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StumbleSun editorial:
Cutting educational budgets
Local public schools will begin to suffer because of inaction from Carson City
Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.
When it comes to public schools, Nevada consistently ranks near the bottom nationally in funding per pupil. The state has too many politicians like Gov. Jim Gibbons who campaign on their support for public education, but who deny the necessary funding once elected to office.
As reported in the Las Vegas Sun on Wednesday by Emily Richmond, there is concrete evidence that the governor’s out-of-control budget ax will be slicing classroom budgets at a school near you.
The Clark County School District, which has been called upon to cut its budget by 14 percent in concert with the next round of state cuts, stands to lose $120 million. That’s on top of the $130 million slashed since December.
It will mean proposed layoffs for 261 administrators, support staff and licensed personnel, but that saves only $17 million. A large share of the proposed cuts, $57 million, will come out of the district’s 341 schools, each of which will have to pare 3.5 percent from their budgets. That’s an average of $127,054 for elementary schools, $156,087 for middle schools and $391,633 for high schools. You’d have to be kidding yourself if you think schools can endure these cuts and still maintain high-quality education.
This is precisely one of the reasons why voters should vote yes on Clark County Advisory Question No. 5 on the general election ballot. That nonbinding measure supports the concept of asking the Nevada Legislature to approve a maximum 3 percent increase in hotel and motel room taxes to make up some of the education budget cuts and provide money for teacher salaries and student achievement programs.
“The message to everyone, not just teachers, is that if things continue to go down in the economy, and the Legislature doesn’t act, nothing is sacred in the district,” said Ruben Murillo, president of the Clark County Education Association.
A do-nothing attitude, epitomized by our governor when it comes to public education, must come to an end before our schools suffer irreparable harm.
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Every parent needs to call and write and email their legislators and tell them NO.
NO more cutting the school budgets. This is a crisis and it is time that those elected to speak for us do so.
No, too much action. The government spent way too much and it wasn't sustainable. Period.
If you want to save education start advocating real reform.
And here is where the government is wasting its money in education: http://npri.org/blog/ranking-nevadas-edu...
Nevada's education is ranked 31st in the nation for per pupil spending (not 43rd as stated by the Census B., or 47th by Barbara Buckley, or 49th by the Las Vegas SUn....31st because all the other rankings exclude capital costs and interest payments on debt).
Nevada is building palaces for schools, NOT educating children.
And the room tax goes to schools the first 2 years, after that the funds get pumped back into the Clark County Commission, and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (aka the advertising wing of the Casinos).
Yes, we need to raise the room tax because we need less of those pesky vistors.
Yes, we need to raise taxes on those struggling businesses because we need less of those pesky private jobs.
KDR81, what a load of bunk. First off, palaces?
Please. Be serious. And remember, school buildings aren't casinos that get imploded every 10 years so new, more lavish ones can be built.
They need to last. Have you seen some of the OLD school buildings in Vegas? Think.
Further, the conservative NPRI blog that you reference takes into account many factors for funding, and deserves a much deeper examination than your one line blurb stating a ranking of 31st in the nation in per-pupil spending. It is more accurate to state that they are somewhere very close to last in the nation in actual $$$ spent on educating students. Capital costs for buildings, maintenance, etc. due to the incredible influx of students into the valley skew the picture. The bottom line is, what areyou are paying your teachers, and how much money is being spent IN THE CLASSROOM? Just like a private entity, the better the wage, the better candidates you attract. The more you spend on your product, the better the results, typically.
As for how to come up with additional funding, that deserves careful consideration, of course. The room taxes are getting ridiculous, and we shouldn't bite the hand that feeds us.
We are around 25th in the nation on state tax revenue per child spent toward k-12 education.
We are 50th in the nation on getting Federal money per child for k-12.
We get less then 1/2 of what New Mexico gets.
I guess Reid who is in charge of the US Senate is not doing his job.
Well, nance, one begets the other. Less Fed funding means more state funding is necessary. That's why we're 50th & 25th, respectively. Harry, or, hey, don't we also have a REPUBLICAN senator in Nevada? Oh yeah, John something. Anyway, I'm sure they both would take credit for what we get and blame the other for what we don't. Bottom line: class sizes are ridiculously high, by comparison to properly funded states & districts. Teacher pay is low, if you compare the Vegas metro area & CCSD to other, comparable areas of the country. At least Obama has promised to properly fund Special Education mandates from the feds dating back to the 70's that have drained the coffers of ALL school districts across the country. That would be a nice start. But, alas, as you seem to be opposed to anything related to paying taxes, I'm sure we'll hear from you shortly, nance.
