Editorial: Using older data hurts our schools

Thursday, Oct. 9, 2003 | 8:56 a.m.

When it comes time to collect income taxes, the federal government wants everyone to report their current salaries, not what they were making three or four years ago. The same principle should apply to the federal government when it distributes grants to local school districts.

Currently, school districts are compelled to use data from the 2000 census when they apply for the grants -- data that was actually gathered in 1999. For the fast-growing Clark County School District, which has grown by more than 70,000 students over the past four years, this means it must vastly underreport its enrollment when applying for educational grants. This, in turn, means the school district misses out on being eligible for all of the money it deserves.

We support the effort by Nevada's congressional delegation to correct this flawed funding procedure. In both the Senate and House, the members are trying to change the way education bills are written. The change would require the U.S. Education Department to accept annually updated data from the Census Bureau as the basis for its funding of school district grant applications.

Most of the grants that school districts apply for are used to benefit low-income students. The grants, which just for the Clark County School District amount to more than $100 million a year under the current funding formula, are used for such programs as reducing the dropout rate, tutoring, teaching English to immigrant students, class-size reduction, teacher development, physical education, assisting students in getting accepted to college and expanding magnet programs. With Nevada perennially near the bottom in national statistics for the number of students dropping out and for the number of students going on to college, and with our standardized test scores highly unsatisfactory, every penny is needed.