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Wednesday, June 30, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.
I wonder how the state teachers union and the Education Establishment are feeling theses days. After GOP gubernatorial nominee Brian Sandoval released his education plan Tuesday, we have two candidates for the state’s highest office whose ideas essentially declare public education a failure and teachers as the reason. They won’t like that characterization. But both Rory Reid and Sandoval have abandoned any pretense that they want to pay teachers more or infuse any money into one of — if not the — most pathetically funded states in the country. No, it’s about punishing bad administrators and teachers and making sure parents can opt out of schools they don’t like. Sorry, Democrats: It’s conservative vs. very conservative in the Nevada race for governor.
Hey Jon, take a look at Art Lampitt's position on education, one of his main themes is to break up CCSD into more managable, repsonsible pieces. Get R. REID to debate Lampitt sometime on this.
I would love to see Sandoval debate both R. REID and Lampitt, but I know that won't ever happen.
That said, Sandoval's plan isn't that bad. It is the cost of transporting students to better schools that I think is going to be the big problem. Holding adminstrators responsible is a good idea.
Under funded teachers = under educated students. Hold teaches responsibe yes. But hold the State responsible for not giving them the resources they need to do their jobs. Why are Nevada State Employees among the highest paid untill they get to teachers? Then the lowest!!! Education here sucks and the teachers are not to blame.
But it's so darn much easier to blame teachers and administrators than to actually try to understand and deal with problems!
Yes, they're both jumping on the current "blame the teacher" bandwagon. However, Sandoval is worse. He also proposes paying teachers according to student performance. How ludicrous.
I was considering voting for Sandoval until I read his education ideas. (Well, not really HIS ideas, because he's just joining the crowd with the teacher blame thing. It's the current ed fad, and it's intended to destroy one of the only union groups that still has some clout - though not in Nevada. It seems neither party will be content until we're in a feudal labor system or something.)
And I was considering NOT voting for Harry. But now it looks like "lesser of two evil" thinking will prevail, and I'll most likely be voting two Reids. I certainly won't be voting for Sandoval.
Where's the best education taking place these days? In private schools, in parochial schools, home-schooling... There's no incentive for public schools to improve - they have a monopoly and when they run out of money, they just get more from the taxpayers,
Why not make the public schools compete with the non-public schools...seems to me that would make them all better. Give every parent a voucher for the average annual cost to educate a child and let the parents choose from an array of accredited schools. If public schools had to compete for the education dollars, they'd improve or go out of business.
Sounds like a no-brainer to me. Competition improves quality...if it works in other areas of the the marketplace, surely it will work in education. Wjy don't we consider it? After all, education of our children is America's most precious commodity.