Jeanne Wdowin at jeanne@writingcoachesofmontana.org  or visit www.writingcoachesofmontana.org.  

HELENA — The Montana Office of Public Instruction has released the latest rounds of student assessment data – the last round of data before a big change in the state’s testing model.

The 2023-24 assessment scores for students from third grade to eighth grade are based on the year-end Smarter Balanced test. Only a little over half of Montana students in that age group took the test last school year, as a number of school districts piloted the new MAST program – four or five short “testlets” given throughout the year, instead of a large final assessment. All districts are implementing MAST for the 2024-25 school year.

Last year, 38.7% of students who took the Smarter Balanced assessment rated “proficient” or “advanced” in math. That number has increased each of the last three years – 35.6% in 2020-21, 36.5% in 2021-22 and 37.5% in 2022-23 – but it’s still lower than the 41.9% in 2018-19, the last year of data before the COVID pandemic disrupted assessments.

For English and language arts, 44.2% of students were at least proficient last year, down from 45% in 2022-23, 46.2% in 2021-22 and 46.4% in 2020-21. In 2018-19, 50% of students were proficient or advanced.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen says the aggregate numbers may not be giving the full picture.

“There are multiple stories with just a single number, let’s put it that way,” she said.

Arntzen said her office is more focused on “cohort numbers” – tracking how proficient the same group of students has been each consecutive year. For example, students who completed eighth grade last year were third graders in 2018-19. OPI’s data shows the number of students rated proficient or above in reading fell from 48.4% when they were in third grade to 42.9% when they were in eighth grade. In math, those numbers fell even further, from 48.6% to 33.7%.

“We’ve got a trend of data that has come since we’ve had the disruption of learning – the disruption of learning was COVID,” said Arntzen. “We all remember that something was lost during that period of time.”

Arntzen has long argued that year-end tests aren’t the best way to measure students’ proficiency, and her office has touted MAST as a way to get a better view of their learning, while allowing teachers to make adjustments sooner.

“If the federal government demands that we have an assessment tool, should it not also be one that Montana teachers can also use as a way of enhancing their teaching?” she asked?

For now, MAST covers only math and English, but the U.S. Department of Education has awarded the state a grant of nearly $4 million to develop science assessments for sixth grade through eighth grade.

“One more time, I’m grateful for the federal government to allow Montana to be innovative,” Arntzen said.

Arntzen says there are more positive signs in the assessment results for older students. Among 11^th grade students taking the ACT, 52.5% were proficient in English – down slightly from 53.4% in 2022-23 but up significantly compared to 42.1% in 2021-22. In math, 30.7% of students were proficient – up from 30.6% in 2022-23 and 25.3% in 2021-22.

Arntzen says that could be a sign that students who were older when COVID happened are having an easier time rebounding.

“Normally you have a learning curve that goes uphill, but that’s not what has happened in our earlier grades,” she said.

Assessment results for individual schools and districts are now available on OPI’s website, through the GEMS tool.

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said Tuesday his top priority this November is defending incumbents in tough races — placing Montana’s Jon Tester and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown at the top of the list for resources.

Gary Peters, who is also the U.S. senator from Michigan, said he sees several opportunities for Democrats to pick up seats as well, though he stressed that those campaigns are too close to predict just yet.

“To be candid, my number one priority is to bring back all of the incumbents,” Peters said. “But we also want to go on the offense, and offense is going to be very important. And right now our focus is Texas and Florida.”

Peters said that during the last few weeks Democrats have seen positive trends in polling in those two states that could increase the odds they flip from red to blue.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is facing a challenge from Democratic Rep. Colin Allred and Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott is running against former Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

Democratic support continuing to rise in those two states could have an impact on how much money Democrats dedicate to those campaigns, Peters said.

“As we make our decisions on resources, we play to win,” he said. “And when we see opportunities like we see in Texas, we’re going to invest accordingly.”

The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter rates the Senate campaigns in Michigan, Montana and Ohio as “toss up” races, while it places Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the “lean Democrat” category.

All seven of those seats are currently held by Democrats, making the map especially challenging for Peters.

Florida and Texas fall into the “likely Republican” category, signaling the odds are somewhat long for Democrats, though not completely out of reach.

