Though the three Republican candidates for Wyoming’s education chief were mostly aligned during a Thursday forum, differences emerged in philosophies, experience and plans for helming the department of education.

Longtime state lawmaker and Casper coach Steve Harshman stressed his extensive track record and knowledge of education policy complexity. Chad Auer, a former education department administrator who worked as Gov. Mark Gordon’s senior policy advisor, emphasized his willingness to embrace change while also preserving the parts of Wyoming public education that work. Freshman legislator and former teacher Tom Kelly, who has described himself as a “free-market, libertarian-leaning Republican,” said he would honor local control by minimizing state interference.

Democrats Ana Cordova and Sergio Maldonado were unable to attend the superintendent of public instruction candidate forum in Laramie presented by WyoFile, Wyoming Public Media and the League of Women Voters. Organizers did not include unopposed Libertarian candidate Ryan Shollenberger in the primary election forum.

The crowded candidate field illustrates keen interest in public education at a time when funding decisions, technological innovation and legal battles are reshaping Wyoming’s educational landscape. The Legislature passed a recalibration bill in March that represents a new funding model for school districts; Wyoming’s universal school choice program is being challenged in court and the state just overhauled literacy standards and instruction.

The superintendent is one of five statewide elected officials in Wyoming; the role entails helming the Wyoming Department of Education and comes with seats on state land and investment boards. Superintendent Megan Degenfelder, who was elected in 2022, is running for governor.

The candidates who prevail in their respective parties on Aug. 18 will face off along with Shollenberger in the November general election.

Agreement

The tone of Thursday’s forum was harmonious, with candidates often openly agreeing with one another.

All said Wyoming’s statewide standards and assessments — which critics say put undue emphasis on standardized testing — need to be pruned back.

Chad Auer speaks on Thursday, July 16, 2026, during a forum for candidates for the Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction at the Albany County Public Library in Laramie. (Molly Walters for WyoFile)

“The burden of our current standard system is squishing out creativity and problem solving … an assessment system should help education, it shouldn’t interrupt it,” Auer said. “Our assessment system is super expensive, it’s time-consuming and it is overly burdensome.”

Harshman noted that his wife, a first-grade teacher, had to teach a staggering 41 English language arts standards. Onerous loads, excessive consultants and inconsistent methods for measuring success have resulted in a mess, Harshman said. “It’s just gone out of control, and so we can fix it.”

Another point of agreement was the importance of equipping Wyoming’s 48 school districts with the autonomy to tailor education to local needs.

“One elected official and a team of bureaucrats in Cheyenne cannot meet our kids where we need to in the different communities,” Kelly said. “So what I’d really like to do is move the state back into a support role.”

“Local control is fundamental to the way we do things in Wyoming in the West, and I think that local control in education policy is critical,” Auer said. “Our Legislature in this past session kind of forgot about that.”

He was referring to Wyoming’s new school recalibration funding bill. The bill sets a funding model for the state that relies on what is called “silo” funding, which is much more prescriptive than the previous block-grant model.

“That recalibration bill, on one hand, gave teachers a much-deserved boost in compensation, but it came at the expense of local control,” Auer said. “In my view, as your state superintendent, that’s unacceptable.”

As Harshman toured school districts this spring and summer, he said, he heard many complaints about the siloing. “The local people, they’re upset about it, and rightfully so … I think it will be in the courts again because it just simply took away local control.”

Differences

The Legislature this spring passed a law establishing new guidelines for lite...

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