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Thursday, April 22, 2010 | 2 a.m.
BALANCING THE BUDGET
In addition to a $145 million deficit in the Clark County School District’s budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, early projections show cuts of even greater magnitude in the offing. Still under consideration for fiscal 2011: 2 percent pay cuts districtwide.
Walt Rulffes
Sun archives
- Clark County teachers sweating out the budget crisis (4-22-2010)
- Clark County teachers face peer pressure on furloughs (4-9-2010)
- School Board rejects moving schools to nine-month calendar (3-26-2010)
- Year-round schools could face calendar shift to save money (3-16-2010)
- Teachers resist increasing pressure to accept pay cuts (2-5-2010)
- Budget crunch puts shorter school year, teacher pay cuts on table (2-4-2010)
- Gibbons: School districts should brace for 10 percent cuts (2-2-2010)
The $145 million budget shortfall that the Clark County School District is still trying to reconcile is not nearly as bad as the crushing deficits it will face in 2012 and 2013, according to preliminary projections.
The district says it may face deficits of $200 million to $300 million in state and local funding for each year of the next biennium.
The news comes on top of the district’s current financial plight: It has cut more than $250 million in programs, services and positions since 2008 to not overspend its $2.1 billion operating budget, and is chiseling away at another $145 million for the 2011 fiscal year that begins July 1.
“The news just keeps getting worse,” said Jeff Weiler, the district’s chief financial officer.
The Nevada Education Department is still working on its statewide projections, Superintendent of Instruction Keith Rheault said. But Clark County’s numbers are in the right ballpark, he said Wednesday.
Because of the growing budget deficit spawned by the recession’s effect on tax revenue, the amount of money per student distributed by the state to Clark County may plummet 20 percent or more, wiping out gains in per-student funding going back to 2003.
The early estimates get “much, much worse” through the next biennium and into the 2013 fiscal year, Rheault said. Federal stimulus funding that previously helped fill the hole won’t be available in 2011.
“We’re looking at projections with no additional revenues in the formula,” Rheault said. “It’s almost catastrophic.”
The funding forecast is based on preliminary projections, but Superintendent Walt Rulffes said it’s important to start the conversation so that the public — including the district’s more than 38,000 employees — appreciates the rough road ahead.
Education cuts won’t stop until parents step up and force lawmakers to properly fund schools, said John Jasonek, who recently retired as executive director of the Clark County Education Association and now serves as a consultant to the teachers union.
Given how many of the district’s programs and services have been trimmed or eliminated, there isn’t much left, Jasonek said.
“You can’t run schools this way,” Jasonek said. “With cuts of that magnitude, you’re talking about either closing schools early or drastically increasing class sizes and massive layoffs.”
To understand the implications of growing budget deficits in coming years, consider actions being taken to deal with the current fiscal crisis.
The bulk of current reductions of $145 million are being met by increasing class sizes in lower grades, putting off purchases of textbooks and classroom materials, and using reserve funds. The district is also allowing the majority of its 74 year-round schools to switch to nine-month calendars, at a savings of $15 million to $20 million.
That still leaves a $28 million gap. With personnel costs accounting for nearly 90 percent of the schools’ budget, the district is asking its employees to help make up the rest.
The district is negotiating with teachers, administrators, support employees and School Police on ways to save more money.
Rulffes said reducing employee compensation by about 2 percent across the board would cover the $28 million and save the equivalent of 400 teaching jobs. The district expects to eliminate more than 540 positions by increasing class sizes in grades 1-3.
Rulffes declined to discuss specifics of the negotiations, but did say talks with the teachers union had been “fruitful” and he was optimistic the issues could be resolved without binding arbitration.
The 2 percent pay cut could take different forms for different employee groups, Rulffes said. For teachers it might mean paying more toward their retirement costs, while administrators might be asked to take unpaid days off.
Teachers account for about 67 percent of the district’s personnel costs, compared with administrators who make up about 3 percent.
Mary Ella Holloway, past president of the Clark County Education Association, said she would prefer teachers take furlough days than salary cuts. It would be easier when the economy recovers to restore workdays than to restore the pay scale, she said.
But based on the newest budget projections, that day won’t be coming anytime soon.
Our Race To The Bottom has been very successful!
The school district still has money that it cut without the doomsday rhetoric. The district will cut where it wants and then say the cuts were from a public opinion poll or something similar.
I wish the public would demand to know what CPD is. That department is chocked full of administrators as well as teachers who have opted to leave the classroom. None of them affect learning. You can bet that the district will justify this department's existance somehow, but I promise, if they close down that department tomorrow, it would not affect learning in my classroom one bit. Not ever.
Ask what a Learning Strategist does. Most schools have one. The strategist will tell you how valuable they are. The principal will tell you that they are valuable as well. The strategist is valuable to the principal because the administration uses them to do odds and ends jobs that the administration would normally have to do. The strategist is a teacher who opted out of the classroom. And the classroom is where the hard work is.
And these are just two examples.
There is still so much waste you would not believe it. There are so many extras in the district that can be cut. If they got rid of all the superfluous waste, they they can talk about a paycut.
Jessie said it all and said it very correctly!
