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StumbleAd points to accomplishments of high school seniors
Ex-first lady collects stats, donations for a full page of good news
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 | 2 a.m.
Sun coverage
Sandy Miller
Walt Rulffes
Ross Miller
Opening up the newspaper a few weeks ago, an advertisement caught the eye of Sandy Miller, former first lady of Nevada and namesake of an elementary school.
The Meadows School, the private nonprofit campus in Summerlin, used the space to congratulate its graduating seniors on their accomplishments.
Miller thought it was a great idea and wondered why there wasn’t a similar announcement praising the Clark County School District’s class of 2010.
The full-page ad she organized (with the district’s blessing) ran Sunday.
There’s been plenty of disheartening news this year about education in Southern Nevada. The district is struggling with massive budgets cuts. The graduation rate, reported at 68 percent for 2009, will probably take a hit when the state switches to a new formula required by the U.S. Education Department. And next month it’s expected that hundreds of local schools will fall short when the federal “No Child Left Behind” report cards are issued, partly because of increases in the minimum percentage of students who must demonstrate proficiency on standardized tests.
But amid those clouds there are bright spots of sunshine.
Consider this — the district has 16,350 graduates this year, including 162 valedictorians, 3,017 honors diplomas, 164 Advanced Placement scholars, 31 National Merit finalists, nine National Merit scholars and 24 service academy appointments.
Additionally, Clark County seniors were awarded more than $176 million in scholarships and will attend a wide range of colleges and universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio State, Notre Dame, the University of Chicago, Brigham Young, UC-Berkeley, UNR and UNLV.
“I’m just so frustrated that people don’t realize if you want a good quality public education in Clark County, stay in our public high schools,” Miller said Tuesday. “I do believe, from the bottom of my heart, the district does a great job. If only more people knew that.”
Miller sought private donations to help pay for the page, which cost about $9,500. She didn’t have much trouble finding willing donors, including Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes, Secretary of State Ross Miller, the Public Education Foundation, Glenn and Ande Christenson, Tim and Kathy Harney and HSBC Bank Nevada, among others.
The first check came from Candy Schneider, director of education and outreach for the Smith Center for the Performing Arts.
“I go into the schools and see the dedication of the teachers and the administrators, the students and the parents,” said Schneider, who spent more than three decades as an arts educator in the district. “The commitment they have is amazing. I’m not sure that story is told as often as it should be.”
The intent was to shine a spotlight on the deserving seniors, not to gloss over the district’s myriad challenges, said Assemblywoman Marilyn Dondero-Loop, D-Las Vegas, who made a contribution to help pay for the ad.
“Even with all the things we do need to work on, there are wonderful things we need to acknowledge,” said Dondero-Loop, whose three daughters graduated from local high schools. “It’s important to celebrate the triumphs.”
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Dhvincent1: The total number of valedictorians has actually declined in recent years as they've changed the calculation formula and given greater weight to the most difficult classes.
But it's still not uncommon for one school to have a half-dozen or more students "tie" with identical grade-point averages at the top of the scale.
Most high schools (public) on the east coast (one high school) have a better list of colleges that graduates are attending than our entire state.
You should address the problem, the school board is too big and needs to be divided down to NLV, LV, Summerlin and Henderson. Tons of studies back this up but the unions do not like it. You have a state run by whims of unions and you have the public education system you deserve.
I went to a public school in a small town of 28,000 and two of us went to Harvard (graduating class of 62 people). Size matters. It matters because the smaller school boards actually listen and can be influenced by the demands of parents.
BrianJ,
I teach seniors, and I have students headed to Harvard, Yale, MIT, UCLA, USC, University of Chicago, UC-Berkeley, and other top 100 universities. So what exactly is your compliant?
We are 50th in the nation. 50th. Is your question rhetorical? Perhaps you do not teach geography but if you google the number of states in the USA, you will find that we cannot get worse (unless we add some states). Perhaps that is where the unions should spend their money to make us better than "worst in the nation", lobbying the government to add some more states. It is obvious that they prefer strategies like that rather than FIXING the problem.
The system is the problem. Let's not hide that.
Hopefully this is your day off and you are not a work surfing the internet.
BrianJ,
You have no Idea what you are talking about! So you mean break up the school district into City Districts. We would then have several school boards who must be elected and so forth. The new school districts would would still be among the largest 50 in the nation. Also, The unions have nothing to do with the current structure of districts in Nevada as they are not even true unions (Can't Strike) and membership is only about 10% of the total number of teachers. AS for 50th, we are 50th in public ed. spending. The Meadows School charges over 20K per year per student. Public Ed. spends 5K in Nevada. A bit of a difference don't you think?
@pattina. It is shameful that we are 50th in ANYTHING much less education for our children. I don't care if it is spending, number of valedictorians, or percentage of kids wearing pants where they should, there is NO reason for us to be last. Why are you comparing us to the Meadows, we know they charge for school. But what about the 49 states ahead of us. This truly is a disgrace that we don't provide better for our children. The casinos pay the lowest percentage of taxes in Nevada than any other state that they do business in. In Pennsylvania its almost 50%. And they say they can't raise taxes to help our education needs because it will hurt business, YET WYNN RAISES HIS RESORT FEE TO $20 PER DAY.
pattina, I believe we're ranked 50th, or very close to that, in high school graduation rates, too.
