Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumblejon ralston:
Rory’s noble yet impractical plan to rescue education
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.
Education in Nevada can be fixed by empowering principals, allowing parents the freedom to send their kids anywhere and giving the pupils neato computer programs.
And it’s free!
Rory has a plan!
Hallelujah!
When Clark County Commission Chairman Rory R--d unveiled his “plan of action to strengthen schools and reform education in Nevada” this week, it encapsulated everything that is right and everything that is wrong with the Democrat’s campaign for governor.
Here’s what’s clear about R--d’s campaign: He is seriously trying to find answers to complex issues, and he just as seriously wants to dodge any questions about how to pay for his programs. He is running away from any fiscal questions about the state’s future as fast as he is fleeing from his family name. (Check out his Web site — “Rory 2010 Nevada First.” And, apparently, in Nevada, he hopes first names are all that matter.)
R--d’s declaration that his new education plan is “revenue-neutral” is unsupportable. He simply claims: “They’ve done it elsewhere.”
If you read through the EDGE (Economic Development Through Great Education) plan — it’s clear the commissioner (or his staff) has talked to a lot of people here and elsewhere, collecting quality information and many statistics to meld existing ideas: Empowerment schools, improved technology, teacher-student accountability.
Giving him the best of it, R--d earnestly believes in what he is selling, even though some parts of the package seem costly (retaining and attracting great teachers) and unworkable (simply telling parents they can send their kids anywhere). But his sales job is replete with clichés and gimmicks, including at a town hall Monday evening at Walter Bracken Elementary School, where you once again had to admire and gag at the choreography.
I felt real sympathy pains for Guy Hobbs, the numbers maven called onstage by R--d to explain how his plan penciled out. Hobbs went to the, ahem, edge of what I call his obfuscatory fiscalspeak to dance around the question before the candidate forced him to simply say it works. And I felt a wave of nausea as invited guests acted as if the education messiah had arrived, with Maureen Peckman of the Council for a Better Nevada (aka Those Who Know Better Than All of Us About Everything) said she is behind Rory “150 percent” and “Rory gets it.” She, like most people, he hopes, apparently only knows him by his first name.
R--d, unlike Madonna or Prince or any other one-namers, is no rock star. And he knows it. Like his father (shhhhh), his dry wit is often obscured by his pallid complexion and demeanor. So he has opted to try to sway voters by being the gravitas candidate, the one unlike the desperate governor or mute ex-judge or long-shot former mayor with real ideas, encased in slick booklets with colorful pictures and bold fonts. Rory has a plan!
The politics of this are easy to understand. He has no primary — where have you gone, Barbara Buckley, a liberal Nevada turns its lonely eyes to you — so he can propose something that gets a gushing response from the conservative Nevada Policy Research Institute. And R--d disparaged his GOP opponents Monday during his media tour, saying they only want to cut education, an overstatement to say the least. “That’s not leadership,” he solemnly intoned on “Face to Face” and elsewhere.
But nor is it leadership to bamboozle a public desperate for an improved K-12 system with a different kind of EDGE plan — Education Doesn’t Get Expensive. Maybe R--d is angling for an NPRI fellowship if this whole governor thing doesn’t work out, but it’s just not credible after hundreds of millions have been chopped out of the education budget in this state.
To be fair, in comparison to his foes, R--d is the candidate of substance. But is something always better than nothing? By avoiding all talk of financial issues — it’s paid for, really, because I say so! — in advance of the fiscal apocalypse, aka Session ’11, R--d, should he become governor, will have to administer a rude awakening to a public that believed his revenue-neutral nonsense.
I have previously lamented that in the early going the debate over Nevada’s future has been disappointing and even vapid — and it’s not so early anymore. The issues are complex and nettlesome. And, yet, on the question of how to fund the state going forward, all of the gubernatorial candidates say something too offensive and too insipid to spell out:
R--d my lips.
Discussion: comments so far…
Comments are moderated by Las Vegas Sun editors. Our goal is not to limit the discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments that are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy. Additionally, we now display comments from trusted commenters by default. Those wishing to become a trusted commenter need to verify their identity or sign in with Facebook Connect to tie their Facebook account to their Las Vegas Sun account. For more on this change, read our story about how it works and why we did it.
Only trusted comments are displayed on this page. Untrusted comments have expired from this story.
No trusted comments have been posted.
Post a comment
Most Popular
- Viewed
- Discussed
- E-mailed
- UNLV can move forward without the burden of losing streak to San Diego State
- A wife’s wisdom shows birth control issue needn’t be divisive
- Motorcycle accident claims life of man in northeast valley
- Surprise links, negotiated deals addressed by commissioners
- Hope and change and … what’s missing?
- We don’t need a CEO in charge
- New York mayor has the right idea
- Paying our own way
- Country has ‘given’ citizens a lot
- Jerry Tarkanian: Mike Moser impresses yet again on a day to remember former Rebel greats
Blogs
The Kats Report
Color from scene at Thomas & Mack: We have a wire job! Rebels win, and Louie Armstrong sings!
South Point owner Michael Gaughan's take on 'Vegas Stripped': 'I'll give it an 8' (4 Comments)
Author relishes writing the life story of ‘larger-than-life’ Oscar Goodman (3 Comments)
Elsewhere
Landowner: All roads could lead to Uxbridge casino
Revel reveals smoke-free casino opening
Cirque du Soleil show in Sands China casino to close this month
Meet the woman behind Sheldon Adelson
The Sun
Locally owned and independent for more than 50 years.
