While I was reading my Great Falls Tribune early Tuesday morning, out fell a couple pieces of propaganda from the Pro and Con forces regarding the upcoming vote on the Great Falls Public Schools levy. The election is June 25. The ballots were mailed this week, and I received mine Tuesday afternoon.

Basically, to me, it all boils down to this: Do you support public education or not? It really is that simple.

Let’s take a closer look at the flyers and the views from the pro and con forces!

What I took from the anti-levy group’s glossy flyer was that if you are highly-educated and make a decent salary from your public schools occupation, you can get your name plastered on a flyer from people who look down upon you for being successful. To the folks who had their names listed in the flyer, congratulations for being successful in life.

The anti-levy folks also throw in some conspiracy ideas and other items that have no reason to be tied to a school levy vote. Their flyer contained way too much information and probably found a trash can quickly in most households. It reminded me of something I would receive from a dark money group. The cost of creating the flyer, printing it, and distributing it was probably more than it would cost the anti-levy folks to actually support the levy.

On the flyer they stated, “For more information, go to conservativenewsmt.com.” So I did. At that website, I was informed I needed to go to gfteapartypatriots.com/local which is a Tea Party website.

Wonderful – and here I thought Tea Parties were for little girls and their imaginary friends…

The pro-levy folks had a pretty informative flyer that was easily readable and contained enough information that readers did not feel they needed to take a seat and grab a cup of coffee before reading it. The website listed on the flyer contained about all the information and answered many of the questions I had, such as how does Great Falls compare to other AA school districts in Montana on spending per student? The answer is “Great Falls spends the lowest per student of all AA districts,” plus Great Falls “students are challenged by poverty more than other AA districts” which I did not know.

According to the levy supporters it will cost you about a dollar and a penny per month on a home with taxable value of $100,000. Their website dispels many of the arguments from the anti-levy folks, so if you have any questions, go HERE. Continue reading →