Gov. Gordon Says Wyoming Can Educate Kids Better Than Federal ‘Talking Heads’

As President Donald Trump’s mission to do away with the U.S. Department of Education progresses, Wyoming is eager to exercise more control over how education happens here.

Wyoming and the other states in America need to “change a bit of the conversation about education,” Gov. Mark Gordon said Thursday on the Cowboy State Daily Show With Jake Nichols.

After decades of listening to “talking heads” at the federal level about how kids aren’t learning and implementing policies that don’t work, Gordon said individual states are eager to educate their kids their own ways.

“Very little of (what’s been going on) has been about learning and what kids need to know, No. 1,” he said. “And No. 2, how do we make education work a little bit better across the country?

“What’s being done in places like New York and Washington, D.C., really doesn’t make sense in places like Wyoming.”

Gordon has recently been named the new chairman of the Education Commission of the States, a longtime nonpartisan group that provides expertise and services to all 50 states.

With the recent effort to pull back federal education regulations, states have more freedom to decide what’s best for their kids more directly, Gordon said.

“We’re not programming robots,” he said. “Yes, we need workforce, but one of the things I’ve always stressed is we want to have an ambitious workforce that’s capable of solving problems, (who have) the tools necessary to be able to address those problems.

“Let the states take care of their problems as opposed to, ‘The only good decisions come out of D.C.,’ which is categorically wrong.”

‘That’s Real Reform’

Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder also has been vocal about states having more autonomy, saying they know their children better than bureaucrats back East.

She was in Washington, D.C., when Trump signed his executive order to whittle down the Department of Education.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, we’re taking education decisions out of the hands of unelected officials and giving them back to parents, teachers, and local communities,” Degenfelder told Cowboy State Daily in March in response to the federal cuts.

“The DOE isn’t ‘closing,’ it’s relocating back to the people who actually educate our kids. That’s real reform,” she said.

Gordon said there’s a huge fundamental difference between what federal agencies and Wyomingites consider a proper education.

“Let’s really focus on kids being able to demonstrate the ability to use the knowledge they’re gaining,” he said. “(That’s) very different from the night before memorizing the test, taking the test and then being graded on the test — then forgetting it the next day.”

When Trump said he thinks states can oversee education better themselves, that was “a breath of fresh air,” the governor said.

‘Gobbled Up’

In Wyoming, that means getting down to local levels and not only asking parents what they want their kids learning, but then teaching those things.

That freedom also can attract better teachers who want to work in Wyoming, he said.

“I can remember growing up and having some exceptional teachers who really engaged me and made me want to learn more,” Gordon said. “We’ve gotten so gobbled up in all the structures and standards and assessments that it didn’t allow for that kind of freedom that engages a student and makes them want to stay there.”

He said there are already exceptional examples of local control paying off for education in Wyoming.

In Meeteetse, high school seniors do internships with area ranches and businesses, he said. In Upton, the class schedule has been redesigned so that students can take any classes they want.

That means missing out on one class because it happens at the same time as another the student needs or wants.

“We want to take that (idea) to the nation,” Gordon said. The message is “that one-size-fits-all just doesn’t work.”

He said just teaching basic skills isn’t enough.

For example, teaching students to weld gives them a good, marketable skill. But Wyoming also wants those students to think about building businesses through welding, or whatever else they’re passionate about.

“Energy, mental health, being able to get our industries out there, diversify the economy — those are all important things,” Gordon said. “But they’re all supported by having an excellent education system.”

Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.