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Published Friday, June 3, 2011 | 2 a.m.
Updated Friday, June 3, 2011 | 11:31 a.m.
Pedro Martinez
Sun coverage
Sun archives
- Republicans get their way, mostly, in final budget (6-2-11)
- Lawmakers reach agreement on state budget (6-1-11)
- Senate passes education reforms in sign that budget deal is near (5-31-11)
- Superintendent announces plan to boost student achievement (5-26-2011)
- School Board OKs budget with at least 1,834 layoffs (5-18-2011)
- Tentative schools budget includes 2,500 layoffs, pay cuts, larger classes (3-25-2011)
- Assembly passes bill to use reserves for school construction (3-3-2011)
- Regent says it’s time that K-12 shares in budget sacrifice (2-8-2011)
- Education in forefront of upcoming budget battle (1-30-2011)
- School officials warn of jobs cuts, larger classes under proposed budget (1-26-2011)
- A steep climb for Nevadans (1-26-2011)
- Soft words during State of the State hide Nevada in pain (1-25-2011)
- Teachers not pleased with most of Sandoval’s speech (1-25-2011)
- In response, Democrats say taxes might be part of budget solution (1-24-2011)
Clark County School District officials were waiting to hear Friday how much the district’s budget will be cut for the next two years after Gov. Brian Sandoval and legislative leaders reached agreement on a state budget.
Legislators could vote as early as Saturday on the final funding package, School District Chief Financial Officer Jeff Weiler said.
Last month the School Board approved a budget that anticipated a $407.4 million deficit and included 1,834 layoffs. That was a worst-case scenario based on budget projections before the announcement of Wednesday’s deal. The actual cuts could be less and depend in part on a complex formula to distribute state dollars to school districts.
“We don’t think the worst-case scenario applies anymore, but we don’t know what the number is going to be,” Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Pedro Martinez said.
Meantime, district officials were attempting to grasp the significance of the budget agreement, which could lead to fewer layoffs and smaller-than-expected class sizes. Despite the potentially improved revenue picture Martinez was circumspect.
“Our schools, compared to other districts throughout the country, are in a very low-funded district,” he said. “There are districts in the East that get double what we get. Budget cutting always creates an additional challenge, but the superintendent and I feel we don’t want that to be an excuse.”
Under the budget deal, schoolteachers could see a reported 2.5 percent salary reduction and could be required to pay 5.3 percent of their salaries toward their retirement benefits.
Despite such uncertainty, Martinez and Superintendent Dwight Jones spoke this week of players at every level of the 37,000 employee School District taking greater personal and professional responsibility for student performance.
They stressed the shift in the approach of administrators, principals, teachers and students to boost sudden performance and graduation rates, a change that would essentially find them doing more with less. Both men think that enhanced results can occur through more efficient spending and better deployment of district personnel.
“Even with the cuts the question remains — how do we challenge the talent we have?” Martinez says. “We have some pockets of success around the district, the county. We don’t believe that the resources have been aligned as they should be.”
In the days leading to the budget agreement, School District officials spoke of ways to best use funding, with Martinez pointing to one relatively low-cost effort. It would create transition teams to monitor students as they move from elementary to middle to high schools to higher education.
Teams of teachers and administrators would discuss the challenges faced by academically challenged students. Little if any communication about individual student performance exists among schools as students graduate to the next level.
One result: UNLV President Neal Smatresk speaks of the high number of basic high school math and English courses needed for Clark County School District graduates at the university — as much as 40 percent of the district’s graduates need to retake basic English classes and 70 percent must redo math.
Meantime, Jones and Martinez have adopted a new formula to determine the district’s high school graduation rate that is expected to lower this past year’s figure from 68 percent to 51 percent, a number they say reflects reality. The goal is to establish true accountability for the failure of students, a troubling reality that finds just 1 in 10 ninth-graders eventually earning a bachelor’s degree, or about half the national average. The number is significantly lower for Hispanic and black students.
“When I look at those numbers and the demographic shift in our state,” Martinez says, “I tell our principals that if we don’t change these data points our children aren’t going to have the standard of living we want them to have.”
A recent Jones’ report said, “The costs of not educating all students well are significant. The economic costs are apparent in increased needs for unemployment and welfare, health and human services, and corrections. Less apparent are the costs of the growing distance between groups of individuals, between those who benefit more in our society and those who typically benefit less.”
Martinez said the district is building financial relationships with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation, the latter funded by home developer Eli Broad that funds a 10-month training academy for CEOs and senior executives seeking to become school superintendents. Martinez, a certified public accountant with a master’s in business administration, is a graduate of the academy who was hired by the Chicago public schools system.
The Gates Foundation gave $21 million to the Chicago school district in 2006 to establish more challenging high school curriculum, boost graduation rates and better prepare students for high school. At the time it was the foundation’s largest gift to a school district.
The Broad Foundation has given millions of dollars to the Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City public school districts, with the money targeting low-income students and public charter schools.
The Constitutional protection for the mining industry and the state laws that allow huge deductions need to undergo changes. I am not advocating the Alaska solution of a 25% royalty on oil companies, although based on recent earnings reports, that doesn't seem to have had a negative effect on their profits.Two mining companies are planning on opening mines in the Comstock Lode and the Carlin Trace.
