Dear editor:

In my recent “Letter to the Editor,” my primary concern was that Park County (only) property taxes had gone up so much, over the last several years, relative to the poorer “rankings” of several Park County (only) schools. It was my intention to show that the recent years’ increases in Park County property tax evaluations (some over 78%) were apparently not resulting in better educated kids.  

I received a call from a teacher expressing her concern that my evaluation was based upon “school rankings” of “all” Wyoming schools. It was not! It was based upon Park County schools only!  I do agree, however, that using “rankings” for a comparative evaluation may be confusing, so I told her that I would try to get the editor to print a timely clarification of my recent LTE about Park County school analysis.  

Rather than using school “rankings” to get my point across, I could have used the schools’ “Average Standard Score” (per schooldigger.com). Perhaps an evaluation of the Park County school’s “Average Standard Score” between 2012 and 2022 would be more understandable. For the sake of brevity (and significants), I will list only those Park County schools’ “Average Standard Scores” that declined: Parkside Elementary down 2.4%; Southside Elementary down 8.2%; Glenn Livingston Elementary down 10.0%; Sunset Elementary down 28.6%.

During my research, I came across the “National Assessment of Educational Progress” (NAEP) report which validated my concern of what is happening in Park County as well as all across our country. In my recent LTE, I included portions of that NAEP report which showed a (national) 355% faster decline in “reading” scores and a 480% faster decline in “math” scores, from 2020 to 2023 than from the previous eight years. This is significant and deserves our attention, however increasing Park County property taxes (72.6% of which goes to schools) does not seem to be the answer, as pointed out above. 

Glen Schultz

Cody