Editorial: Tiffany plan for schools is not wise

Monday, Jan. 10, 2005 | 9:03 a.m.

State Sen. Sandra Tiffany is again calling for a breakup of the 280,000-student Clark County School District, the fifth largest in the country. It's an idea she's been pursuing since 1992, when she was first elected to the Legislature as an assemblywoman. In 2000 she failed in a statewide petition drive to force a breakup. She started another petition a year later but withdrew it after Superintendent Carlos Garcia created five regions within the district to allow parents greater access to teachers and administrators. Still dissatisfied, she says she will now propose that the Legislature formally study the impact of a breakup.

"You'll have a school district that's community based, your own School Board, and you'll decide where to spend the money," Tiffany said last week in outlining her vision for several smaller districts. The Legislature has always rejected Tiffany's bills to break up the district and we urge it to follow that pattern in this year's session, which starts next month. Here's why:

In our view, if the district were broken up, it wouldn't be more than a few years before cries for consolidation were heard. The time and money that would be necessary for breaking up the school district would be better spent on programs that have a track record in improving academic achievement.