Coal country and computer science country used to be different places. But Wyoming, much like Liz Lemon, is trying to show us that we really can have it all.
In the next few weeks, the Wyoming State Legislature will vote on Senate File 29, which would add computer science (CS) to the state’s “common core of knowledge”, making it a requirement for K-12 public schools to offer CS education. If it passes, Wyoming would become only the second state in the country to mandate CS education, ahead of neighboring Colorado, ahead of liberal Massachusetts and Vermont, ahead of Silicon Valley’s home state of California.
My earliest professional days were spent in a classroom, having taught in public schools in both Miami and Los Angeles. Ostensibly, the role of a teacher is to help their students grasp the material at hand, but any good public school teacher knows that their real job is to prepare their students for a world that is far from a level playing field. To me, this is one of the most intoxicating possibilities of CS: it should be a great equalizer, a skill whose mastery needs not depend on your physical attributes or socio-economic status.
Zac Opps, a teacher at Powell Middle School in the Park County School District #1, sees the same potential. “It is indeed sweet,” he says, “that the Equality State will help its students realize economic opportunities that can allow them to leap out of poverty – opportunities immune to gender or ethnicity.” Coal mining and mineral extraction tend to be jobs filled by men; introducing more CS jobs not only increases the total number of employment opportunities in-state, but also creates more entry points into Wyoming’s workforce for its female workers.
The upcoming Senate File 29 vote has caught the eye of CS leaders around the country, including Ruthe Farmer, Chief Evangelist at CSforAll: “I am thrilled to see Wyoming pushing the envelope on CS education. For a rural state dependent largely on mineral extraction to see the potential that lies in the innovation economy and prepare their citizens for that future, is extremely forward thinking.”
I covered Wyoming’s burgeoning tech scene a couple months ago when Megan Smith, the US’s 3rd Chief Technology Officer, headlined a Tech Jobs Tour event in Cheyenne, the state capital, focusing on the inclusive opportunities technology can enable. But that event was only when the wave started to crest, not when the tides turned. What we’re seeing now are the results of a government unafraid to confront its challenges head-on.
First, the context: Wyoming is not only the least populous state in the country, but it’s also the fastest de-populating. That population loss has also been disproportionately the state's young people, as the state has hemorrhaged its recent graduates over the past few years.
While there are no doubt multiple factors driving this trend, the most punch-you-in-the-face obvious has been its lack of economic diversity. To say Wyoming has been reliant on coal would be a Cowboy State-sized understatement – it produces more coal than Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania combined.
Many of its Millennials are simply opting out, heading south for the greener (pun intended) pastures of Northern Colorado, booming with renewable energy potential and a tech economy anchored by Google and in the running for Amazon’s HQ2. Jesus Rios, CEO of Sheridan, Wyoming-based Ptolemy Data Systems, sees it plainly: “Wyoming continues to suffer the brain drain from some of our best and brightest talent electing to leave the State of Wyoming to pursue careers in other parts of the country.”
The virtue of small states, though, is that, at their best, they can also be the most agile and responsive. Governor Matt Mead created his keystone ENDOW Initiative (Economically Needed Diversity Options for Wyoming), allocating almost $40 million dollars this year for big bets on Wyoming’s future, including its technology and innovation economy. Just yesterday, he championed it in his State of the State Address: “Sometimes out of adversity, in our case the recent energy downturn, comes opportunity… I support computer science, including coding in all grades. Computer science is an important classroom subject, as important in this day and age as any. It’s is a requisite for our students to become life-ready, workforce-ready.”
In addition to Megan Smith’s recent Cheyenne jaunt, the last few months have also seen the Hyperloop One Global Challenge name Cheyenne as a potential destination for the first Hyperloop route, and Blockchain enthusiasts dreaming up a Wyoming crypto-utopia leveraging the state’s light regulatory infrastructure, fiber-optic bandwidth, and cheap power.
Outside investments certainly would help catalyze growth, but to sustain it Wyoming knows it needs to grow in its in-state talent pipeline. Microsoft, one of the few multi-national tech companies with a presence in Wyoming, finds hope in the recent developments. “[ENDOW] offers an innovative, multi-faceted approach for Wyoming to support the workforce of today and grow the workforce of the future,” says Fred Humphries, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of U.S. Government Affairs. “It’s particularly encouraging to see a focus on computer science education. These are skills needed in every industry.”
That’s where Senate File 29 comes into play. State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jillian Balow, is bullish: “All this talk of economic diversity in Wyoming—it’s critical. And key to every conversation is education: How do we prepare and retain a workforce to keep our state strong for years to come? There is a bold answer that will lead more Wyoming students to higher education and prosperous career options: Computer Science.”
Opps, the Park County School District #1 teacher, agrees. His belief is that, although individual educators may help fan the flames, what the state truly needs is a coordinated top-down push. "Incorporating computer science into every classroom demonstrates that as a state we are true believers in computational thinking and celebrate problem-solving; not just in a few maverick classrooms here and there, but that every student in the entire state deserves to develop this mental muscle."
Of course, the Senate File 29 vote matters enormously for Wyoming’s prospects. But at a time when all of America is trying to figure out how to bring everyone along into our new economies, it matters for all of us that they get this right, too.