Our kids are very important to us. lets get the fire Dept out on the streets, off duty please. With sighs that Read we will not take a PAY CUT'S SO PLEASE HELP US RAISE 200 MILLION for our kids in NEVADA schools. Thank you Nevada Fire Dept.
raise taxes on mining!!!
let birdie explain something to you...
whenever a tax provsion in added to the constitution...
as it is with mining taxes...
you know damn well somebody had too much power at one point in time and rigged the system in their favor...
taxation of a specific industry should never ever ever be in a state constitution...
raise taxes on mining!!!
besides...
these greedy pigs just strip the land...
then send the profits out of state...
raise taxes on mining!!!
deport all students!
monkey boy gibbons could care less about our kids...
that maggot doesn't care at all about our schools...
he is more interested in making sure mining and gaming meet their quarterly profit projections...
The education system in Nevada is amongst the lowest in performance in the country. Maybe it's time to dissolve it and start over, concentrating more on neighborhood based systems with heavy involvement with parents and teachers from those neighborhoods who closely identify with the dynamics of those areas. These technics have proven very successful in bringing up grades and overall student performance. They are funded based on classroom size, performance, and require a vigorous parental involvement and participation. These formulas have proven successful in California and eventually will break up the LAUSD, and should be implemented in all cities across the country.
if public education was a business and made money ONLY on the quality of what it produces...it would have been out of business years ago.
enough with the "you hate our kids" liberal guilt trip. create a standardized test and make all kids take this test every semester. if a kid can't make 70% on it...he doesn't advance to the next grade. if 60% of that teacher's students can't make 70%...that teacher is fired.
Comment removed by moderator. Off topic.
stevem said, "create a standardized test and make all kids take this test every semester. if a kid can't make 70% on it...he doesn't advance to the next grade. if 60% of that teacher's students can't make 70%...that teacher is fired."
Nice. Great way to set up teachers for abuse charges when they resort to strong arm tactics to get a do-nothing brat to do something.
Hi All, Here in Michigan we have the same issues with schools, cities, counties, charities and foreclosures. Massive layoffs and cost cutting in every area. Yours are due to lack of tourist dollars while ours are due to loss of manufacturing jobs. As I look at city newspapers across this country every state seems to have the same problem. Charter schools are the only ones that seem to be well everywhere. Federal government career politicians and your legislature, just like ours, takes money from lobbyists in the education and other industries. They pass laws to protect these industries at our expense. School district superintendants, board members, college leaders and athletic directors/coaches seem to have great pay and benefits that the rest of us only dream about. Isn't it about time we eliminate waste at all levels so our children can get an education ? Does this country need more sports celebrities or engineers, scientists and leaders ? Your state, like Michigan, pours billions into sports at the local school and college level. These funds come out of the total educational budget.
I'm saving so we can visit our friends and family in Nevada. I really miss the many yearly trips to your state. Please buy American so we can get back to work !
The fact remains the tax rolls are way down all over.Like any other budget,schools shouldn't be living above their own budget.How can you be $145 million in the hole from year to year? Well guess what,the pot of gold is no longer there.Cut the enormous salaries of the police and fire departments and get the school system out of the hole.
The Clark County School District has 300 administrators above the rank of principal who make in excess of $100,000 a year. If the district would fire them that would amount to well over $100 million. Education would not suffer at all for it. Why does the district need a deputy superintendent for diversity, whatever that is, at $150,000? Time to start firing.
@stevem
Your 60% rule might make a small bit of sense if you had kids from homes that 1) spoke English, 2) the parents and kids gave a dam*, and 3) the kids were not either emotionally or physically disabled. Yes, even disabled kids are required to test and those scores are tallied to see if the school is making the required progress. Dose this make sense?
Should a teacher be held solely responsible when the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against them in a lot of classrooms?
IMO, nothing will change w/o a complete overhaul of CCSD, starting with the Superintendent. We need someone to make drastic cuts starting with admin, consultants, and other non teaching jobs that offer little benefit.
"Great way to set up teachers for abuse charges when they resort to strong arm tactics to get a do-nothing brat to do something."
"Should a teacher be held solely responsible when the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against them in a lot of classrooms?"
if a kid is learning off MY tax dollars and he can't speak english...WHY SHOULD HE BE IN SCHOOL?
what is WRONG with you stupid bleeding heart liberals?
once again...someone tries to not hold teachers accountable. in any other job...from selling advertising to flying an airplane to cleaning floors...YOU have some sort of performance threshold you must achieve in order to keep your job.
why should teachers be any different?
"if a kid is learning off MY tax dollars and he can't speak english...WHY SHOULD HE BE IN SCHOOL?"
How is this a teacher's problem and/or fault?
"what is WRONG with you stupid bleeding heart liberals?"
What does being or not being a liberal have to do with anything?
"once again...someone tries to not hold teachers accountable. in any other job...from selling advertising to flying an airplane to cleaning floors...YOU have some sort of performance threshold you must achieve in order to keep your job."
Is your doctor or dentist's reimbursement rate based on how well you take care of yourself? Those professions offer a more comparable comparison than janitors, pilots, and salespeople. Teachers (as well as physicians/dentists) provide the information. What you/student choose to do with it is all on you.
stevem - When a teacher tries to hold a student responsible for their work the administrator "suggests" they be more lenient. When you don't take your meds, does your doctor apologize to you???
