Editorial: Hardly a bold stroke

Thursday, Jan. 25, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

G ov. Jim Gibbons said during his State of the State address on Monday that public education needs "bold and decisive leadership," but the education plan he laid out is more like a legislative train wreck in the making.

The most notable - not to be mistaken for credible - part of the Republican governor's education plan was his surprise announcement that he would call for $60 million to be allocated to 100 schools to create an "empowerment" school program based on a similar one in Edmonton, Alberta.

Gibbons said that students would be able to go to the school of their choice and that principals would exercise control over how money is spent. Money for merit pay for teachers would also be set aside.

In light of such a dramatic change, one would think that a governor would have had the common sense to first consult with Keith Rheault, Nevada's superintendent of public instruction, and all the local school superintendents to see whether another country's plan for reforming education would work in the United States. After all, they would seem to know a thing or two more about education than our new governor, who had spent the past decade in Washington as a member of Congress. But our new governor, incredibly, did not bother to seek the input of the superintendents, including Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes. Rulffes, who actually was on the governor's transition team, said he was "in the dark" about Gibbons' proposal.

Gibbons' bungling of his "empowerment" initiative didn't stop there.

The day after a State of the State speech is typically the day when policy details start to flow as a governor starts to make his sales pitch, but on Tuesday Gibbons was out of the office and his staff had little to say.

That is the political equivalent of throwing a grenade in a room and walking out. It is no way to run government, and it is certainly no way to win over a rightly skeptical public.

The governor also is failing in another way: He is not addressing the underlying problem with Nevada schools - they don't have the resources to provide the basics. He did not mention how the state might address the teacher shortage other than to propose merit pay. In a Las Vegas Sun story Wednesday by Emily Richmond, Rheault said the best he could figure is that Gibbons was taking money from an existing program, which provides financial incentives for teachers to work in at-risk schools, to pay for his proposed empowerment program. Such a plan not only would rob Peter to pay Paul but it also would undercut the very idea of trying to boost teacher recruitment.

While the state and local school districts should consider substantive proposals to reform public education, Gibbons' bombshell, right before the Legislature starts a little more than a week from now, is a terrible way to make public policy. It would be foolish to think that the Legislature could take something off the shelf from Canada and that it would automatically work in Nevada. For that matter, comparing Edmonton to the Clark County School District is a little like comparing apples to kumquats.

Edmonton has a school enrollment of 78,600, which is tiny compared with Clark County's 302,763 students. Edmonton's school district is also overwhelmingly white, and Asian students are the largest minority group. In Clark County, whites make up 37.5 percent of the student population and Hispanic students make up 38.8 percent of the enrollment. On top of that, English is the second language for one of every four students in Clark County's public schools.

Edmonton's high school graduation rate is just 4 percentage points higher than Clark County's, yet Edmonton boasts smaller class sizes, has a longer school year and, in the most important statistic of all, spends nearly $1,000 more per student than is spent in Clark County. The governor's budget does nothing to boost the state's anemic per-pupil spending, which is a disgrace, trailing the national average by roughly $2,500.

Education in Nevada is in a critical situation. The state needs to find a way to raise the quality of education, provide all-day kindergarten, bring more teachers to Nevada, pay teachers better, shrink class sizes - and fund it all.

Gibbons has called on the Legislature to join him "in changing our education system with a single bold stroke," but if lawmakers are truly interested in improving the system, as they should be, it will be up to them. The governor's plan has fallen far short of even coming close to what is needed.