Committee wants to end Hathaway Scholarship language requirement

Proposal adds arts, vocational courses to curriculum

By JACKIE BORCHARDT – Star-Tribune staff writer

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High school students might choose not to speak or learn another language and still be eligible for a coveted Hathaway Scholarship.

The Legislature’s Joint Education Committee endorsed a bill Wednesday that would remove the foreign language requirement for all levels of the state-funded program designed to encourage students to attend Wyoming’s seven community colleges and the University of Wyoming.

Currently students working toward the two highest levels of the scholarship must take at least two years of the same foreign language, one year of which must be taken in high school. Students eligible for the third and fourth levels must demonstrate proficiency in a language according to state standards.

If the bill is enacted, students would have the option to substitute two years or proficiency in fine and performing arts or career and technical education courses in the program’s “success curriculum.”

The Legislature created the four-tiered Hathaway Scholarship in 2006.

Scholarship amounts are determined by the student’s grade-point average, ACT score and the success curriculum. The Legislature approved the success curriculum — specific course requirements — in 2007 after much debate.

Including arts and career courses increase options for students completing the success curriculum, said Donna Little-Kaumo, school district superintendent in Green River. The current curriculum limits students’ ability to select elective courses, an unintended effect of the program.

“We need to offer some alternatives so kids have options,” Little-Kaumo said. “It doesn’t mean you’re any less college-ready — it just means you have options to be college-ready.”

Little-Kaumo said students in her district who take arts and career courses have higher GPAs. Educators testified before the committee about the value of all three areas to student success.

There is time to take electives outside of the success curriculum, but students choose to follow the minimum guidelines, said Joe Feiler, who teaches welding and career education courses at Kelly Walsh High School.

“Whether we like it or not, the Hathaway Scholarship has dictated curriculum in our schools,” Feiler said.

A student who receives his welding certification from a community college is just as valuable to Wyoming as a graduate from the University of Wyoming, Feiler said.

The scholarship has been wrongly considered to be a right by some people, said Sen. Michael Von Flatern, R-Gillette. Von Flatern opposed changing the scholarship requirements and keeping the mandated foreign language.

“If it’s that important to students and parents, they can find time to put in the courses they want,” Von Flatern said. “They can fulfill their interest as well as match what the Hathaway demands.”

Foreign language should remain mandatory in the success curriculum, said Leslie Boaz, who teaches French at Wheatland High School. Research has shown foreign language learning improves listening, high-order thinking and creativity and helps close achievement gaps.

“If we make foreign language an option, we’re going to put our students even farther behind,” Boaz said.

The bill, amended to include career and technical education, was approved 8 to 5 and will be considered during the general session in January.

A second bill, which would have tacked on arts or career and technical education as an additional requirement, was tabled for later discussion.
Read more: http://trib.com/news/local/article_ed25ad03-d7c1-591c-98b8-341b22830997.html