The smartest “dumbest” kids I know: Improvements for career and technical education

Wyoming Blogger and Photographer

Earlier this year, the Wyoming Legislature passed Senate File 43, a bill designed to make changes to the Wyoming Hathaway Scholarship program in support of career and technical education students. The bill creates a new pathway for high school students to fulfill the scholarship’s educational requirement through career and technical education classes, known as CTE, instead of the foreign language requirement.

CTE students will still need to meet GPA and ACT test score requirements and meet the foreign language requirements for the school they wish to attend, like the University of Wyoming.  But the foreign language requirement is no longer required for all Hathaway eligibility. That means now a student doesn’t have to forgo learning hands-on skills in construction, agriculture, business or accounting to obtain the scholarship.

The bill passed with tremendous support from industry and education. Wyoming leaders understand that a 4-year college education is just one path to career success. There are lots of others, including trades and entrepreneurship. Wyoming leaders also understand that there is a skills gap in this country. Every year, hundreds of thousands of jobs go unfilled because there are not enough skilled workers trained for them.

As the bill was being discussed in the legislature and on social media, I kept seeing phrases like “dumbing down our students,” and “taking the easy way out” used by opponents of the legislation.

I’d invite those folks to sit down with the applications of the Wyoming FFA members who earned their state FFA degrees in 2019. I’ve been working on news releases for the Wyoming FFA and reviewing biographies of some of these members for the convention program. And I have to say, the skill set of these students is simply astounding.

These students have designed and conducted high-level scientific experiments. They start and run their own businesses. They are valuable employees of other companies, trusted with jobs at 15 that some grown men and women can’t do.

These students aren’t taking the easy way out. They’re following a career path that suits their interest, lifestyle and future goals.

Take Sterling, a member of the Paintrock FFA. Sterling works for his family’s farm and feedlot and is involved in every single aspect of the operation. This young man manages the irrigation of an 800-acre farm, oversees the feeding of 3,000 head of cattle and runs machinery and equipment whose worth totals in the millions of dollars, collectively. He’s also learned to fly and uses his pilot skills to check on his family’s cows in their summer mountain pastures. Sterling says that several years ago, his dad quit telling him how to fix the farm’s machinery because Sterling was old enough figure it out on his own. So he did. Sterling says he used Google and reached out to other mentors to help grow his skill set and start solving his own problems.

That’s the easy way out? Teaching yourself how to weld, fabricate and problem-solve?  Getting up at sunrise every day to put in several hours on your farm before heading off to school only to return home and spend a few more hours doing evening chores? What about learning to drive a semi so you can haul your family’s crops, their paycheck, to markets?

As for “dumbing down our students,” I’d like for you to meet Candee. She’s a senior in the Southeast FFA chapter. Candee started her own business selling livestock feed to local residents. She’s now the sole distributor of her company’s feed in several states. Candee started keeping records by hand but quickly taught herself advanced accounting skills and programs like Quickbooks to make her business more efficient. She designed, paid for and oversaw the construction of a new building to house her inventory. If you look at Candee’s books, you’ll see she handles inventory worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. She also designed a logo for her company that they now use on products, marketing material and clothing. Candee’s going to pursue a degree in graphic design and continue to operate her business through and beyond college.

Or then there’s Brandi from the Wright FFA. Brandi went into business with her sisters. Together they raise registered Angus, Hereford and Shorthorn cattle. Brandi researches bloodlines and genetics, designs custom feeding programs for her cattle and keeps her own books. She can fix fence and doctor her own animals one day and the next stand in a show ring in another state confidently talking to a crowd about her animals and their strengths and shortcomings. She’s learned how to reinvest profits back into her operation for longevity and sustainability. She has a net worth as a senior in high school that middle-aged adults would salivate over.

And finally, meet Meg from the Chief Washakie FFA in Worland. In addition to raising and showing livestock, Meg has conducted agriscience research experiments as part of her FFA program. One project studied bear attacks and how to best educate the public on how to avoid them. Her second project involved conducting a survey on cattle growers’ use of EPDs (Expected Progeny Differences for you non-ag folks) in selecting herd sires. Meg wanted to find out if the time and money her family ranch spent on collecting EPD data and testing translated into increased knowledge and sales. So she designed a survey, analyzed the data using statistical analysis and made recommendations based on her findings.

What dummies these kids are. How will our world ever survive?

I went to college and grad school at the University of Wyoming. I’m proud of the work I did there and display my credentials in my office for a reason. I’m grateful for my college education and the doors it opened up for me. But career and technical education classes in high school weren’t holding me back. Those classes only helped me grow as a student and as a leader. I’m a better and more well-rounded not in spite of the time I spent in the ag room, but because of it.

What’s amazing to me is that these stories aren’t unique. Sterling, Candee, Meg and Brandi are all standouts, sure. But there are thousands of other Wyoming high school students out there involved in career and technical education who are just as smart, just as capable and just as committed. They are bright, innovative, hard-workers with goals and ambitions. They just don’t happen to want a conventional life for themselves. So they leverage career and technical education classes in high school to help prepare them for rewarding, viable and potentially very lucrative future careers.

So don’t call them dumb. Don’t call them lazy. And don’t look down your nose on them just because they prefer coveralls to a three-piece suit. They are every bit as worthy of the Hathaway Scholarship as their peers participating in conventional college education programs.

Allowing these students access to scholarship money to pursue higher education isn’t dumb. It just might be one of the smartest things our state has ever done.

Teresa