WYOMING – Residents are seeking answer regarding why creation of statewide computer science and computational thinking standards is delayed in the State of Wyoming.
Cowboy State Daily reports almost eighteen months to have passed since then-Governor, Matt Mead signed a bill creating the standards which, to date, have undergone numerous rewrites. But for the past five months, the Wyoming State Board of Education has been in a holding pattern, pending Wyoming Attorney General Bridget Hill’s two cents on whether they could pass a constitutional challenge.
“We’d like to know what the delay is,” said Republican Representative for Powell, Wyoming David Northrup, a committee chairperson. “We’d like to know what was in the [request] to the attorney general and what the attorney general’s decision is because it could affect all standards in Wyoming.”
During a Cheyenne meeting of the Joint Education Committee, which sponsored the 2018 bill that created the standards, Wyoming education officials will testify with regard to their progress.
Timeline to date retraces to a committee of computer scientists, teachers and others who, post signing of Wyoming’s bill, reviewed computer science education standards in other states and sought recommendations by professional associations. Those comparative studies were then used to create proposed standards for the Equality State.
Later, in January, the state school board opened the standards to public comment. Elementary school teachers had concerns about learning new requirements while also teaching other subjects and the committee returned to the drawing board between March and April.
That committee followed with release of another draft of the standards in which some would be mandatory, some would support the mandatory standards but would not be mandatory, and some would be “enhanced” –and optional.
The re-draft raised comment from two Wyoming Attorney General office lawyers who advised the board of concern that the standards were unconstitutional, since some school districts would be able to offer all the standards and others would be able only to offer the mandatory ones. The Wyoming Constitution requires public instruction to be “uniform.”
Lawmakers and education officials turned next to Attorney General Hill for guidance, as creating mandatory and supplementary standards could affect education in other subjects besides computer science.
The state board wrote a letter to Hill in June, requesting she study the issue and write a formal opinion, a position which to date is still outstanding.
Yet even with potential positive opinion from Hill, educators expect slow diffusion of statewide standards regarding computational learning, citing the likely rapid adaption within school districts already instructing computer science would be unrealistic to achieve at elementary-level institutions.
Information from https://cowboystatedaily.com
