Published Saturday, March 29, 2008 in the WTE

Wyoming needs to stop sending mixed messages when it comes to the need for higher education.

On one hand, the Legislature socks millions away to fund the Hathaway Merit Scholarship Program. That seems to say that Wyoming will do just about anything to get its young people focused on building their intellectual capital.

It also is a recognition - or so it seems - that it is more important to get some secondary education under your belt than it is to race out into the energy fields because one day the short-term jobs that exist there will be gone.

Now comes the state Department of Education, offering a pot of money for local districts to create partnerships between business and the public schools to develop technical programs.

The intention, apparently, is to prepare young people to enter the workforce right out of high school. After all, the state needs workers, so let's get them ready - right now - so we can toss them into the maw of an energy industry that will spit them out as soon as it is done with them

Of course, this is not a new debate. Is it the job of the public schools to prepare students for college - academic courses or otherwise - or is it to prep them to enter the workforce?

It's a question that is made even more intense by the pull of the green stuff that is yanked out of the coal mines and sucked out of the gas fields. There is a real argument to be made by young people in Wyoming that they can make more money - at least in the short term - driving a truck than they can make with a two- or four-year degree.

But that doesn't make this effort to build technical programs in the state's high schools a good idea. Indeed, it is likely to make the state less competitive in the long run when it seeks a larger role in the global economy.

Because, in the end, the energy companies are going to do everything they can to cut costs - such as introducing robots to eliminate welding jobs. And that doesn't even take into consideration the fact that someday the fields will dry up or that demand will dip as the green movement gathers momentum.

What will all of these then-undereducated high-school grads do then? They sure won't have the academic skills to retrain themselves.

The frustrating thing is that State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jim McBride knows this. He has seen the stats, which show that the vast majority of jobs being created in the U.S. economy require postsecondary schooling.

Mr. McBride at least gave a nod to that when he introduced the funding pool for the pilot technical programs. He said research shows that new hires in the workplace essentially need the skills of a college freshman.

But where he makes the mistake is to imply that somehow that training can be pushed into the high schools at the same time that students are supposed to be building their academic muscles.

Most young people can't do both, and it is pure foolishness to imply they can. Either you prep them for a job or for a lifetime of jobs. But you can't do both at the same time.

Here, of course, is where the technical education advocates chime in that not all young people are designed to go to the university. They, of course, are right. There always are a few exceptions to the rule.

But that doesn't mean the answer to that quandary is to offer more technical education at the high-school level, thereby encouraging young people to take the easy path away from academics. How about helping them on the academic side instead?

Indeed, the argument that "some kids can't make it" undervalues their ability to rise to the level of expectations set for them. It also sentences many of them to lives of lower-wage jobs because it is intellectual capital that will be valued in the global marketplace.

The job of the public schools is to provide young people with the academic skills that they can parlay into whatever career they choose after graduation. It is the job of the colleges, the university and the technical schools to take them to the next level.

Indeed, spending precious K-12 dollars on technical education only dilutes the ability of the schools to do this job because it divides their focus. And that harms even the academically minded students by robbing them of the resources that they need to excel.

Surely, it sounds good to Mr. McBride when he says that he is trying to "break down the silos" between the public schools, the colleges and private industry - if only because those are the trendy words in management these days.

But sometimes silos are needed to build expertise. And Wyoming's public schools are doing only a mediocre job at best. Tearing down these walls now will not help them; they need to focus on academics, period.

It is the job of the state's superintendent of public instruction to champion academic excellence and to argue its importance with students, parents, technical ed instructors, businesses, taxpayers, legislators and anyone else who will listen.

In this instance, Mr. McBride is sending a mixed message as his agency seeks to support Hathaway at the same time that it pushes a technical education initiative. In the end, it is the job of this state's education system to build intellectual capital, not squander it.

D. Reed Eckhardt is the executive editor. If you have thoughts on this column or anything else in the WTE, please contact him at: D. Reed Eckhardt, Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, 702 W. Lincolnway, Cheyenne, WY 82001; or at (307) 633-3125; or at reckhardt@wyomingnews.com.