Changing Wyoming’s educational direction

from the Torrington Telegram

TORRINGTON–Wyoming’s K-12 education system is bloated, unfocused and entirely too test-heavy.

That’s the campaign message Cindy Hill shared with Wyomingites on the first day of her announcement tour as a candidate for Wyoming superintendent of public instruction.

The Wheatland native looks to rid the state’s schools of big government and reintroduce a system of back and forth communication between elected officials, school administrators and teachers.

“Often times, the people who are making these decisions, who are seemingly managing our systems, are so far, so distant from the classrooms, they don’t know the needs of our kids,” she said.

Approximately one in four Wyoming high school students don’t graduate, and about 40 percent of those who do require remedial instruction.

“We’re focused on our system, our bureaucracy is growing and the dollars aren’t getting to the classroom. So we need to refocus back onto the student,” she said. “They’re not statistics. They have faces and they have names.”

The 24-year veteran educator’s knowledge of the classroom and experience on the “frontlines” leads her to believe the state’s current system is hindering teachers.

“Their personal commitment diminishes every time we ask them and require them to do bureaucratic, top-down programs and make those decisions for them,” Hill said, adding every school requires unique attention.

And in a year when Proficiency Assessments for Wyoming Students (PAWS) has riddled school officials with glitches, Hill said such testing is another prime example of how off track Wyoming is.

“We’re doing entirely too much testing,” she said. “It’s getting in the way of our mission, which is teaching.”

Hill enters the campaign on the heels of a nine-year stint as a principal at Cheyenne’s Carey Junior High School. If elected to the position, Hill said she’d confront every situation with one question on her mind.

“Of every decision I make, I will ask this question: how is this benefitting the child in the classroom?” she said.

Laramie County superintendent Ted Adams and incumbent Jim McBride are also challenging for the Republican candidacy at the party’s Aug. 17 primary.

Laramie Sen. Mike Massie is the lone Democrat to announce thus far.