Not sure if you were making the point to say that there's a correlation between the amount of dollars spent and the results we get, or if you were disputing the fact that we were ranked 50th. I personally think that we can spend more money on good teachers, get rid of the bad, and not worry about where we rank in PPE. By the way, we weren't ranked last in the list that I saw, but I think that was a couple of years old. We need to worry about the performance of the students, and not about how much money we spend. Blindly throwing money at the problem isn't smart (I'm not saying you agree or disagree, just making the point), but if smaller class sizes, bonuses for good teachers, etc. have a significant impact on the student results, then we should spend what we need to spend. I don't care if we spend less money on adult education, and other non student instruction related programs.
Pattina;
You see having to elect separate boards as the problem? No, that is a good thing. And we all would NOT have to elect four boards, you would only get to vote on ONE board in your area.
This will make each board accountable to its local voters. The smaller the better. Your point about the four STILL being TOO big is great, that means you agree that the ONE we currently have is morbidly obese.
I think your per student cost is off. I believe it is $9,500 if you check.
Money per student has nothing to do with it either but as a teacher excuse. Once again, the poor rural area I grew up in had nowhere near this kind of money (taxes only from dead farm land), and my public education was outstanding. It is about SIZE and interest groups having too much influence in keeping the status quo.
Personally, I will move my business out of this state as my children approach school age.
The facts are that the largest school districts do the worst at graduation and graduate's SAT & ACT scores. This fact is compounded by the fact that the districts with the largest individual institutions, 4000 students per high school, also are low performing education facilities (CCSD builds big builings), not schools.
CCSD is at the bottom of the top 5 largest school districts (NY, Chicago, LA & Houston), then again in all of these districts you have an opportunity to move to the suburbs and find a better school district.
CCSD is a monopoly. No where to move to get out of CCSD!
CCSD needs to to eliminated and replaced with smaller, yes still large, school district.
Five school districts would, in fact, create community involvement and community pride. Multiple school districts would create competition where the better districts would add value to the community and property values, parents and business will support their districts.
The worst performers could not cry and give excuses because they would have to explain how they are not able to do what their "sister" district do.
Do not tell me this will not work because the district in Reno gets the same funding and has less than 100,000 students. PHX/Mesa and SLC/Ogden/Provo all do better with multiple districts and in fact SLC just broke up their largest district.
Surely the CCSD spin machine will suggest "they are not against the idea, but it will cost more money". How does Reno manage????? Just a self fulfilling prophesy from the overpaid, non responsive, unaccountable CCSD city of superintendents and Board (bored boars).
The only possible solution is to demand that Nevada's lawmakers draft a Bill and vote to mandate school districts have no more than 100,000 students, it would not affect Reno's district; only CCSD!
PS...how about a link to see the AD?
The idea was great so why not let the readers see it online???
great post, peaches. Not sure how I feel about a mandate specifying a number of students, though it sounds good now. I just worry that there will come a time where that specific number doesn't make sense, and it will take another act of God to change it.
I've sent emails with similar thoughts to Terri Janison, but haven't received a response. I realize that she has a vested interest in keeping things the way they are, but I'm not positive who else I should reach out to. Sandoval? Reid? Horsford? I just don't know enough about the process to target the right people.
good luck with mrs weatherman (janison).
Terri ran on a platform that included breaking up the CCSD, that was six years ago. Two years ago she had finished her first term on the "Board" and had been fully assimilated into the system of special interests.
Not a single member of the CCSD Board will respond, unless you are Sig Rogich, Gary Gray or Billy V., then they bend over.
The only hope is to demand your State Legislators take a position and act to limit the local school district(s) size.
It is election time and every potential Nevada lawmaker needs to be held to a response on this single item. The next Governor would need to sign any law, a Governor with leadership could even submit the "Bill Draft".
Everyone needs to contact their legislators; tell them to break up the CCSD.
Mr. Sun author; how about the link to the AD?
I was out of town last weekend and want to see the good work!
Don't wonder what will happen if they would mandate a number of students per district. Its easy to figure. That would be the first thing to go if districts ran into financial difficulties. The state set class size limits some time back so our children would not be sitting in overcrowded, understaffed classrooms, and that has fallen by the wayside whenever there have been any hint of financial issues.
Until parents get seriously involved and demand classroom level, visible improvements that have more to do with their child's daily contact with the educational system, and continue from there to see that they as parents are responsible for requiring the state to spend their funds wisely for education, little will change, no matter what size each district is.
Urban district, rural district, private school, charter school or homeschool...success comes from those involved taking responsibility. Wherever you came from, a group was or was not committed to the education of the community's children.
Regardless of the economy, Nevada's and Clark County School's educational programs rank poorly because we don't value education highly enough to do what is necessary to make it work here. Those responsible include the students, school personnel, parents, AND Nevada taxpayers, businesses, organizations and elected officials who expect to live in an environment that values educated and productive citizens.
It does take funds, and we have never spent generously and wisely on education in Nevada. Everyone decides it is not their responsibility after all, and that it was a bad year for business, and our "Education Politicians" weasel out every time on the reality of approaching taxpayers for education funding even in good years!
Quibbling over whether the ranking is actually 50th or not quite...? Pretty much avoiding the real issue of doing something about it.