Editorial: Legislators mustn’t be lemmings

Friday, June 20, 2003 | 5:56 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: June 22, 2003

On Wednesday state lawmakers return to Carson City for their second special session of the Legislature. The Legislature wasn't able to get the required two-thirds vote in its first special session to pass a tax increase to fund government, including education, for the fiscal year that starts July 1. The reason for the impasse is that a minority of lawmakers, mainly Republicans in the Assembly, are opposed to an increase in taxes.

It is clear that this intransigence already is hurting our public schools. The Clark County School District, because of the budget uncertainty, hasn't hired the 1,000 new teachers needed for the start of the school year. In an effort to alleviate the shortfall of qualified teachers, the school district has notified more than 400 current teachers -- who are literacy and technology specialists and teach in the Gifted and Talented Education program -- that they will be reassigned to regular teaching positions.

If anyone required any more proof that our under-funded public schools deserve additional money -- along with a consistent source of revenues that a broad-business tax would provide -- then they need look no further than the results of a national education scorecard released last week. The National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that Nevada, among the 41 states submitting scores, was last in the percentage of eighth grade students in reading proficiency. And Nevada only did better than Louisiana and Mississippi among 43 states reporting fourth graders' scores when it came to the percentage of those students reading at or above proficiency.

The need for more funding for education and other basic services provided by state government has been established. The only question now is whether enough Republicans are willing to cast off their lemming-like support of Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, and Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, who are leading the opposition to increased taxes. Parents are fed up with the deadlock, as was evidenced by Thursday's crowd of parents and students at a Las Vegas rally in support of education funding. The legislators should do what's right and support funding our public schools and back it up with a stable source of revenue.