Delay in school English standards criticized

Thursday, Sept. 12, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- An effort to write new standards for teaching English in public schools has fallen behind, and state legislators aren't happy.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said he was tired of "foot dragging" by state educational officials. "Somebody has to take this by the horns and get it moving," he said.

His comments came Wednesday at a meeting of the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee, which agreed to release $277,820 in federal funds to the state Department of Education to complete writing the standards. The 2-year-old project must be completed within the next year.

Even state educators weren't happy with the delay. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mary Peterson told the committee, "I'm not pleased with it. We've taken too long."

She said she's expressed her concern to her staff and to the state Board of Education.

Raggio said the program was intended not only to measure standard performance but to increase student achievement in reading, writing and communication.

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigli ani, D-Las Vegas, said she had reservations that once completed there wouldn't be enough money to train the teachers in the new criteria.

Peterson blamed part of the delay on California.

"California embraced the 'whole language' approach to teaching English, and they used it," Peterson said. "So in some cases, children were not taught reading with a variety of tools, including phonics. What they have seen in California is their reading scores have plummeted."

The first draft of the Nevada standards were too heavily laced with the California program, she said, adding that Nevada needs a more balanced approach.

"There is not as much emphasis on the traditional spelling and like mechanics and the phonetic approach," she said of the whole language system. California's program does work to "some extent but it has to be balanced."

Raggio complained that the Education Department has held "input processes" in which it heard objection after objection. "Everybody gets in and kicks it around."

At some point, decisions have to be made, he said.

Peterson said there are national standards but they need to be tailored to Nevada. And then the local school district develop the curriculum to fit its need.

In other action, the Interim Finance Committee:

* Authorized the state Division of Tourism to use $2 million of its $3 million reserve fund to help renovate the former federal courthouse and post office in Carson City, which it will use as its headquarters.

* Authorized $3 million in emergency funds to the state Division of Forestry to cover its costs for fighting wildland fires this summer. Many volunteer firefighters have been waiting weeks for their pay.

* Was told by Marlene Lockard, director of the state Department of Information Services, that it will cost $31 million for state agencies to change their computers for the year 2000. Lockard said the amount includes buying some new programs for some agencies that have old equipment. Most computers have been programmed to deal only with data to the year 1999.