Not to worry folks, the NFL draft will go on and those boys will get their money this weekend. No one would suggest that their salaries be cut. Just make sure those teachers don't get away with anything with their "thousandaire" lifestyles. HYPOCRITES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Current system is overly bureacratic, unresponsive, inefficient -- in a word, broke! Systemic change is needed, not more tax dollars to support the educrats. Block grants from the Fed to the states, then monthly student vouchers for each student good at any accredited public, private or charter school that accepts only the voucher (no additional tuition costs). Standardized testing every semester to gauge student & teacher performance. Zero out CCSD's budget and let them compete for students. Reward the schools & teachers that get the job done, not the bureacracy that shuffles papers.
"Is your doctor or dentist's reimbursement rate based on how well you take care of yourself?"
here's the difference...
the doctor isn't making a living off YOUR tax dollars...at least not yet.
there HAS to be SOME kind of accountability for teacher performance. i'm sorry, but they can no longer just suck down our tax dollars and not be accountable in SOME WAY to the people that pay their salary.
you and me.
It is time for parents of children in public schools to pony up and pay more for the education of their kids. Parents should be billed, based on their ability to pay, for educating their children. Taxes from the public without kids in public schools should only be used to make up for the shortfall from parents without the ability to pay their full share.
$250 million in budget cuts out of more than $6 billion in spending since 2008(not including capital expenditures and debt repayment and some other funds) is not a catastrophic spending reduction.
Uddeh, the US is one of the biggest spenders on K-12 education on the planet. I believe we rank #2 in elementary and middle school and #5 for high school. Overall we are within the top 5 (and probably ranked 2nd or 3rd, check the OECD data yourself). Spending more money won't produce results, we've already passed the point of diminishing returns on the investment.
Teachers are accountable. They are evaluated every year based on their job duties as well as how much they go above and beyond what is required.
"the doctor isn't making a living off YOUR tax dollars...at least not yet."
Even if the doctor was getting paid by tax dollars, surely even you can see how ridiculous it would be to base their pay on whether or not the patient complies with recommendations.
Birdie, if they couldn't send some profits out of state then fewer people would be investing in the state to do the mining and to hire those people. There is such thing as cause and effect -- economics is not some one dimensional beast that you can simply take resources from and expect nothing bad to happen.
Shannon, a new teacher in Nevada have 3 subjective evaluations in the first 2 years. THese evaluations are based on classroom observation averaging about 90 minutes of 180 days of instruction. Our evaluations and tenure (which you can earn in just 1 year) are meaningless. Nevada needs value-added assessment to fairly and accurately determine how effective our teachers actually are. Tenure and monetary bonuses should be based off this value-added assessment as well.
Importantly, parents should have the RIGHT to pick which school their child attends. Schools should compete for students and they should be free to use their budgets however they desire so they can provide unique products and services to parents and students...
Why dont they just shut down all the schools?That way when we have nothing but dummies walking around,we have no one to blame but ourselves!!!
Patrick,
New teachers get more than 3 evaluations in 2 years. It's helpful if you have your facts straight before spouting.
Patrick,
Additionally, the performance evaluation for teachers is not subjective. Where do you get your faulty information from?
Patrick, you maven you, "formal" evaluations are what you describe. Informal observations happen continuously throughout the year. Teachers are CONSTANTLY being monitored in the classroom, when they hand in grades, when they issue progress reports. Classrooms are TOTALLY TRANSPARENT unlike BANKS, WALL STREET, GOVERNMENT, and THINK TANKS!!!
Let's not forget, in the all mighty holy business world, you SELF EVALUATE in many companies.
HYPOCRITES!!!!!
hey patrick r gibbons...
are you just a one trick pony???
is your lower taxes mantra all you got???
you see skippy...
under w the scum bag liar loser clown taxes were lowered...
and low and behold...
the economy collapsed...
so seems to me skipster..
your one and only solution to every problem known to man is all wet...
like i said...
whenever you see a tax provision in the constitution for a specific industry you know that there was some abuse of power going on...
tax provisions for specific businesses should NEVER be in the state constitution...
EVER...
period...
end of story...
oh by the way...
have registered for the draft yet???
make no mistake boys and girls...
our pathetic governor monkey boy gibbons...
has no interest whatsoever in solving the education problem...
it is nothing more thaan a burden to him...
and to all the stupid pathetic ugly lying always making a threat or fear mongering republican losers...
a burden...
not the foundation of a community...
a burden...
this must stop...
now!!!
Patrick flunked his teacher test. They stuck him in SpEd and he didn't have the important part, the heart.
So now he makes sh)t up and spews it all over teachers trying their best to help little Johnnie get a skill or two before he falls on his face in real life.
So Shannon, please take his PAID advertisement with a grain of salt. He's been an anti-teacher whacker since I can remember seeing his pontifications for which he actually gets paid, now that his 'tenure' as a teacher has come to a tragic end.
Nine formal evaluations of teachers, two years in a row. Plus ~15 drop-ins, plus ~10 collegial reports, plus parents, plus pro-from-dover visits,
Nope, Patrick R Gibbons is a total fabricating, teacher-hating preacher of crap. An Okie from Muskogee.
I'm wondering if Patrick is evaluated for the accuracy of what he is disseminating.
