Columnist Bill Hanlon: Test scores don’t go up when state takes over a school

Bill Hanlon

Saturday, Oct. 4, 1997 | 11:09 a.m.

NEVADA'S EDUCATIONAL REFORM Act, Senate Bill 482, provides for state takeovers of public schools. This is interesting, because so many of our state's leaders tout how Nevadans are independent people who demand local control. The fact is, state takeover of public schools is a national trend encouraged by the National Governors' Association. Twenty-three states have placed laws on the books to enable them to usurp local control.

States such as Colorado and Wyoming clearly believe in local control. Coloradans really are an independent people; not only can't the state go in and take over schools, the state cannot select textbooks or set graduation requirements. That's left to local communities. That's independence Nevadans don't share, so the next time some politician tells you how independent Nevadans are, tell him you buy your fertilizer at the nursery.

When a state takes over schools with low performance, do their scores go up? No.

In fact, one local superintendent, pretty confident of that, indicated that he would gladly forgo the three-year takeover process and be willing to identify and immediately allow the state to take over schools that would fall into the inadequate achievement category. Apparently, the state is not in that big of a hurry.

Nevada officials soon will find out there's more to increasing student achievement than just increasing educational standards.

At a meeting at Lake Tahoe, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the nation's state superintendents, suggested that intervention might be a better way to proceed than have the state take over a school. They were concerned with their states' capacity to run schools while trying to perform their other duties.

In some states, takeovers resulted in reconstituting schools. In many instances, that meant replacing all employees, teachers, aides, principals, secretaries, cafeteria workers, custodians and nurses, whether they were good or bad.

One of the areas of greatest concern to me about state takeovers of public schools is the inherent unfairness. Takeovers normally result in the state asking for relief from its own regulations. If the state believes it needs that flexibility to turn schools around, why aren't the local school districts and principals allowed that same flexibility before they are identified as achieving inadequately?

Clark County asked the state for relief without lowering standards and was flatly refused by the state Board of Education.

Another concern is that teachers can do this alone, without the cooperation of parents, the district or state. Teacher turnover in schools in lower socioeconomic areas is great. I fear that good, hard-working, dedicated teachers will eventually leave these schools because of the constant criticism. We should be encouraging our best educators to go into these schools, not chasing them out. It's past time that these professionals were recognized.

NERA is bound to cause some problems, and some of the repercussions will be unfair to some schools. It was not meant to be a punitive bill. When all is said and done with NERA, the public will better understand the problems facing public education. If they do, and if appropriate actions are taken to resolve those problems, public education will benefit.

While state takeovers of public schools have failed to raise achievement scores, the threat of takeover has increased student performance. That's the good news. Educators are more focused on "what works" than following the latest educational fads. To a person who believes "what works" is work, this is good news.

NERA is a comprehensive piece of legislation. Besides enabling the state to take over schools, it creates an Academic Standards Council, a Technology Committee, a legislative oversight committee and a bureau to oversee accountability.

Rather than throwing stones at the bill's inadequacies, educators in the state might be best served by trying to make it work.

Up to this point, many educational reform measures have died in the Legislature, typically on party lines. The game-playing was obvious during the last session when many legislators would not introduce education bills in the Assembly's Education Committee because of the chairman. Having a legislative oversight committee might help good legislation finally get through.