By T.J. GILLES - For The Outpost

“We have a problem in this country and that’s education,” Stillwater Mining Co. Chief Executive Francis R. McAllister told economics and business teachers in Billings recently.

He said more students need to get involved in learning about economics to become better citizens and informed participants in the economy.

“They need to understand what the world is all about, how it works,” Mr. McAllister said. “China and India are sending their students here to take advantage of our educational system, and that’s something our children do not do,” Mr. McAllister told the group.

He emphasized that economic education is far more than supply and demand, opportunity costs, charts and graphs, marketing, or crunching numbers.

The dot-com collapse, the Enron scandal and the recent financial crisis have similar roots, he said.

Stillwater Mining abandoned talks on buying electricity from with the now-dead Enron several years ago when it suspected some shady dealings at the Texas-based firm.

No matter who the economic culprit is, Mr. McAllister said, it’s all the same: “They ruined it because they lacked integrity at the top … If you don’t have integrity, you don’t have a business.”

“Learning economics is very difficult,” says Connie Geiger, executive director of the Montana Council on Economic Education, perhaps echoing recent congressional testimony of former longtime Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Montana high schools do not require even so much as a semester of instruction in personal finance and just one semester of government prior to graduation. Billings Public Schools does offer one-semester elective classes in personal finance, marketing and managerial science in all three high schools and several classes in accounting.

Along with required math, science and composition, classes in such areas as ethics and public speaking are part of the core curriculum in the Montana University System.

Personal finance is not a requirement, although financial-aid packages and student loan outlays often include a debit “U Card” to be used to buy books, supplies and food – including high-priced junk food from campus vending machines.

Montana State University Billings generally offers about three classes in personal finance – but only for upper classmen who may already find themselves behind the financial eight-ball by the time they’re allowed to take the course.

Mr. McAllister addressed a global economics seminar sponsored by the council, which paid registration for the two-day seminar worth 10 units of continuing education through the Montana Department of Public Instruction, footed registrants’ hotel bills at the Crowne Plaza – even offered to reimburse participants’ home districts for hiring substitutes while they attended.

Participants came from such schools as Park City, Hinsdale, Colstrip, Bridger, Livingston, Miles City and Crow Agency.

The council’s mission “is to ensure that every young person in Montana understands the essential economics of a free-market system, is able to use economic ways of thinking and problem-solving, and has a solid grasp of the workings of state, national and global economies.”

Council President Mike Johnson of Montana Tech at Butte states that economic education is more important than ever before in a world nearly swept away “by health-care debates, bailouts, and unemployment and government deficits.”

“Has there ever been a time when economic education has been more critical?” asks Mr. Johnson. His answer is an emphatic “no.”

The council is funded by Montana businesses, the Federal Reserve Bank of Helena, Montana State University’s College of Business and department of agricultural economics and several individuals.

The organization puts on such competitions such as the Stock Market Game and the High School Business Challenge, both of which began last week and last into April.

Ms. Geiger said as many as 1,000 students will converge in Helena in April for the annual Montana Economic Challenge sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Helena.

It’s a three-pronged challenge of microeconomics, microeconomics and general economic principles.

The council has a CD to help students and teachers prepare for the daunting competition. Sample questions also can be derived from the Montana Council on Economic Education website.

Ms. Geiger described the business challenge as a computer model of running a Blue-Ray manufacturing company. The three-person teams “do the business model, they do the hiring and firing, decide whether to rent or buy production facilities, create the advertising, the works,” she said.

Using a computer model, Tim Alzeimer of Montana State University monitors teams’ progress on a weekly basis to determine winners. 

Dr. Alzeimer also runs the Stock Market Game online from his office in MSU’s Linfield Hall. Teams start with a fictional account of $100,000 and manage a stock portfolio throughout the semester.

Ms. Geiger notes that although their smaller student bodies may be stretched by competitions for students’ attention through sports or other school activities, Montana’s smaller schools are able to go toe-to-toe with AA behemoths in the contests.

In the fall business challenge, for example, tiny Melstone High School (total enrollment 22, including three exchange students) won out over 35 teams while Class A teams from Whitefish took second and third.

In the Stock Market Game, Joliet (enrollment about 140) placed third behind AA Missoula Big Sky and Great Falls Charles M. Russell in a field of more than 150 three-person teams.