Shannon, unless you have hard data on how much a student learns within a teachers class then you have a subjective evaluation.
Air, I don't hate teachers. But I do dislike bad ones. Do you support keeping bad teachers in the classroom?
Birdie, if not raising taxes is a one-trick pony, what is always trying to raise taxes?
Quixotic, classrooms are not transparent. Can I get classroom level data on student performance? Can parents? Can parents even get copies of the evaluations of the teachers that are educating their kids?
Another question: Can the public get copies of evaluations of Administrators?
Patrick regularly faces the readers of this rag. His evaluation is ongoing and consistent: ya' get what ya' pay for!
Good one, Libra!
Patrick could get classroom level data on HIS kid. It's online 24/7.
Name one teacher making $73k, Patrick as you say they make and admit that your extrapolative powers far exceed your sense of reality.
I bet they didn't give you that for the miserable job you did highbrowing and browbeating those SpEd kids.
No, I'm not in favor of keeping teachers who are not capable of compassion or understanding. They should get jobs writing fabrications for think tanks.
I heard that a district bigwig was sitting at Liberty HS all day yesterday taking questionnaires from teachers regarding the principal, Ms. Gibson. I guess she has had dozens of complaints from teachers about harassment and unethical behavior. Another parent volunteer said she's heard Ms. Gibson screaming at staff more than once. If true, I'd love to see her eval.
Air, the average teacher makes about $73,000 in salary and benefits. That comes from state's own figures.
Compassion and understanding aren't good enough. Additionally, 40% of American teachers are disheartened and are more likely to blame students and parents for failure...that hardly seems compassionate.http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/teaching-for-a-living
Btw, do you have any real counter arguments of your own or are you satisfied going through life lying and making ad hom logical fallacies?
http://www.doe.nv.gov/SchoolFunding/DSA_...
Air, show me the classroom level data. I want to see student achievement by teacher. I hope I'm wrong, because this would be a goldmine...
Who's arguin Pat. I'm pointing out. That's ok, right?
Not quite, you're making stuff up and making ad-hom logical fallacies. So you are right to some extent, its not an argument but you aren't even making valid points either. ;)
No, Patrick, you are still wrong.
Couple of questions for you...Have you ever actually looked at a CCSD teacher evaluation? How long were you actually a classroom teacher? Thanks.
Maybe the parents will or should have to pony up more money for their precious childrens education.
Shannon,
Unless you have data in there it is going to be subjective. First, lets make sure we both are using the same definition of subjective - These three are satificatory, do you agree with any of them? existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought ( opposed to objective).
2.
pertaining to or characteristic of an individual; personal; individual: a subjective evaluation.
3.
placing excessive emphasis on one's own moods, attitudes, opinions, etc.; unduly egocentric.
Second, we do not use student testing data (which is objective, a test is given, results are spit out, the results are not up to interpretation or opinions) so the only thing you can use and remain objective are things like this:
Number of days present
Number of Lesson plans submitted on time
Number of tests given
Number of quizes given
Number of days late for work
Number of days staying late to help students
Those figures would be objectively observed. But even that doesn't mean it is meaningful - that is, it doesn't necessarily mean kids learn.
To answer your own question I was a classroom teacher for one year. Despite earning degrees in political science and history from what many consider to be one of a handful of "public ivies" I was moved to special education where the school district was desperate for male teachers. I was replaced by a guy with a degree in education over the protests of my students and their parents who signed a petition to keep me as their teacher. I left the profession because of dumb administrative bureaucracy -- something I'm sure you'll agree with me is prevalent in public education.
Patrick,
Sure. It's called Edline. Kids get an ID, check their daily grades. Parents can too. Teachers often put messages in Edline for parents in addition to regular emails with them. A few years back when they came out with this, most families had no computers in my area of the bario. But now everybody checks their edline and explains why the test grade is a D from yesterday or whatever. It's a good monitor but I fear it's not what you wanted.
The student achievement by teacher data you're looking for does not exist. Several high-stakes tests are the best they have. Imputing teacher competence from that data is shaky at best. So, bottom line, unless we quadruple assessment expense in time and dollars, we won't have an accurate measure of how much actual learning occurred under the tutelage of X teacher.
Likely our best measure consists of talking to the kids and finding out what teachers influenced them. And there you have a pretty flakey way of finding a way to give a teacher a raise. So we're where we started: gossiping.
It would be a goldmine. If you could access accurate high stake tests and then disaggregate by teacher, you could find some reliable data. But getting access may be tough with all the regs they have for protecting us from knowing other people's stuff. Confidentiality may restrict, but I'd bet on your skill as an information guy to maybe weasel some UN-NAMED data from school districts if you could word your request to appear to benefit the district in some way.
btw, one of my students later told me that the replacement (an ed school grad) started out by showing a video of medieval castles - during the chapter on renaissance art.
On another note one co-worker in my department at the school I taught at - he was a state licensed and certified and taught for years after me - pled guilty last summer to child molestation...
I hope you aren't going to act like all teachers are innocent, compassionate, super victims of bad parents and naughty students...there are bad teachers and bad people in the profession - they don't need to be in the classroom.
hey patrick...
you think you are clever...
you are not...
you never answered my questions skippy...
why did the economy collapse after the bush tax cuts if tax cuts solve every problem known to man???
and...
have you registered for the draft yet???
hmmm???