No, GMAG,
Schools get imploded after 20-30 years because there is a massive fund of taxpayer dollars to do so.
You can't ignore capital costs and debt payments, that is part of the cost of educating students.
You want to say, OH I only want to look at in classroom funding (ignoring teacher pensions btw) and then complain that education isnt recieving enough.
When looking at overall education spending NEvada is spending at the median level of all states!!!!!!!!!
We're just blowing money on buildings.
Had Nevada chosen to expand charter schools we could have saved $320 million a year by having about 400 charter schools like Arizona (that money could have been given back to taxpayers or pumped back into the classroom).
Unfortunatly, yet again for your big spending side, paying higher wages has yet to improve teacher quality. The regression analysis does not show a drastic improvement and teacher salaries have risen sharpely since the early 1980s.
As far as class sizes, we need larger class sizes not smaller.
Smaller class size has NOT been shown to be an effective method of educating students.
All we do is spread students around a larger pool of lower quality teachers.
We need merit pay and incentives to attract real high quality teachers and larger class sizes so we expose as many students as possible to those gifted teachers.
You can't have both small class sizes and super high quality teachers that are paid really well.
Not unless you severely cut every other sector of government spending. Period. Nevada's education already consumes $4 billion a year out of our $8 billion total budget.
So many things to educate you about, nance & KDr81. First, Nance, I call B.S. on the imploding of schools every 20-30 years. Do some research. We are blowing money on buildings, you say. Well, nance, I must say, this is as ridiculous a comment as I've seen you make. Again, do a little research. How many people have moved to the valley in the past 15 years? And how many schools have they built to accomodate the children? Certainly not an extraordinary palace for each few hundred that move here, as is the case with Casinos & their unabated growth.
Salaries for teachers have risen SHARPLY since the early 80's, you say. Do you know what the starting wage of a teacher was in the late 70's?
Depending on where you taught, around $7500 per-year. You didn't even need a college degree, let alone a Master's degree as most teachers have these days. Teachers have NEVER gone into the profession to get rich. But we have to give them a liveable wage that is somewhat in accordance with their responsibilites, high public expectations and educational background.
It simply has nothing to do with your "big spending" argument. Yes, it's expensive to offer quality education. KDR81, you act as though we're the only state that pays out 50% of the state budget to education. Do some research. Some states are considerably higher. It is, after all, one of the main functions of government. Let's also point out that the 50% figure includes both K-12 & Higher Ed. As for the charter school argument;
Please do some further research. There is plenty of corruption and bad education going on in that arena as well. Believe me, I have seen it first hand. Many parents and students have suffered greatly at the hands of your wonderful Charter School model. And while in theory charter schools may foster some competition with the public school system, it is also another drain on their already scarce resources.
As for KDR81's ignorant comment on class sizes; all I can say is, WOW. just, Wow. You have no clue.
gmag: " First, Nance, I call B.S. on the imploding of schools every 20-30 years. Do some research. We are blowing money on buildings, you say"
I think you are getting me confused with someone else.
I never talked about schools buildings or imploding schools buildings or anyting about buildings.
GMAG,
Obviously you have no clue, you aren't doing any research on it.
yes, government blows tons of money on building new schools. They don't take care of the ones they have. This is a problem across the country not just in Nevada.
Nevada's construction costs are very high because we are fast growing, but voucher programs and charter schools would eliminate much of the increase in capital expenditures allowing us to devote more money to the classroom.
As far as teacher pay, you have no idea what you are talking about, I have a book sitting right here in front of me on teacher pay and quality and its a pretty dense academic book on the subject (and yes, you've needed a college degree to be a teacher for a long time, the problem with teacher quality has been the women's liberation movement. Before that highly qualified and educated women were the backbone of education. After women gained the freedom to move around in the business world that left education with a lower quality stock of teachers to choose from as the highly qualified women took jobs elsewhere. Teacher pay was steady and only started to decline through the 70s. By the early 80s a major effort was made to address teacher pay and teacher pay has been on the rise ever since.
