Good education improves many areas of society

I enjoyed reading the Las Vegas Sun’s Wednesday editorial, “Education and economics,” and agree that quality of education is crucial to enabling a lasting economic recovery, both in this state and in the nation at large. For our nation to remain competitive, we need highly educated, skilled workers who can solve problems and innovate to expand our economy.

Because of its relatively large population, Las Vegas cannot afford to depend solely on the disposable income of tourists, and it needs to diversify its economic base. This can only happen if we have a highly educated populace, which will be difficult to achieve in the current anti-intellectual climate where some of Nevada’s political, business and social leadership do not support public expenditure for education, making this one of the nation’s most underperforming states in that field.

There is no better investment in America’s future than in ensuring that our students can properly achieve their full natural potential via improvement of, and strong support for, our educational system.

The writer is a physics professor at UNLV.