Wyoming is on the right track when it comes to educating students.

That was the message speakers sent at the Wyoming Heritage Foundation’s education forum on Thursday. But, there's always room for improvements and changes.

Wyoming could improve upon its vocational and technical education program, speaker Fred Parady told educators.

Parady is the vice president of operations at EnerCrest, an energy company in Big Piney.

Furthermore, students should be learning about work ethics and personal responsibility on some level, he said.

“Our key issue in Wyoming is work force,” Parady said.

“The old voc ed model is broken.”

Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Jim McBride also noted the need to beef up technical education. His brothers all pursued apprenticeship programs and trades after trying college, and are now hugely successful, he said.

“We need internship programs, we need all those kinds of program too, in addition to quality education,” said McBride.

Wyoming leads the nation in funding education, with spending doubling in recent years to more than $1 billion. Fourth and eighth grade students in Wyoming outperform national average scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The NAEP, also known as the Nation's Report Card, is part of the federal No Child Left Behind act.

However, nearly a fourth of Wyoming's students are not graduating from high school, which has raised economic and social concerns for educators and communities alike.

Parady argued that a reason behind the drop-out rate could be because "we've lost the heartbeat, the soul of a school." He expressed concern that education reform is less about being imaginative in helping students and more about standardizing the process.

Having a community connected to its school is a huge factor in student's success, McBride said, citing the 100 percent graduation rate in Fremont County 2's Dubois High School.

"They are absolutely committed to the success of their kids," he said. "The solution in a lot of these areas really has to evolve from the community."

The education conference continues today at the Parkway Plaza Hotel.

Reach Jasa Santos at (307) 266-0593 or at Jasa.Santos@trib.com.