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West Virginia schools have a long way to go to meet the standards we expect for our children. But the reality is, if we want what we should for our future, education officials will never be able to rest on past gains.
Should you need proof we are getting at least some things very right in our schools, look to this week's state Science and Engineering Fair in Charleston. Public school students in third through 12th grades -- 289 of them, in fact -- showed off science, math and engineering projects that would make many adults' heads spin.
Sydney Bostic, a junior at Spring Mills High School in Martinsburg, spoke with WV MetroNews after learning she was headed to the Regeneron International Science Fair in Los Angeles in May.
According to MetroNews, Bostic's project was called "Bridging the Gap Using EdTech and Artificial Intelligence." It hinges on an app she designed that uses Optical Character Recognition scanning, Translation Application Programming Interfaces, and the A.I chatbot, ChatGPT.
Her idea was to translate college-level text into other proficiency levels.
"Everybody can use the same materials and learn at the same level at the same time," Bostic told MetroNews.
Impressive, right?
Bostic's bright idea was just one of hundreds from the minds of children who attend West Virginia public schools.
"They have some pretty amazing science and it's exciting when they get to explain that to our judges, because again, it's about learning, we get to see just how much learning those students have done," West Virginia Department of Education Director of Pre K-12 Academic Support Erika Klose told MetroNews.
It is wonderful to know our students are learning to think, to ask questions, to explore their world and their own big ideas. (And it is positively reprehensible that there are some in Charleston who are willing to stamp that out by any means necessary). Despite those efforts, Mountain State kids are showing us they've got what it takes to lead us into a bright future.
Now we just have to let them.