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Rob and Terry Ryan donate $100,000 to equip science classrooms in Hamilton, Montana

Rob Ryan detailed his dream in front of a small group of education officials at a press conference last week: the Bitterroot Valley becoming a hotbed of entrepreneurs and science-based industry.

It’s not that far fetched, Ryan opined, noting the area’s proximity to the University of Montana, the federal biological research at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, and pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline’s research and manufacturing plant, formerly run by Corixa Corporation.

Ryan, a semi-retired multi-millionaire, now mentors entrepreneurs from his large ranch just south of Hamilton. He said more must be done to equip young Bitterroot students in the classroom so they can be tomorrow’s leaders.

Ryan, 57, and his wife, Terry Ryan, 58, weren’t just talking about helping young minds, they donated money toward the cause – a lot of money.

Ryan, whose background is in science and technology, was the founder and former CEO of the networking equipment company Ascend Communications. He retired at 46 and started Entrepreneur America http://entrepreneur-america.com/ with his wife. He said he has helped start about 25 companies around the U.S. in the last few years.

One of those companies is in Montana. RightNow Technology http://www.rightnow.com/ was started in Bozeman in 1997.

by PERRY PEARSON – Ravalli Republic

Full Story: http://www.ravallinews.com/articles/2005/11/21/news/news04.txt

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Rob and Terry Ryan found STARS, "Science & Technology At ouR Schools". Donate dream classrooms in biology, chemistry and physics to the Hamilton, Montana School District http://www.matr.net/article-16913.html

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Link school funding to performance

SUMMARY: It’s not what we spend but what we buy that matters in education.

Missoulian Editorial

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch was among several leading educators last week opposing the adoption of writing proficiency standards for students entering Montana’s universities and colleges. Requiring high school graduates to demonstrate at least minimal ability to employ the written word as part of college placement would be an obstacle to too many students seeking higher education, McCulloch and other educators argued.
That’s an extraordinary confession volunteered by the head of Montana’s public elementary and secondary education system. What she’s saying is that too many students graduate from high school without the ability to write. How ironic to hear public school officials implore the state Board of Regents to ensure high school graduates access to education for which the public schools failed to prepare them.

But the real noteworthiness of this argument emerges when you juxtapose it with the bigger headline-grabbing education issue of late: Educators’ demands for a massive increase in state school spending. Missoula County Public Schools last week joined the group demanding an additional $300 million a year for schools, a proposal put forth by a coalition consisting of school districts and teacher unions.

A careful reading of that group’s cash-infusion proposal reveals no suggestion, much less promise, that the additional money would produce measurable gains in student achievement – least of all improving high school graduate writing proficiency to levels sufficient for legitimate admission to college. The entire focus of the funding plan is to infuse school budgets with money. It’s all about what you should spend, not what your money might buy.

If abundance of tax dollars were directly linked to student achievement, perhaps additional funding could help – assuming the money is spent in the right ways in the right places. But the entire spend-more argument revolves around how much money the education lobby would like to have, not what it’s likely to achieve with the money. Without linking pay and funding to performance, there’s no reason to believe additional money will produce better results. Indeed, putting another $300 million on the table before some of the state’s strongest unions and some of its weakest managers (school boards) could quite easily benefit the providers of education without any assurance of benefits for children. Will there be pay raises in store for those teachers whose students leave high school without the ability to write the papers their college professors assign them? How would that improve education?

Without solid performance and accountability measures, there’s nothing but good intentions and hope that more money will result in better education. Educators are demanding more money. Montanans ought to be demanding better results. The two must be explicitly linked.

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2005/11/21/opinion/opinion2.txt

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