Peters said during the panel interview with the Regional Reporters Association at the DSCC headquarters in Washington, D.C., that he believes GOP Senate candidates rank on a spectrum from “flawed to very flawed,” potentially boosting Democrats chances.

In Montana, defending Tester

Peters argued that in Montana, Republican candidate Tim Sheehy’s character is one of the reasons Tester remains within the margin of error in the vast majority of polls, despite the fact that voters favor Republican presidential candidates by double-digit margins.

“The list of flaws of Sheehy are long,” Peters said. “And that’s why folks in Montana are rejecting him, even in a state that’s going to be voting heavily for Donald Trump.”

Peters said some of Sheehy’s problems stem from calling himself a rancher despite living on a “dude ranch” and owning a company that is “hemorrhaging money.”

Montana’s relatively small population, Peters said, means that face-to-face conversations with voters and a candidate’s reputation can have a significant impact on a campaign’s outcome.

“Retail politics can make a huge difference,” Peter said. “Just think of Maine with Susan Collins when she won. It’s because it’s a small state. Retail politics matter. People knew Susan Collins.”

Collins, a Republican, in 2020 defeated her Democratic challenger, despite being considered one of the year’s most vulnerable senators.

Tester has a similar connection with voters in Montana, potentially edging him out over Sheehy, who is a more recent transplant to the state, he said.

“People know Jon Tester in Montana,” Peters said. “He is a long time Montana person, third generation dirt farmer. His roots are there. He’s had opportunities to get to know a lot of folks in Montana in a personal way. He can do that in a lot more effective way than I can in Michigan with 10 million people.”

Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines, who leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said this summer during a panel interview with journalists in the RRA that his home state represented the best pickup opportunity for the GOP.

And just last week, Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, moved Montana from the toss up category to “Leans Republican.”

“The upshot of this rating change is that there are now 51 Senate seats rated as Safe, Likely, or Leaning Republican, so this move solidifies the Republicans as clear favorites to flip control of the Senate this November,” wrote Kyle Kondik, the publication’s managing editor.

Kondik later stressed that “Montana is a challenging state to poll, and both sides remain very heavily invested there.”

NRSC Spokeswoman Maggie Abboud released a written statement shortly after that ratings change, criticizing Tester as the wrong person to represent Montana in the Senate.

“Jon Tester is a diehard liberal who hates Donald Trump and votes for the Harris-Biden agenda 95% of the time,” Abboud wrote. “That’s why poll after poll shows him losing ground rapidly against Tim Sheehy. Montanans aren’t buying Tester’s moderate shtick anymore.”

‘Candidate quality’ in Ohio

In Ohio, where Brown is hoping to secure reelection against GOP candidate Bernie Moreno, the DSCC hopes to outrun a shift toward Republicans based on “candidate quality.”

“Sherrod has been able to win statewide because of who he is as a person, and that’s a big deal,” Peters said, noting that Senate races are often viewed differently by voters than the presidential race.

Moreno is a flawed candidate and a fraud, Peters said.

“The stories that he has, stories of coming to Ohio and starting a business as an immigrant with no resources, have been shown not to be true. That he actually comes from a family, one of the wealthiest families in Columbia,” Peters said, referring to a New York Times article that Moreno has refuted.

Moreno was also sued by employees at his car dealership  for not paying overtime, setting up “a pretty clear contrast” with Brown, who has supported labor unions throughout his career, Peters said.

The DSCC is putting “substantial resources into Ohio” to help Brown win, he said.

Around the battlegrounds

Other battleground states have Senate races that will run down to the wire, with many of the Democrats expected to remain neck-and-neck with the GOP challengers until the polls close.

Peters said that should come as no surprise to anyone who has paid attention to the last few election cycles.

“Just because you have a really good candidate doesn’t mean that you win,” he said. “You also have to run a really good campaign in order to win, and particularly on the ground.”

That is one of the reasons why the DSCC is putting considerable resources into ensuring that voters can actually get to the polls this fall.

“Last cycle, for the first time in history, we spent more money on the ground than we did on the air, turning out voters,” Peters said. “It was something that I thought was incredibly important.“

The DSCC is planning to follow that same strategy again this year, ensuring that Democratic supporters in swing states are able to cast their ballots.