State expects to get $32 million in annual education funds under Bush reform plan

Terry Webster

Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

Nevada officials expect to receive an additional $32 million per year in federal funds under President Bush's education reform plan.

State Superintendent of Education Jack McLaughlin said Monday about $13 million will go toward Title 1 programs to improve reading and mathematics programs for children in at-risk schools. Another $3 million will be applied to college Pell grants, which are used to provide financial assistance to those attending higher education institutions. The remaining funding is smaller grants for individual programs.

Nevada should begin receiving the money by next school year, said McLaughlin, who was in Washington last week with about 40 other state education superintendents for a briefing on Bush's "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001," which puts in place a system of accountability through testing but allows schools more leeway in applying funding.

Exactly how the funds will be spent in Nevada remains to be worked out.

"The next year is going to mean a lot of work,' McLaughlin said. "It's going to take all of us sitting down and going over it, from the lawmakers to the Department of Education and school districts.'

McLaughlin said the state's long-term priority will be beefing up pre-kindergarten and kindergarten education. He said that will help eliminate the need for remediation in English and math in later years.

State officials are currently poring over the education bill.

"We have someone assigned to go over it word for word,' McLaughlin said.

Although the state's top education official praised the reform as a catalyst to bring about positive changes in student performance, he also said it will be difficult to implement.

Within four years, states will be required to design and administer tests in grade three through eight that gauge state standards, or the skills students should have at certain grade levels. Additionally, states will have to produce report cards that track the performance of individual schools and how they compare to other schools in the state.

"It's really going to stretch the limit on technology," McLaughlin said. Beside creating new tests, the state will have to set up a computer system to track student performance and how students are helped if they fall behind, he said.

Clark County School Superintendent Carlos Garcia last week said one of his biggest concerns under the new federal law is a provision that allows students to transfer out of poorly performing schools.

If parents want to move their children into already overcrowded schools, Garcia asked, how would those schools accommodate the demand?

He also pointed out that the district is already working on improving reading and mathematics skills. Aside from beefing up the reading program, Garcia last year began a movement to have every child take algebra by eighth grade. Within three years the district hopes to have 90 percent of eighth graders in algebra classes.