Greetings from your Wyoming Liberty Group!
It’s going to be a very busy interim for the Joint Education Committee! And, the Wyoming Liberty Group will be very busy tracking their efforts for you.
The Education Committee will be discussing the recently passed bill that permits students to attain a four-year Bachelor’s of Applied Sciences at the seven Wyoming Community Colleges. This is an exciting development that allows students to attend their closest community college for four years to receive a BAS degree.
Even though the chairmen of Education, Senator Coe and Representative Northrup, made civics education a low priority, both civics education standards and a civics proficiency exam will be taken up by the committee. We think every high school graduate should have to pass the U. S. Citizenship test, for example, although the legislature failed to pass two bills along these lines in the last session.
Also, there will be an update on the “common transcript and transfer” process which permits community college students to transfer their credits to UW. Until recently, this has been very difficult, and there are still wrinkles to iron out.
The committee will discuss, again, the External Cost Adjustment for K-12 schools – extra money, over and above the standard block grant, to address inflation. The 48 school districts in Wyoming have a combined $100+ million is reserves.
The two biggest costs for K-12 are transportation and administration. The transportation component of the funding model will be discussed.
Special Education funding will be a topic, as will Medicaid services in K-12. You read that right – in 2018, Wyoming did, indeed, expand Medicaid into our K-12 schools, and the Department of Health will now be working with the Department of Education.
Wyoming’s efficiency contractor, Alvarez and Marsel, will report on its work with the school districts and state agencies on efficiency progress.
Data collection and reporting requirements are a priority for the Education Committee. Several requested and required reports from K-12 districts and the community colleges have been eliminated or consolidated in an attempt to relieve the “report burden.” This is a good thing, and further reductions are contemplated.
Shall we increase the Hathaway Scholarship award amounts? Several years ago, the legislature increased the four award levels by 5%. Within a week, the University of Wyoming announced a tuition increase of – wait for it – 5%. A bill to accomplish increases failed in the 2019 legislative session. The Hathaway Scholarship, recently expanded to include non-Wyoming students, needs more scrutiny.
In 2018, the legislature added computer science to the “basket of goods” – subjects that must be taught in statewide K-12 schools. The Wyoming Department of Education rejected the absurdly intricate and onerous 231 pages of newly proposed computer science standards. The Joint Education Committee will take a gander at these standards, along with the requirement that computer science teachers receive a new UW teaching certificate, costing $11,400. Learn more here
The Joint Education Committee is comprised of Senators Coe, Ellis, Hutchings, Landon, Rothfuss, and Representatives Northrup, Brown, Connolly, Flitner, Freeman, Obermueller, Paxton, Piiparinen, Simpson.
The Committee will meet June 5-6 in Casper, September 26-27 in Cody, and November 14-15 in Cheyenne. We ask that you spread the word so that the public can plan to attend these meetings. An engaged citizenry is the strongest bulwark against bad government.