Assess the parents $500 per student. Times 311,000 students equals problem solved.
Think of it as surcharge for current use of the school system.
"Teachers are accountable. They are evaluated every year based on their job duties as well as how much they go above and beyond what is required."
and what happens if they get a bad evaluation?
huh?
nothing. the union makes it nearly impossible to fire a teacher no matter how poorly he/she does.
you can "circle argue" this until the end of time with me.
the fact is teachers always want more and more tax dollars to produce a product that is inferior. until there is some kind of FACTUAL measuring tool to see if OUR investment in them is paying off...i don't think they should get a dime.
and don't get me wrong. let's face it...public education for the most part is just a place to warehouse kids while their parents work. why get that "A" in algebra when their older sister is making $400 per night giving lap dances?
when you have TWO stores on sahara that sell nothing but stripper shoes...there's not a lot of need for calculus.
but, we can never expect GOOD jobs...ones that don't require a uniform and a name tag...to come to las vegas when we rank almost at the bottom of every education survey. companies DO look at education stats when deciding to relocate or build new factories and offices.
Air, we can use existing data collection and do something called value added assessment - it doesn't cost that much more (in fact testing in general is relatively cheap to begin with). Value added assessment is fair to teachers because individual students compete with their own past scores and not with each other. Teachers won't look bad on value added assessment unless they have a classroom full of students who are performing lower than expected.
I would love to get my hands on the data, even if teachers and students were assigned a number instead of a name. I would personally love to use it to find out if our middle class and upper class public schools are coasting (Tennessee's value added data has shown that the allegedly good schools weren't actually doing a good job).
More information can be found here: http://www.education-consumers.org/
Birdie,
First, tax cuts don't solve every problem, who says that? Second tax cuts don't really work if you don't also cut spending. If spending remains the same you must take money from somewhere else in the economy. Taxes take money from earned income, borrowing takes money from investment income (you crowd out private sector investments by taking in bonds to pay for spending). Cutting taxes and keeping spending the same is not really any better than raising taxes to match spending.
The other problem in using test results as a gauge of teacher quality is the fact that kids grow at different rates. Add to this biological factor, the social influences, the family lives and the various learning styles, the multi-intelligence nature of humans vs. the minimalist approach to breadth of domains in assessment.
We can't know what you want to know, Patrick because the variability far exceeds our ability to quantify, to accurately deduce quantities of learning and then somehow assign that accomplished learning to the influence of X teacher.
More than ever before, it's a village thing. Round village.
Patrick,
I am well aware of the definition of subjective, but thanks anyway.
You are still wrong. The evaluations I received when I was a teacher were most certainly not subjective. I do appreciate you answering one of my questions, but I notice that you didn't answer the one pertaining to whether you have actually seen one of CCSD's current teacher evaluations.
I left the profession because of impossible mandates (such as 100% of students will be proficient by 2014) and being told I made too much and I should suck it up. Never mind that my students' test scores were much higher than those of the other teachers for my grade level. Never mind that I put in innumerable hours over and above my contractual time. Never mind that I made myself sick trying to come up with ways to reach students who couldn't be bothered to do a single thing in my classroom and whose parents didn't care either. CCSD and the children in Clark County lost a good teacher when I left. I'll spend my time focusing on my own children.
I got an idea.
Have a line-up.
Teachers against the wall. Kids get guns, but have to toe the line.
Each kid gets one bullet. Pick yer teacher, kid.
On the count of three blast away at the teacher you hate the most.
Teacher with the most bullets gets the raise.
stevem:
"and what happens if they get a bad evaluation? huh?"
The same thing that happens in private businesses with incompetent employees. It isn't hard to get rid of a teacher if the administration documents, documents, documents, just like in the real world.
"the fact is teachers always want more and more tax dollars to produce a product that is inferior."
My education in the CCSD wasn't inferior. I got out of it what I put into it. My teachers were great and I didn't need remedial classes in anything when I went to college. I'm willing to bet that my kids won't have a problem either.
Air, exactly, that is why you use value-added assessment. Kids grow at different rates and they only compete with their own past performance. They have their own trend line which predicts their own future performance and no one else's.
Shannon, sounds like merit pay would have benefited you. But please do explain what objective criteria are in a teacher evaluation, I'd love to hear all about it.
For everyone elese, please read this when you have time: http://www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/TheC... it is a presentation from the Democrats for Education Reform
Patrick:
Merit pay wouldn't have done squat for me since I worked in a Title I school with mostly ESL students.
I can't find my old evaluations to give you examples (they are in a box somewhere). If I run across them, I'll let you know and post examples of what I'm talking about.
I bet we're working for Shannon's kids someday.
shannonk...
let's make this simple...
do you or don't you think there should be some kind of testing of students at the end of each year to see if the teachers are doing their jobs?
yes or no.
I think all students should be tested and their individual results followed. If they aren't learning, they shouldn't be allowed to progress.
I do not think that teachers' pay should be based upon results of those tests. Some kids will do very well on the tests, some not so well, and some will bomb out. I have had a couple of students who didn't do a single thing in my classroom and couldn't be bothered to complete a single bit of work, and it wasn't for lack of effort on my part. It's bad enough to waste your time caring about whether a student is learning or not when neither they nor their parents care. It would be even worse to then have that child's apathy have a direct impact on my pay.
