Jon Ralston on how Barbara Buckley and Bob Beers are filling the void left by Jim Gibbons on the education debate

Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

"I understand that we will need to address our differences, and I believe that we can do so in a way that will produce positive results for our growing state."

- Statement from Gov. Jim Gibbons in response to Democrats criticizing his empowerment school funding plan

Can we please dispense with the pablum?

With most of the legislative session still left to endure, is it too much to ask that we put an end to the sophomoric rhetoric about "positive results for our growing state" and start hearing how specifically to achieve those outcomes?

Considering we have a gubernatorial maw that seems to have swallowed common sense and regularly disgorges only platitudinous drivel while preparing to market a Gaffe-A-Day calendar for 2007, perhaps that is an unreasonable request.

But as we waste away again in Gibbonsville, waiting for that long-lost shake-up to happen, someone needs to step into the breach and guide the policy debate. From the looks of it so far - and there still are 110-plus days to go - Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and state Sen. Bob Beers seem the most likely candidates.

On Monday, Buckley and her Democratic cohorts lambasted the Gibbons education plan for pilfering money from incentives for teachers to pay for empowerment schools. The $60 million price tag, which all evidence so far suggests was plucked from thin air, is being heisted from an incentive plan that gives some teachers a small retirement credit.

Unfortunately for Buckley & Co., the state's superintendents, in their educational agenda, report that the specific incentive does not work, which gave Gibbons license to appropriate it for his nebulous, yet empowering solution.

The superintendents call it "expensive" and "counterproductive." Ironically, in criticizing the incentive, the superintendents, in their iNVest plan, make a case for empowerment schools by declaring, "If principals were given the ability to reconstitute their teaching staff and use the retirement credit as an incentive to attract quality teachers to the school, the benefit might have some merit."

The point that the governor seems to miss in his zeal to find easy money for his program is that incentives, if done right, obviously work to retain and attract teachers. And that is the overall point the speaker and her friends were making Monday, although they also touted a full education program, including all-day kindergarten. It's called an agenda.

In contrast, we still haven't heard much from Gibbons since he made a show of spotlighting Edmonton, Alberta, empowerment guru Michael Strembitsky, then announced he needed remedial help to understand what he proposed and then sent two private-sector types to tell state superintendents that he was scrapping the Edmonton model and going for merit pay of some kind. As John McEnroe used to scream, "You can't be serious!"

And that's where Beers, who may smirk a lot but knows how to be serious when it comes to policy, becomes relevant. His former opponent has done the governor a huge favor by doing what he does best - surf the Web, find statistics to back up his case (in this case against all-day kindergarten) and to pepper bureaucrats with questions that might not occur to less diligent legislators.

De Facto Gov. Beers is making the case against all-day kindergarten and for empowerment schools while Titular Gov. Gibbons is giving speeches that are plagiarized from Dina Titus campaign screeds. Cue Mr. McEnroe again.

This is not a colloquy over some inconsequential item such as whether Ronald Reagan's birthday was worth a proclamation. The debates over all-day kindergarten and how to expand the existing empowerment schools program could be seminal to improving Nevada's shaky education system. The governor should be leading this debate, as Janet Napolitano has in Arizona.

Napolitano has evidence to back up her support of all-day kindergarten. But there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, too, as Beers and other conservatives are pointing out. Almost all of the information is easily accessible online, so someone should show the governor and the Gang of 63 where to find it. Buckley and the Democrats have an equal responsibility to ensure a real debate takes place.

If not, some people, including Gibbons, might eventually say that there's a woman to blame if gridlock occurs. But if the governor and his people don't start putting policy over mush, he will have to absolve Buckley and acknowledge that it's his own damn fault.