Montana small-business owners want more state support for high school students
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Riley Johnson, Montana State Director, 406-439-1021, [email protected]
or Tony Malandra, Regional Media Manager, 415-640-5156, [email protected]
HELENA, Mont., Jan. 23, 2019—One result from a poll of Montana small-business owners released today might be of help to state legislators pushing for greater state involvement in the teaching of trades and technology in high school, and it comes from a group rightfully suspicious of greater state involvement in anything.
As it does every year, NFIB, the nation’s and Montana’s leading small-business association, polls its members on state and federal issues affecting their right to own, operate, and grow their businesses. Unique among associations, answers to the policy questions center NFIB’s lobbying efforts in Helena and in Washington, D.C.
The 2019 Montana state member ballot asked four questions, one of which was, “Should Montana do more to provide vocational and technology training for high school students who are not college-bound, so they will be prepared to enter the workforce upon graduation?” The response to the question was:
Yes—80 percent
No—14 percent
Und.—6 percent
“The answers to three of our four ballot questions were of little surprise, but the response to the trades and technology one reflects a new reality that our economy is more in need of skilled carpenters, electricians, and computer and telecommunications professionals than we are in need of graduates with liberal arts degrees,” said Riley Johnson, NFIB’s Montana state director. “College is alluring to some students but not to all, and to ones it’s not, who are just as intelligent, training in the trades and technology might be a better channel for their potential talents.”
For more news on Montana small business, visit www.nfib.com/MT and follow @NFIB_MT on Twitter.
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For more than 75 years, NFIB has been advocating on behalf of America’s small and independent business owners, both in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals. NFIB is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and member-driven. Since our founding in 1943, NFIB has been exclusively dedicated to small and independent businesses and remains so today. For more information, please visit nfib.com.
National Federation of Independent Business/Montana
491 South Park Ave.
Helena, MT 59601
406-443-3797
www.nfib.com/montana
Twitter: @NFIB_MT
