Dear Casper,
School choice is supposed to support an individual’s ability to select a school within their district that best fits their child’s needs and capabilities. On the surface, this system supports equal opportunity for education in Wyoming, making it so children in lower socio-economic situations can choose a school that has better funding and curriculum, or so children with special needs can go to the school with the best support framework(s) in place. However, the reality of equitable education within the current funding structure is impossible.
State funding in Wyoming is granted through the Wyoming School Foundation Program, which primarily allocates money based on a school’s previous year’s enrollment numbers and other statutory factors. This calculates a guaranteed amount of funding for the school. However, the foundation does not automatically send this guaranteed amount to the school. First, the foundation verifies the amount of revenue for each school brought in locally via property taxes. Whatever the local government is not able to provide through its own revenue for the schools, the Foundation will cover based on the guaranteed funding calculations.
This amounts to Wyoming still having “poor” schools that are funded less because they are small, rural, and therefore guaranteed less overall local and state funding. When a school has long term low funding, it means several things: 1) low pay for teachers, 2) inability to afford or attract new teachers, 3) outdated materials for students, 4) rundown facilities, and 5) declining enrollment as children who can travel are sent to better schools.
While ensuring that there is a guaranteed amount of money each school is entitled to each year, how that funding is calculated keeps poor schools poor with lower quality educational materials and facilities. Students who have nowhere else they can reasonably go due to distance, transportation, or other factors, will never receive an equal education in comparison to the children in the schools of more densely populated areas.
I hear complaints in my general, everyday life about how much money per student Wyoming gives to fund the school. However, I think there needs to be a point of clarification for what that funding is actually doing. The school does not hand the student a check for $22,100, the state average per student expenditure in 2021-22, and tell them to have fun. That money is going into the general fund that pays the teachers, administrators, staff, councilors, the nurse, social workers, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and other paraprofessionals. The money goes towards building upkeep, janitorial supplies, office supplies, classroom supplies, unexpected repair costs, after school activities and clubs, sports teams, field trips, teacher professional development, and curriculum supplies. There is a reason private and charter schools charge so much per student in attendance.
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I understand that cumulatively this sounds like each school is getting enough funding, and this average looks good because it is above the national per student spending average. However, the state average per student funding is not the actual amount each district in the state is receiving. According to data collected for the 2021–22 school year, funding per student within Wyoming ranged between $15.1k (Weston County School District 7) to $58.3K (Park County School District 16) per student. The 2024–25 school year data shows a decrease in the average spending about approximately $1,500 per student.
What most people do not take into consideration is the national crisis of schools being generally underfunded. The fact that Wyoming exceeds the national average in spending per student is a good start and has given some of our students in better funded schools certain advantages. It still does not fix how funds, while no longer only based on local wealth, are not truly based on the school’s specific needs to keep up with operational costs, offer competitive salaries for educators and staff, and to fund thorough leadership and curriculum training for the administration and teachers — all of which are needed to make schools in the United States more competitive with international school systems.
All of this is to say that school choice is not available for everyone in the way we theorize; additionally, there are always going to be underfunded schools in Wyoming given the current funding structure; therefore, Wyoming has an issue to solve in creating real, equitable education opportunities in the public school funding structure. The solution starts with good research on schools and their current lack, something the Wyoming Department of Education could address.
Kathryn Morgan, Write for Wyoming Initiative
Casper