A crowd of nearly 600 packed the Coeur d'Alene Resort Friday night for MSPC's 2024 Spring Dinner, hearing from keynote speaker Kayleigh McEnany and honoring the legislators who have championed education reform with our Elevation Award.
The Elevation Award is the highest honor of Mountain States Policy Center, given to individuals committed to advancing and elevating free market principles and ideas throughout our region.
This year, MSPC recognized Montana Representative Sue Vinton, who led the charge to bring charter schools to the Treasure state. Representative Vinton also spearheaded the effort to introduce Education Savings Accounts for special needs children in Montana.
In Idaho, MSPC honored state House Majority Leader Jason Monks, Representative Wendy Horman, Senator Doug Ricks, Senator Lori Den Hartog and Senator C. Scott Grow. All of these leaders have been instrumental in the introduction of the Parental Choice Tax Credit proposal for families that would have offset the cost of school tuition and other education-related expenses.
Representative Horman has also been a strong advocate of transparency, including the Public School Transparency Act. This MSPC reform idea would require all public school districts, both on the first page of their budget and also on the front page of the district’s main website, to clearly report items including total spending, teacher to student ratios, and other data that would make it easier for parents and the community to understand the resources that a school district may or may not have.
"Increasing education opportunity is one of the greatest civil rights issues of our time," said MSPC President Chris Cargill. "These elected leaders represent the future of education, not the past."
MSPC's Spring and Fall Dinners are some of the region’s largest policy galas.
Mountain States Policy Center is a non-profit, non-partisan research center that provides free market solutions to successfully grow the region. MSPC concentrates its work in Idaho, Eastern Washington, Montana and Wyoming – one of the first organizations of its kind to cover multiple states. MSPC’s mission is to empower those in the Mountain States to succeed through non-partisan, quality research that promotes free enterprise, individual liberty and limited government.