iblv editorial:

Bad biz ranking

Education and economy hurt state’s business environment

Fri, Jul 31, 2009 (3 a.m.)

Gov. Jim Gibbons likes to tell constituents that he works hard to bring more jobs and tourists to Nevada, but he doesn’t have any evidence to support his claims.

He certainly hasn’t convinced CNBC.

The network has released a ranking of the business environment in the 50 states, measuring different areas of competitiveness. The results were then boiled down into 10 broad categories — cost of doing business, workforce, quality of life, economy, transportation, technology and innovation, education, business friendliness, access to capital and cost of living.

When the overall score was tallied, Nevada ranked 47th, which is pathetic. The two categories that dragged down the state the most were education and the economy, where Nevada ranked 49th.

The education ranking wasn’t shocking because it included the state’s kindergarten through 12th grade spending and class sizes, as well as the number of higher education institutions. Because of Gibbons and like-minded politicians, the state has had a lengthy history of deficient spending on education at the grade school level and has made little effort to invest in community colleges and universities.

Increased investment in education at all levels could help produce a highly trained workforce and attract more industry to the state, a concept Gibbons refuses to grasp.

It could also help diversify the state’s economy. The state’s lack of a diversified business and industrial base is one of the reasons Nevada’s economy was ranked so poorly by CNBC.

Nevada has grown tired of a governor who says he is working hard to improve the state’s economy but who instead has become one of the biggest impediments to making that happen.

Discussion: 2 comments so far…

By CCSDTeacher

7/31/09 at 9:25 a.m.

Suggest removal

As long as Nevada funds education "last" with what is "left," we will be #49 out of 50. In fact, Nevada is probably hoping to be #50 out of 50 when this survey is next taken.
By DTJ

8/2/09 at 3:13 a.m.

Suggest removal

You can throw more money at the classroom, but if the kids aren't there to learn; if they don't come from a hme that demands that they learn -forget about it! There will always be those kids who learn, no matter how bad it is around them. And they'll be those who waste their 13 years of publically funded education -no matter how hard the teachers try to get through to them. These kids view school as "social time" and their parents look at school as day care. I taught high school in JAPAN. I taught in schools mostly with a lower working class demographic, whereby virtually none of the kids had a chance for higher education. This was the bottom echelon of Japanese society, The kids themselves, knew it. A lot of them got into different kinds of trouble, as you might suspect. Teen pregnancies, running with street gangs, getting into trouble with the law, dropping out of school. I taught as many as 49 kids to a class; never less than 42. But even in this situation, with kids of these backgrounds ALL my students could read and write their language with proficiency. All of them were competent in math. They could screw up everything else, and be told they were nobodies. But not being able to read, write and count was NOT AN OPTION.
Back here, I'm tired of hearing about "funding" and "classroom size." Nothing will change until the homes children come from learn to appreciate the value of an American education. And no amount of tax payer dollars confiscated and hurled at this mess will help. If anything, cut per spending on pupils MORE. Per pupil spending for Clark County Public schools came in at $7,800 in 2008, I believe. Say a class has 30 students. Just with 30, that works out to $234,000 -close to a quarter of a million BUCKS- being spent on that classroom of 30 students. Classrooms with higher numbers of students get even more money for their principals. WHERE IS THAT MONEY GOING??? It's certainly not going to the teacher.

Speaking of which, I say give a little better remuneration to the teacher, especially new teachers. We can afford to pay young, new teachers a little better the the $25K or so the start out with. But then, deep-six most of the school's various administrators, particularly the one's not working onsite at schools. Take to court the state or the Federal government so that all wasteful expenses thrown at mandatory bi-lingual "remediation" can be saved.

This past week's "Cash for Clunkers" program was a runaway success, with car-buyers snapping up the "almost free" cash in exchange for their gaz-guzzling clunkers. What we really need is for families to snap up the universally free education society offers to ALL children for 13 years of their lives. But until they do seize this 'gift', this life-changing, society-changing 'opportunity', which is just waiting out there for them, NO MORE GOOD MONEY CAN BE THROWN AFTER THE BAD.
A quarter of a million dollars per classroom -and that's not enough??? My @$$ it's not!