Dear editor,
I call on Governor Mark Gordon to sign HB 199, the Wyoming Freedom Scholarship Act, and unleash educational liberty.
Passed by the House (39-21) and Senate (20-11) on February 19, 2025, it hands families $7,000 per student to chart their own course — private schools, homeschooling, or paths unshackled by bureaucracy. Freedom, not conformity, drives this bill.
Wyoming shells out roughly $20,000 per student, yet 60% of graduates stumble, illiterate or innumerate at grade level, needing college remediation. That’s no return for our tax dollars — it’s a cage.
Parents deserve the freedom to escape this broken mold. Picture a divorced mom, toiling at the mine, now free to send her two kids to a school that lifts them up.
Some cry it flouts Wyoming’s Constitution, leaning on the Blaine Amendment — born of 19th-century anti-Catholic bigotry — to bar religious school funding. Funny how liberals clutch that relic to shield their gravy train, but the Supreme Court’s roped it in. Espinoza (2020) and Carson (2022) say excluding religious options stomps on free exercise.
Wyomingites don’t bow to such chains.
Critics moan it saps public schools, but thats is hogwash. Public education stands firm, while families gain liberty to pursue what works. Rural Wyoming, sparse with private schools, still benefits as determined parents break free for better futures.
Governor Gordon greenlit a modest ESA in 2024; HB 199 is freedom’s next frontier. Sign it — let Wyoming parents steer their kids’ destiny, not some desk-bound overlord.
Sincerely,
Doug Gerard, Gillette