I will add, however, that if every kid (or most of them) in a teacher's class fails to progress during a year, then that would certainly mean that the fault lies with the teacher.
Personally I believe it is a problem with the Tax System and those doing the budgeting....Obviously we needed to plan better? To be this much on the wrong side means people screwed up. This is a total failure to plan ahead. No excuses! Now once again our kids and education will suffer.
I think it is time to take a serious look at a flat tax system. I think it is time for a major Tax overhaul.
Then again...Perhaps our kids should go to school and barter with teachers for their services??
Please understand this. When an administrator is sent back to the classroom, that administrator will continue to receive administrator pay. If a teacher is forced to become a substitute, that teacher does NOT continue to receive the pay that teacher received when he or she was teaching. In fact, the teacher now a sub does NOT receive any health, pension, etc. benefits. The same can NOT be said for an administrator who returns to the classroom. Now why does this occur? I guess you have to ask the school board trustees, the administrator association, and Dr. Walt Rulffes. Of course they won't give you an answer, but you can ask them any way.....
The scammers keep on scamming this school district.
Response to stevem:
("if a kid is learning off MY tax dollars and he can't speak english...WHY SHOULD HE BE IN SCHOOL?")
That is total ignorance! Most of the non-English speaking students in my high school classes work their but*s off to make their grades. And guess what? They're learning English (and the class content) in the process. . . Many of these kids are a lot closer to becoming productive citizens that some native-born, English-speaking kids who warm the seat and don't give a dam*. There are a lot of problems in this district, but it's unfair blame these kids for any of it!
steviem thinks he's an "Education Expert".
LAUGHABLE!!!
What a joke.
Hey Pat!!!
How's the air down there in the stink er think tank? You've been a busy beaver doing... something else. THANK YOU!!!
Kids are being TESTED TO DEATH.
Teachers are NOT ALLOWED TO TEACH, THEY MUST TEST! TEST! TEST!
ACCOUNTABILITY, THAT'S THE KEY!
Do you see a PROBLEM HERE?
What would help the MOST is if we held PARENTS responsible for ensuring a PROPER EDUCATION for their own spawn. TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY!
Teachers should absolutely be held accountable; Those that think they have free reign are fools.
Should they be placed under the microscope because Nevada has made a mockery of it's own Educational System?
"Yes, well, your hands ARE tied behind your back, but go ahead, give it a go, and MAKE IT GOOD!"
Patrick R. Gibbons of NPRI and the rest of the ANTI-GOVERNMENT, ANTI-TAX, "Libertarian" types can run you around the block all day about who lags who in funding, and which state's Teachers are at the low end of the totem pole, and why class sizes don't matter.
Nevada ranks at or near the bottom for Education spending, as they do in just about everything else.
Nevada ranks fair to middling on teacher pay; certainly nothing to write home about.
The Lynch Mob mentality in Nevada regarding Education; Demanding top results while insisting on pinching every last penny, & mocking Educators incessantly for not making that little brat johnny into an Einstein...
LOOK IN THE MIRROR!
Let me get this straight. Year-round schedules were implemented to better utilize reaources and cut costs. Now, year-round schools are going back to 9-month schedules to cut costs.
Huh?
The Clark County school system is too large. It is usually true that the smaller the system, the better the results. So let's revise it like this:
1. Henderson School system. Filled with achievers who won't be held back by lesser students because their parents really care about their child's future.
2. City of Las Vegas school system. Filled with the offspring of blue collar workers. Union members children who aspire/dream to get a Fireman type job. Or the stripper pole.
3. North Las Vegas school system. Filled with single parents who have not a clue about parenting. And could care less.
Simple. The smart get smarter, the handy types get a trade, and the low life's join a gang. As long as we keep them away from each other, all the students will improve. Even in NLV.
Remember, it's really easy to make 'em, a lot harder to raise 'em.
Shannon, merit pay using value-added assessment would have done a lot for you if you were working at a low-income ELL school if you were a good teacher. Afterall, value added measures learning gains and low income and ELL students have the most to gain. Banning social promotion is a great idea!
Gmag, Well I can't satisfy everyone. On one end I'm anti-government anti-tax anarchist who wants to hold teachers, administrators, policymakers and schools accountable for results, make schools compete, give parents choices, reward high quality teachers and use scarce resources more efficient.
On the other end I'm a big government socialist because I'm not advocating the end of public financed education. Some people will not be rational about this issue no matter what you say. :)
BTW, I don't see anything wrong with people demanding they get a good return on their education investment dollars. Unfortunately what our entire nation has demonstrated is that additional expenditures do not produce promised results. PS, I'd think the same thing regardless of where I work, it is a logical fallacy for you to accuse people of thinking what they think simply because of where they work -- it also gets you nowhere in policy debates.
...boftx...it is really straight forward and fairly simple...the difference is one was to save capital costs of building new schools and the other is to save operating costs for keeping building open...weird, I know...but, conditions have changed...
Purg, that didn't work out too well considering CCSD finished building, what, 4 new schools last year? At least 2 of which weren't needed at all.
So let me see if I have this straight...if a kid fails, it's the fault of a teacher who only has contact with that student 180 days out of the year for roughly 6 hours a day (1 or 2 hours per day if we're talking upper grade levels)?