Will anyone ever listen to those who know what some of the real-life classroom problems are?
Kids are coming into classes far behind in skills.
Teachers and classmates must put up with all kinds of disciplinary problems from students. They have "rights" that trump the rights of other kids, apparently.
We need more vocational education and the acknowledgment that not all students have the same academic skills or the will to work that others do.
No Child Left Behind is making school personnel put inordinate attention and time into how to improve test scores so the school won't be taken over - even though the law was obviously designed so that schools could be taken over, by demanding yearly progress toward an impossible standard of 100% proficiency.
Many parents seem to want their kids' schools to be "happy places" where teachers sweetly put up with anything from their kid and give their kid extra help and attention, and where lots of extracurricular activities are provided by adults who should not expect to see their own children very often, because their job owns them - for about 40K per year. The majority of parents seem more concerned about these things than whether their kid learns very much. They demand good grades, etc. Yesterday I had a parent become rude and obnoxious when I wouldn't drop everything and listen to her for what would probably have been about an hour after she appeared in my room after school without an appointment on the last day of the quarter and demanded my immediate attention because she was suddenly majorly concerned about her child's grades. You couldn't do that to a doctor or a dentist or pretty much anyone else, but you're allowed to do it to teachers.
I've wondered for years why Mr. Ralston is so bitter and mean spirited, especially whenit comes to people who actually want to do some good in this state. There are myriad corrupt officials who are of no substance and only care for themselves. Rory Reid is a good man, and has brought forward a serious plan with great ideas that yes, goateed-one, have actually worked other places and saved money. Your relentless mocking is not helpful except to your friends who must be working for Brian Sandoval, since he gets a pass. Isn't it worse to say nothing or just be another Gibbons? Gee, who helped Gibbons get elected originally? Same guys that now help Sandoval. Is self-righteous Jon Ralston with them too? Or maybe he wants the state to stay broken so he can continue to mock the people who want to do the right thing.
And why canonize Speaker Buckley when she wasn't exactly bursting with ideas for changing revenue structure? That thundering speech to begin last session amounted to a big fat zero.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
A Fruit Cake Piece
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Parents have the legal right to send their kids whereever they want to obtain an education. Ever heard of private shcools?
Thanks. Big Al At The Used Tire Yard
I guess having lawn signs and bumper stickers that both say Reid for Senate and Reid for Governor make better sense to Mr. Ralston. Rory is taking a chance that low information voters will not lose him on the ballot. Overall it is a good strategy.
Mr. Ralston's criticism of the lack of specificity on funding seems warranted. The rest of the column is a sort of cutesy attempt at humor that fell flat. Mike Royko would have not enjoyed this column. Molly Ivins would have complained too.
It did not pass the smile test.
save education by:
Eliminating 90% of administrators
Eliminating the phony class room size reduction
Sticking to reading ,writing, rithmatic, and American and world history teach timelines and results and leave the extremist editorials out thank you.
Finally downsize our college expectations and increase our tradeschools
most highschools should be vo techs...we are turning out a nation of boobs who go to college to learn?
Not much useful
Rory for firefighter of the year! Go Rory!
The education issue boils down to this: do the people of Southern Nevada want to be a "third-world country"? Following Congressional candidate Brad Leutwyler's campaign has been instructive. If we do not invest in education, if we do not make our schools and colleges competitive, our economic base will never diversify and we will be a service-industry "company town." Every time the national economy hiccups, we will get hit first and hardest AND we will be the last to recover. Companies building solar farms should be doing it here (and not in Austin, TX) but they cannot find scientists, engineers and technical workers in a state that gives up on children as soon as the newborn is wiped clean.
This is all so sad because if we had a diverse economic base, locals could help to ameliorate the impact of a drop in tourism. As it stands, we all sink or swim with our one-horse economy (and yes, it is one-horse because mining, the other horse, does not ever have to participate responsibly).
For some odd reason my mind's eye is seeing Jethro of the Beverly Hillbillies setting school policy here.... However, Jethro could at least cipher his numbers which puts him ahead of RR.
John,
Revenue neutral is a joke, as you pointed out. However, his concepts are tried and true elsewhere. The problem is that the "elsewhere" places all spend at least double what we spend here!. Paying teachers bonuses "costs money", getting the best "costs money", and Empowerment "costs money". Also, getting leadership that can work under the empowerment concept is very hard. This is a collaborative school system. Many principals are more autocratic in style. And, when you hold the principal totally responsible for outcomes, it is hard to expect anything different. I read Rory's plan. It makes a lot of sense-accept the revenue neutral part!
I read the previous article that contained the outline of the proposal.Detractors point out what they feel is wrong( funding for such ambitious goals) but it was a comprehensive proposal with substance and no other candidate to date has offered so much as a word regarding their individual plans outlining strategies to conquer the morass. The complexity of issues that surround our education woes reminds one of a song "This time you gave me a mountain" But I truly believe that education is the key.Because so much effort is expended to win the debate less effort is spent on actual practicalities. Here we see the reverse in motion action plan, strategy,outline, proposal in depth, critical thinking at its best.Your point is well made regarding single name rock star resemblance. Of which I am most grateful I would like my representation to reflect a more thoughtful and serious repose. However, I do most heartily enjoy the music of the aforementioned persona's.