Panel OKs funds for education consultants

Benjamin Grove

Friday, May 29, 1998 | 10:09 a.m.

The subjects of English, mathematics and science in Nevada schools will continue to be the focus of education consultants being paid to study standards.

Several members of the Council for Basic Education, based in Washington, D.C., are leading a group of state teachers and education officials in an effort to analyze how subjects are taught in the state.

In January, the consultants and about 60 to 70 Nevada educators spent three days studying issues such as how phonics should be used, how evolution should be taught, and in what grade students should learn multiplication tables.

But the group did not finish its work because it ran out of time and money. The Legislative Committee on Education, made up of eight lawmakers, had allocated $130,000 for the job.

On Thursday, the panel that oversees the work asked the legislative committee for an additional $84,435, and the lawmakers approved it.

Bill Hanlon, a State Board of Education member and a member of the group studying standards, told the lawmakers that the group had wasted time and should have done its job in the three days allotted.

Hanlon is among some state educators who have objected to spending so much taxpayer money on consultants.

"The goals were clear to me," Hanlon told the legislative committee at a hearing Thursday at the Sawyer State Office Building in Las Vegas. "To me, it was a very doable project."

But Scott Craigie, a member of the Council to Establish Academic Standards, which the legislative committee appointed, argued that the council had increased the scope of the consultants' task, making it more expensive. Craggie also said the state needed the consultants because of their specialized expertise.

"This is a fairly exact science," Craigie said.

The lawmakers said they wanted the job done, despite the increased cost.

"There's a temptation to get into a lot of finger-pointing sometimes about who didn't do what," committee chairman Sen. Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said. "If someone wants to say that we spent too much money, then I'll volunteer to take the heat. I just want to have a good product."