Letter: Pointed questions about public schools

Friday, March 10, 2006 | 7:21 a.m.

Why are most of our high schools going to a schedule (eight periods, instead of six) that requires more teachers, when George Ann Rice says that it has become nearly impossible to find and hire highly qualified math teachers?

Why are most of our high schools going to a schedule that has 85-minute classes (instead of 52 minutes) when the millennial generation has such short attention spans?

Why does Nevada require students to pass the math proficiency test to graduate from high school, but does not guarantee them a math teacher every year?

Why is a credit for a class in an eight-period schedule equal to one in a six-period schedule when it is 23 hours less class time?

Why do some of Nevada's politicians think that innovative programs are more important than studies from Stanford University that say that teachers with majors in the subjects they teach are "the strongest predictor of how well a state's students performed on national assessments?"

Why are students who are discipline problems allowed to habitually interfere with the education of their peers and run off our long-term substitute teachers?

Why are high school students taking eight classes at a time when full-time college schedules are four classes?

Why are there so many liberal teachers?

Why, oh wait, I know the answer to that one. Most conservatives are not willing to start at $30,000 and top out in the low $60,000s after 15 years and almost two master's degrees.

Jeremy M. Christensen, Las Vegas