Wyoming’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction says the state needs to be doing a better job educating students to meet industry’s needs.
“You will hear me talk a lot about phasing out courses that are not of value to industry, and really scaling up those courses that are of value,” Jillian Balow told the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority at its summer meeting. She said the state’s infrastructure includes its students and that Wyoming needs to keep them in state with better science, technology, engineering and math education.
“I would argue with anyone that we live in one of the most science rich states in the nation,” she said, adding that it’s important for students to learn “Wyoming science.”
Balow asked industry to weigh in on Wyoming’s science standards in order to ensure the state can meet future workforce requirements. Science standards have been a major point of controversy after the Legislature blocked adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards over their approach to teaching climate change.