Bozeman has excellent schools. Bozeman High often ranks among the top 6 percent of America’s government run schools with over a dozen AP classes. It has terrific music and athletic programs. A national organization, Great Schools, gives BHS a perfect 10.

More impressive, a few years ago a small group of students wanted a course in Greek—and the school offered it. Naturally, BHS sends students on to America’s most selective colleges.

This success comes largely from high quality, motivated, teachers. Quality begets quality—as does competition. One of the great advantages of having independent schools is the competition it opens. Monopoly breeds mediocrity.

Bozeman has 3 high schools in addition to BHS. The oldest is Mount Ellis Academy founded in 1902. It’s a boarding and day school associated with the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Across the nation there are many schools explicitly linked to denominations. Most are Catholic and in some regions Lutheran, Calvinist, or Jewish (California has over 100 of these).

Mount Ellis is run in accord with Adventist principles, but is open to children of other denominations. Students are held to carefully demarcated standards of appearance and behavior and expected to perform useful work. Whatever one’s faith, it’s easy to admire Mount Ellis’ example.

Heritage Christian School is non-denominational and explicitly Christian. At least one parent must pledge to support this faith. Religious principles govern student conduct and guide the school’s curriculum.

An increasing number of Americans perceive a serious decline in our popular culture and fear a slide toward depravity. To them, Heritage Christian, and similar schools across the nation, provide children a moral belay. Some of Heritage’s success, yes even in Bozeman, arises from this concern. America has a great many non-denominational Christian schools resembling Heritage.

Petra Academy is Bozeman’s newest, and most extraordinary in the best sense of the term, independent school. It has just over 100 students from K-12 and is organized around the classical model of education during America’s founding, the “trivium.” Petra, however, includes “commitment to a thoroughly Christ-centered approach to classical education.”

The trivium comprises grammar, rhetoric, and logic. These formed the basis of medieval university study. Latin at Petra begins in third grade and continues through tenth. Formal logic is taught in eighth and ninth grades, and rhetoric in eleventh and twelfth.

The Academics section of Petra’s web site explains the rationale: “Using the ‘three-way’ methodology of the classical trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), we desire that our students be well grounded in the fundamentals of the core curriculum, that they reason well, and that they articulate with precision and grace.” This is the antithesis of modern, “progressive” education. Petra demonstrates genuine diversity.

Petra attracts, retains, and educates above average students. Over the past five years their juniors and seniors averaged in the 84th percentile on ACT/SAT scores. Of the 16 graduates during this period, 3 have been National Merit Finalists and an amazing 2 have been Presidential Scholar candidates. Fifteen of its graduates went on to college and one to the Marine Corps.

To foster educational quality and preparation for life’s increasing challenges, government run schools would benefit from greater competition from independent schools. Even Bozeman’s children benefit from educational diversity.

While taxes should pay for education, governments need not deliver it. Government schools cost Montanans roughly $10,000 per student year while independent schools’ yearly tuition is about $5,000. Smart parents and wealthy parents normally find good education for children. Let’s foster independent schools to help those not so fortunate. No one knows what non-profit educational entrepreneurs might provide those with more modest means and talents.

Milton Friedman’s suggestion will be ever more attractive: “Let the subsidy be made available to parents regardless where they send their children - provided only that it be to schools that satisfy specified minimum standards - and a wide variety of schools will spring up to meet the demand.”