State Educator Equity Plan Shows No Glaring Prejudice in Wyoming

Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) officials say recent analysis shows teachers in the state are performing well.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter to state education agencies (SEA) last July, requiring them to submit a new State Educator Equity Plan by April 2015.

Each SEA was to analyze what its stakeholders and data had to say about the root causes of inequities and craft its own solutions to ensure that "poor and minority children are not taught at higher rates than other children by inexperienced, unqualified, or out-of-field teachers."

Dicky Shanor, Chief of Staff for the WDE, says there weren't any real glaring inequities in Wyoming.

"We really don't have a lot of drastic equity situations as far as highly qualified teachers across the state," said Shanor. "We're funding it well, we're paying well and we have people coming from bordering states to be teachers in Wyoming."

Shanor says the focus of the Obama administration seems to be on trying to identify these equity gaps and close them using regulatory framework.

"I'm not sure they think that more autonomy back to the states is going to get them closing that equity gap," said Shanor. "They think if they have more control they can address it."