Education

The Wyoming School Boards Association will monitor how school districts handle tougher University of Wyoming admission standards that take effect in 2013.  Association executive director Mark Higdon says the university is doing what it thinks best for the students but the devil will be
in the details.

The new admission standards were approved last Friday by the UW
Board of Trustees. They are aimed at improving the retention and
graduation rates of students who attend the state's only public
four-year university.

Officials at Sheridan Memorial Hospital have been notified that the hospital could be downgraded from a tier one hospital to tier two by the Wyoming School Board Association Insurance Trust otherwise known as WSBAIT. The rating does not reflect the level of service provided by Sheridan Memorial, but rather reflects that educators covered by WSBAIT will now have to pay more out of pocket for services at the hospital than to hospitals rated tier one by the trust.

Wyoming Superintendent Cindy Hill asked the University of Wyoming’s Board of Trustees to reconsider raising its admission standards so as not to exclude Wyoming high school students who struggle with their test scores.

Under the new guidelines, in order to be assured admission admitted, students would need three-point-oh G-P-As and an A-C-T score of 21. They would also have to take additional foreign language classes in high school. Students who don’t meet certain standards would be admitted, on condition of participating in a ‘Synergy Program’ to bring them up to speed.

Wyoming students have improved their math and reading scores on a national assessment test.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress released its 2011 results Tuesday. The test measures math and reading among fourth and eighth graders nationwide.
Wyoming fourth graders scored four points better on average than the national average in both subjects, while eighth graders were five points better on math and six points over on reading.