Raggio seeks sanctions under Guinn’s school funding plan

Monday, April 18, 2005 | 10:52 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio said this morning that he wants sanctions imposed on schools that don't improve under the governor's plan to bolster funding of public schools by $100 million.

Raggio, R-Reno, said today that Senate Bill 404, a bill proposed by Gov. Kenny Guinn, looked incomplete. The bill creates a seven-member committee to dole out the money to improve schools, but it fails to have any evaluation of the progress on the schools and what steps should be taken if the schools fail to make improvement, Raggio noted.

In his State of the State address, Guinn had talked about sanctions for schools that receive the new money but fail to improve, Raggio noted.

Lisa Foster, assistant chief of staff for Guinn, said she would work with Keith Rheault, the superintendent of public instruction, to decide what such sanctions should be.

There are plenty of school districts that want the $100 million, Raggio said, but "there is nobody on the other side to make sure the money is used appropriately."

SB404 sets up a committee of seven to administer the $50 million in each of the coming two years for schools to make improvements. The committee would be composed of two teachers, two principals, two school administrators and one member of the general public.

Raggio said the bill should include several additional provisions, such as requiring that those on the committee show that they have the experience to help schools improve.

Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia and Washoe County Superintendent Paul Dugan both supported the governor's bill.

Garcia said principals of schools that fail to show improvement could be transferred out of their jobs.

Raggio said he didn't want to see a "principal with a D-minus" shifted to the same job in another school.

Garcia also told Raggio not to expect an "instant result" after one year. Though schools can show some improvement after one year, it takes three to five years to "bring about massive improvement," Garcia said.

Raggio replied that if it takes more than three years to make significant improvement at any school "then you have lost me."

Garcia said he was principal of a low performing school in San Francisco and it took three years for it to become a nationally recognized exemplary school.

It also takes time for a new principal to bring in his or her own team to turn around a school, Garcia said.

Garcia said schools will make some improvement with the extra money to be distributed to grades K-6 but that people should not expect them to be at the federal standard of Average Year Progress within one year.

Garcia said 18.2 percent of the 22,000 high school students in Clark County didn't pass the graduation test last year. But he said that 95 percent of them were special education students. He said 500 were those with English learning problems.