A teacher can't make the kid study at home. A teacher can't make sure the kid has a decent breakfast before showing up at school.
And if the teacher tries to fail the kid? Parents scream lawsuit, and the Districts fold. Happened to my sister when she tried to flunk a kid, and her own bosses wouldn't back her play because they were afraid.
I'm all for weeding out the bad teachers, but basing it almost exclusively on student performance on standardized testing is the wrong way to go about it.
"Value Added" is a statistical construct WITH NO BASIS IN FACT! It is a STATISTICAL PREDICTION of EXPECTED RESULTS. Anyone with any math background knows that statistics can easily be manipulated. The fact is that a student's success is in the hands of the student. A teacher's job is to give the student the OPPORTUNITY for success. Any trainer or coach is subject to the internal motivation of their student as is every teacher in every classroom. A teacher should be judged for the presentation of the OPPORTUNITY not if the student decides to take it!!
Patrick,
Please explain how an ESL student can be expected to take a such a test when they just started learning English. Talk about setting people up for failure.
Maybe we can get all the Republicans to pass a "WAR ON EDUCATION" Then, it will be funded!
Why is there always money for war, and none for education?
Why do Republicans scream about the deficit affecting their children/grandchildren, yet could care less about education, health or the environment?
Why the lies Republicans?
I won't believe there's a budget problem until they cancel football season.
Check out this directory. Every administrative office in CCSD. 164 pages.
http://ccsd.net/directory/pdf/admin-tele...
I gotta headache just skimming through this thing. I would point out that quite a few of these positions deal with compliance mandates from the federal govt. CCSD is forced to have these positions or the fed. govt nails the district.
One interesting office if the "Office of General Counsel" -- page 56. CCSD has 10 full time attorneys on staff. There must be some serious litigation going on with the district?
Give JimmyHoofa an A+!
"I would point out that quite a few of these positions deal with compliance mandates from the federal govt. CCSD is forced to have these positions or the fed. govt nails the district."
JUST SO!
Most Education Bashers in Las Vegas fail to recognize this VERY PERTINANT FACT.
There's also grant writers to get fed $$, etc. etc.
YES. Administrative costs are high.
Is it all waste?
No.
Do most folks understand the complexities of running a MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR per-year venture?
No.
As for the lawyers, EVERYONE thinks "the government"/CCSD has deeeep pockets. And they will sue at the drop of a HAT to get them sum!
why do we continue to provide education to illegal immigrants? an illegal alien will not benefit from a high school diploma.
my daughter is in a vocational program at her high school that had all students provide birth certificates and social security numbers. if the student could not provide this, they were not in the program any longer. this had to do with the license the student would attain as the result of the vocational training and not spending the money on a student that wouldn't ultimately benefit. i like this. couldn't we expand this to all our schools?
I am a Special Ed Teacher in the district.
Getting paid based on tests? I teach Special Ed! If my 7th grade students could pass the 7th grade reading test, they wouldn't be in my class. My pay should not be based on a student with Learning Disabilities who I am not allowed to teach how to read because the "test" is coming.
And then there is the student who constantly disrupts other students, class time, and does no work what so ever! When the parent is called I'm hung up on because I called to early! (Not a parent working graveyard shift) When I call later, I'm told that it's my problem, he's at school! My pay should not be based on a child whose parent has taught them that what they do in school it not anyone's responsibility but the teacher's and that doesn't care about their child's education.
Then CCSD tells us that certain textbooks are no longer allowed to be used, but no new ones will be purchased. And???
Parents should HAVE TO come to school when their child does not perform. I do not mean the child doesn't do the best to their ability. I mean the child that warms a seat disrupts the learning of others and doesn't care. I understand the parents that have 2 jobs and doesn't have the time. I have another job on top of my teaching job to support my family, but my child better be a responsible citizen and not disrupt the learning of others or himself! I teach that at home.
Teacher bashers: Come into my room for one day. Better yet, go to your own child's classroom for one day and see what the teacher is doing!
Let's base your pay on how well your child does at school. Maybe then it wouldn't be too early to call!
You know...for all those who support their cockamamies ideas about slashing teacher pay with "we pay your salary" NEWS FLASH we pay taxes too via federal income tax, property taxes, etc...so, in part, I self-fund my own job just as you lofty private sector people do. Only difference...I can't set my own rates and gouge my customers!
I've been a Clark County teacher for 9+ years.
The present philosophy of school reform -- as evidenced by "No Child Left Behind" -- is drastically flawed. The foundation of both the philosophy, and the law it influenced is "Blame the Teachers." At best, this approach will result in only partial, temporary successes.
Our public school system can be compared to a broken down jalopy sitting in the driveway on blocks. Fixing ONLY the teachers is like putting new tires on it. Sure, it will now roll down the driveway -- but the real problems are still there. (Right-wingers will complain it's not rolling fast enough and blame the "tire-union").
Parenting in America is broken, kids in America are broken -- they live in, participate in, and admire a youth sub-culture that is vehemently anti-intellectual and anti-academic.
Kids in my neighborhood -- especially the young males -- have only two choices. They can either be a "home boy" or a "school boy" not both. Choosing the latter means they are without friends, vulnerable, and constantly harassed.