The quality of teachers has not increased significant in terms of teacher SAT scores (which has a larger correlation to their student's achievement than having a MA degree or state certification) and the quality of school the student attended.
As for charter schools. Yeah there are bad charter schools, they get closed.
Ever heard of a bad public school getting closed? It doesn't happen. Bad schools keep on un-educating students to the detriment of society, their parents and the students.
So by your logic, if charter schools are so bad and we shouldn't do them, then by all means lets end public schools.
As for class sizes, again I repeat myself. The research DOES NOT SHOW any significant relationship between class size and student performance.
It is a MYTH.
By the way, South Korea has an average class size of more than 50 students and they destroy Americans on the PISA science and math exam.
They also pay their teachers $100,000 or more a year attracting the highest quality professionals.
You CANNOT have both high quality high paid teachers and low class sizes. It is impossible with our scarce resources unless you are willing to make serious sacrifices somewhere in our economy or government.
In order for Nevada to achieve this our education system would probably need to consume another $4 billion a year. You could cut every other government program to afford it or double or quadruple our sales tax rate.
There is nothing WOW about this, its simple logic.
KDR81, i'm going to leave your comments stand by themselves, as people will see them for what they are. Now about your "dense academic book".... oh, nevermind.
NANCE, sorry for attributing the outlandish comment by KDR81 to you earlier.
If the average teacher made $7500 in 1975 that would be about $31,000 today.
Nevada's average teacher makes about $45,000 today according to the NEA, that is an inflation adjusted increase of 45%.
I'd say that is a sharp increase.
The book is Teacher Pay and Teacher Quality by Dale Ballou and Michael Podgursky. Check it out before criticizing me again.
I will quote from their chaper on why increasing salaries did not result in better quality teachers and higher student achievement:
"precisley because selection is poor and because tenured teachers are more likely to remain in their jobs when salaries rise, there is no assurance that even the first objective of salary reform can be achieved, namely an improvement in the ability of those who seek to become teachers."
Meaning:
1) The school districts don't know how to select high quality teachers and
2) Tenured teacher stuck around leaving few opportunites for high quality new blood to come in, so they kept looking for jobs elsewhere.
p.85
Wrong KDR81, you are wrong!!!! Out of touch.... , and so is your web-site NPRI, which is funded by the Governor, that is why you are so much in denial, because when he goes down you are going with him. STOP trying to brainwash people.
Here is a good blog post by education professor Jay P. Green from the University of Arkansas that just went up today (found it 2 minutes ago)
http://jaypgreene.com/2008/10/23/buildin...
Yes, school districts are trying to build education palaces.
Lol, NPRI isn't funded by the Governor or the government.
Now how about providing facts worstlogicintheworld?
BtW, here is a good post on Third World Private Schools (which outperform free public schools...parents will pay up to 1/4th of their monthly incomes to get their kids in these schools, these are parents making $3-4 a day!)
http://jaypgreene.com/2008/10/23/black-m...
How come whenever I try to debate anyone I end up with some post mondernist liberal whose only counterpoints are name calling and attacking sources and never any logical counter points?
Sigh...though this does remind me of graduate school. Ah the good olde days.
Dude, try coming back to the center just a teeny tiny tad, would ya? you are so far out there to the right i'm afraid yer gonna fall right off. Do you know Art Bell, by any chance?
KDR81: The reason everyone is attacking you, is because you are so far out in your beliefs, they are non-factual and disoriented. And, you truly do believe everything you say! As far as your web-site NPRI, didn't you just have a fundraising with the Governor as guest of honor?
"...endure these cuts and still maintain high-quality education."
I hate to tell you this, but high-quality education left Las Vegas long ago.
Maybe ending the monopoly of the CCSD would help.
KDR81, people who know what's going on are attacking you because you obviously don't. Basing your idea of reality on an ideological agenda may be the problem.
I am affraid people are attacking me because they don't know what they are talking about and I have facts to back me up where as all they have are sound bites.
by the way, the "I'm a moderate, you're way out there so you must be wrong" is a logical fallacy. It is not a counterpoint, and it does not prove me wrong in any way shape or form.