State schools get A- for standards

Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2000 | 11:21 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A new national report gives Nevada an A- in setting tougher academic standards for public school students but gives considerably lower grades in other areas.

Education Week, in its edition to be released today, ranks Nevada as tied for seventh highest in the nation in standards and accountability.

Keith Rheault, deputy state superintendent of public instruction, said, "We've come a long way from the bottom to the top." He briefed the Legislative Committee on Education Tuesday on the report.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said Nevada was among the last states to tackle the issue of setting standards on what students should learn and at what grades. But he said it advanced quickly.

The A- grade for academic standards is in contrast to the one issued last week by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a nonprofit education research organization, which gave Nevada a C- in that category, putting it 18th among 48 states.

In the area of improving teacher quality, Education Week gave Nevada a C- and in the area of "school climate" an F.

Rheault said even the good states got Cs in teacher quality. "We're equal with them," he said.

On school climate, the publication considered, among other things, class size, overcrowding, parent involvement and the autonomy of the local school districts.

Nevada received a C- on adequacy of funding education. This is based on education spending per student and percent of total taxable resources spent on education. Rheault said Nevada ranked in the bottom quarter of educational spending with "only nine states below us."

The publication gave the state a D on how much of the annual education budget is spent on instruction. It said only 59.9 percent gets into the classroom. But Rheault said there are different interpretations among the states. In some states, deans are considered teachers but in Nevada they are classified as administrators.

On another topic, Rheault reported Nevada's Commission on Professional Standards has increased the passing grade prospective teachers must attain to gain a certificate for teaching in public schools.

In the basic skills test, Rheault said about 90 percent of those taking the examinations pass.

The commission, at its December meeting, raised the passing grades for math and reading. For math the grade is now 172, up from 170 and for reading it rises from 172 to 174. Rheault said this is estimated to cut the percentage of those who pass by 5 percent.

And the grade for passing the test on the U.S. and Nevada Constitution rises from 65 to 70.

About 7,500 applicants take the test every year to be licensed to be a teacher in Nevada.

About 28 percent of those are graduates of Nevada's universities and the rest come from out-of-state.

Even with these large numbers, Nevada school districts have a hard time recruiting teachers because of the fast growth, particularly in Clark County.

Skip Wenda, administrator of the Las Vegas office for the state Department of Education, said a reciprocity agreement has been developed to allow licensed teachers from other states to come into Nevada without going through the initial testing.

During the meeting, Assemblywoman Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, complained that computers purchased with state funds for schools in Clark County are still sitting in the boxes. She said they were not hooked up and not activated.

Moises Denis, chairman of the Commission on Educational Technology, said the state's function was to buy the computers and it was up to the local districts to do the maintenance, hook them up and provide teacher training. He said there's been a problem in Clark County because the money for networking the computers is to come from a school bond issue.

That money, he said has not been forthcoming, but he added he doubted any computers were still sitting in boxes. "All the computers are installed and working," Denis said. "But they (the schools) didn't get the funds for networking."

The goal of the educational technology commission is to have a computer in every classroom. He said that will be accomplished with the money remaining with the commission.