I am a teacher here in Las Vegas. My classroom is mostly Hispanics. I love teaching them. It is very hard and challenging, but very rewarding. A majority of the kids I teach come from hardworking families that have come to this country to make a better life. The students in my class that give me the most problems are the blacks and the whites. They come from horrible home lives and have a serious case of give me everything for free. They think they don't have to work for anything and don't care about school at all. I am not racist at all. I am just stating what I have learned from experience.
I don't think it would be fair for my pay to be based on these students who could care less. My students who do work their butts off and actually pay attention don't get good grades because of their language skills.
By the way, my take home pay is $39,000 a year and I have been evaluated 3 times this school year so far. I am not a new teacher.
@ScooterMom;
"Let's base your pay on how well your child does at school. Maybe then it wouldn't be too early to call!"
MEGAPROPS to SCOOTERMOM!!!
You want to know how to improve education?
HOLD PARENTS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN SPAWN.
The "Government" is NOT RESPONSIBLE for raising YOUR CHILD, nor to FORCE IT TO LEARN.
If Jilly can succeed and become successful but johnny cannot, and they are afforded the EXACT SAME OPPORTUNITIES, what's different for Jilly?
Probably a stable, 2-parent household that puts a great value on education and morality.
Now go bash your kid's teacher.
"The district is also allowing the majority of its 74 year-round schools to switch to nine-month calendars, at a savings of $15 million to $20 million."
Duh!!!!
So why did they switch to year- round schools in the first place at a cost of 15 to 20 million per year?
Yeah, let's air condition the schools at the most expensive time of the year.
Why are educators in the business of doing things other than educating?
Maintainence, janitorial and landscaping could be more effeciently handled by a competetive bidding process saving millions and ultimately reducing the long term retirement burden of these workers who are currently employed by CCSD.
Why are all savings/ shortfalls put on the backs of the students or teachers?
"Education cuts won't stop until parents step up and force lawmakers to properly fund schools, said John Jasonek, who recently retired as executive director of the Clark County Education Association and now serves as a consultant to the teachers union."
These are codewords for the only way to solve this problem is to throw more money at it. That is a load of BS.
Personally, I am more inclined to help someone who is making great effort to solve the problems they have first than to help someone who just makes the effort of sticking their hand out for a freebie.
Would you rather give a street corner "beggar" a dollar for a bottle of ice cold water or just hand over the money?
Shannon, Florida's ELL kids score almost as well as the average Nevada kid did in 1998. Same with Florida's SD kids.
They can teach their kids.
Why can't we?
What we have in Nevada is an education culture of excuses.
Scootermom, Value Added Assessment. It measures students against their own past scores, no one elses. Since each kid learns at their own pace, teachers will not be penalized or rewarded for having slow or fast learners.
Vegas is on life support. Help us Harry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pEmqutcb...
The Cartel
documentary out now about the government monopoly of K-12 education.
The educated middle-class in Vegas, what little there is will be getting out in the next few years rather than continue to send their kids to a collapsing school system. My kid will start 1st grade in two years, and I'm sure it won't be in an under-resourced CCSD classroom.
Our society has changed in the last 20 years. But the human heart of a teacher has remained the same. Teachers choose this line of work because of the greater good. I think it is unfair to reduce the pay of our teachers prior to cutting out meaningless waste. Now some teachers may not be holding their weight, but that is evident in all trades. Typically that is where the administrator would step in and try to improve or remove the problem. I think instead of funding the damn banks, we could have invested 800 billion into growing our education and boosting our production here in America. This issue of funding and budgets shows that our national and state leads clearly do not have our interest in mind. Everyone is in it for themselves. We need to revamp our systems to make America stronger from within. We have over 700 military bases around the world and now we cant pay for education in our own back yard. How sad.... Lets let them know who is in charge and vote their ass out of power come election time!!!
These legislators can continue to cut salaries, jobs, and budgets all they like, but, it's hard to balance a budget when people's hands are always in the till. You cannot tell me that there isn't some form of impropriety going on. Isn't there supposed to be a treasurer in charge of the money for the budget?
Something's afoot in the ranks of the county commission.
Can someone clarify something for me? Is it a foregone conclusion that 500+ teachers teaching 1-3 grade will be layed off come summer? I keep on reading that class sizes will be increased for 1-3 grades (the ones that have max class sizes, right?), and that various other proposals like furloughs and potentially across the board salary cuts, but the one constant appears to be that teachers teaching 1-3 grades are SOL. Is this correct?
'Catastrophic Budget Cuts' - if, like me, you lost your CCSD job on 1 July 2010 in a layoff as a result of budget cuts - then you understand catastrophic budget cuts!
Someone should investigate why the School District is still trying to buy property when no new schools will be built for years!
Millions of dollars were set aside to purchase land - yet I was criticized by the Director of Real Property - Ms. Linda Perri, for saying I thought it was stupid to buy land when people are losing their jobs - for example ME losing my job (maybe that's part of the reason I'm not there anymore).
With fewer students, increased classroom sizes, potential school closings, administrators being shuffled around (some actually losing their jobs) WHY is Real Property Management moving forward with plans to buy land or to build a new bus yard? I was only there for 1 1/2 years, but was there long enough to see self preservation is the only object!