The Voice of the Community Since 1909, Serving Moorcroft and Pine Haven, Wyoming

Articles written by Jillian Balow


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  • Balow: Time for a comprehensive plan

    Jillian Balow, Wyoming State Superintendent of Public Instruction|May 6, 2021

    I grew up watching westerns with the likes of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and John Wayne. Predictable endings – good guys riding off into the sunset after saving the town – never spoiled the action or suspense of the movie. Wyoming hoped for the same sequence during this year’s legislative session. There was plenty of action and suspense during the session, especially around school funding. However, when our legislators tipped their hats and bid farewell to the 2021 session, they had not made inroads to solve Wyoming’s education funding woes. W...

  • Scholarship to wear a mask is not the right direction for Wyoming students

    Jillian Balow, Superintendent of Public Instruction|Aug 6, 2020

    I am alarmed at the free college rhetoric that hit the Wyoming news cycle over the past week. I know our post-secondary institutions are concerned about enrollment being down this fall and the financial hardship that will cause. But dangling the offer of free college with federal CARES money is not the right message or strategy for that money or our state. It is all too easy in contemporary politics for politicians to offer free everything, we can do better than that in Wyoming. A draft bill, proposed by Speaker Harshman, and supported by...

  • Upended: This describes our education system today, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Or does it?

    Jillian Balow, Superintendent of Public Instruction|Apr 30, 2020

    What we have come to value and measure in education policy – assessments, accountability and student seat time – were immediately ditched in the face of the pandemic. Our schools, despite being closed to students, remain hubs for teaching, learning and providing meals to students. How is this being accomplished? For starters, we know that technology has made remote delivery of quality instruction possible. Since April 6, every school district in Wyoming has operated under their state-approved “Adapted” Learning Plan” that summarizes their app...

  • It's time to update the basket of goods

    Jillian Balow, Superintendent of Public Instruction|Feb 13, 2020

    “If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom.” In his book, Brain Rules, author John Medina lays out the science and research to back up this statement—and he’s not the only one. A growing number of researchers, policymakers and educators, in Wyoming and across the nation, are speaking out about the need for change. Wyoming has responded in kind in several ways: Boot-Up Wyoming is Wyoming’s computational thinking and compu...