The issue was highlighted in a recent power point presentation at the Barrick Mining annual meeting. One of the mines highlighted in the power point was the Cortez Hills Mine in Northern Nevada. According to the power point, in 2010, the mine produced 1,140,000 ounces of gold (over 35 TONS) at a production cost of $312 per ounce. During the first quarter of 2011, the mine produced 366,000 ounces (over 11 TONS) of gold at a production cost of $220 per ounce. If you project a sale price of $1000 over cost of production,that results in a profit of over $1,500,000,000. Based on what the mining industry paid in taxes in 2009, the tax payment to the state of Nevada will probably be less than 50,000,000. The power point goes on to point out that the projected production from Cortez Hills for 2011 will be between 1.30 to 1.45 MILLION ounces (40-45 TONS)at a production cost of $235-245 per ounce. This is natural resource that should provide significant benefits to the citizens of Nevada. Unless the Legislature acts quickly, another two years will pass without any significant action to change the tax structure of the state.
In 2009, the mining industry paid 48,600,000 on gross revenue of 5,800,000,000. In 2010, the gaming industry paid 416,000,000 on gross revenue of 5,800,000,000. Mining pays about 10% of what gaming pays in taxes.
It was bad enough for corporations and plutocrats to buy their way into higher education, now we see Corporate Control of primary education?
mred,
You don't want to pay for education so why complain if the Gates Trust wants to help out?
Have not seen you have a positive idea or comment in years.
Buses leave on the hour every hour. ;-)
How truly amazing it is, that zero responsibility for a child is placed onto that child's parent(s)!!!
"Despite such uncertainty, Martinez and Superintendent Dwight Jones spoke this week of players at every level of the 37,000 employee School District taking greater personal and professional responsibility for student performance."
The school district has a problem with drop-outs. This is addressed in research that is posted on Interact on Turnaround Schools. Within that 283 page document, it states several times that the problem is #1-the district's inability to accurately account for high school students who leave: move to another county, state, whatever; so they are listed as "drop-outs." #2-that the second language immigrant population of children who are not making efforts (reading, speaking, and writing in English) to support effectively their school-aged children Kindergarten through Grade 12. These points are REPEATED throughout the study! Are WE learning anything from this study?
For change to happen, we need to identify what we have been doing. For decades, we have AVOIDED addressing the problem with immigrants EFFECTIVELY. And, accounting, that is an administrative issue, nothing to do with teachers.
Let's stop the insanity of doing the same things over and over, wasting money. Someone and everyone needs to get their courage on and deal with the delicate issue of 2nd language students and immigration, illegal immigrants, and the LACK OF OPPORTUNITY FOR EQUAL EDUCATION (thanks to budget cuts, and not rightly placing responsibility for a child's education and support) now presented in our schools!
"40 percent of the district's graduates need to retake basic English classes and 70 percent must redo math."
These are the ones that make it to college. These are the ones with parents that care and want their kids to go to college. These are the motivated kids. These are the kids that graduated high school.
To all the teachers that complain of funding and the parents how do you explain this?
I agree with staralioflundnv. A 95% or above confidence level in data accuracy typically leads to everyone drawing the same conclusions making it much easier to build consensus on selecting initiatives that will lead to positive results.
Pedro you've got more money to spend per pupil than schools in Korea, Germany and most every OECD nation so do your job and educate the students and stop complaining about money.
Can someone please explain to me how this is not an 8% tax on teachers?
Patrick, please don't compare Clark County to those other countries. You know as well as anyone that the demographics are completely different. Far too many variables to make an apples to apples comparison. That type of comment is why you get so much heat from other posters.
I thought you had a good comment, Justin. Not sure if all of those kids had parents that cared, but it does show that they were pushed through the system when they weren't qualified to earn a high school degree. The remedial class statistic is disgusting. Especially considering the fact that UNLV is not a prestigious institution, by any means.
Star, you're right in that something should be done to get the parents involved and hold them accountable, but you can't just say that and ignore the reality that there are some major problems in the district. At all levels. Many of us have seen it first-hand. Administrators are a huge part of the problem, but there are some horrible teachers out there, too (along with some great ones). It certainly feels like teachers are getting most of the blame, but unfortunately, that comes with the territory when teachers are the ones that have direct access to the students. Easy for me to say, since I'm not a teacher, but it would be nice to see the teachers and their union go along with some of these initiatives, without kicking and screaming, AND push for other reforms (administrator & parent accountability). I know I'd be behind you 100%. I acknowledge that you've accepted changes to your compensation structure in the past, but I think these are real, institutional changes that Jones & co are trying to implement. Changes to compensation are a Band-Aid for the district's budget problems. Changing how the machine operates is much more important, in my opinion.
I'm so thankful I work in the private sector. This finger-pointing and furry between administrators and educators is an ugly sight. In business we pull in one direction and we find solutions together. A sad mess indeed but hopefully the school reforms will weed out the bad elements and leave in place the good ones. Best wishes to all!
Stivers keep in mind that the information on the need for CCSD graduates has more than meets the eye! Non scholarship kids going to college almost all fall into the category of needing remedial help in Math/English, maybe not quite as high as reported, because of lack of college tract courses not taken in HS. In Nevada the millennium scholarship recipients have notoriously only taken the Core classes & not taken the college prep courses because in would lower their GPA & jeopardize their scholarship.
My principal at Chaparral HS, during the 90's, tried to inform governor Guinn that this was occurring and how it was harming our AP courses that the kids were quitting in order to protect their GPA!
You pro-ed people need to check out this story of a high school that was built in Riverside and now it sits unused because the state doesn't have the funds to run it. Nice way to waste $100 million. And commonsense--I HOPE that not all parents are dumb enough to automatically pressure their kids to go to college. College isn't for everybody and there are millions of grads who have nothing to show for 4 years of higher ed except a lot of toxic student loan debt. People now owe more on their student loans than they do on their credit cards and it's one reason why our economy is in such bad shape.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?sectio...
Thousands of violent crimes were committed during the tenure of James F Nance Junior. How can we feel safe here when people like that are allowed to accepy huge amounts of taxpayer dollars and do such a miserable job?
As with all those dumb teachers, we need to fire any cop with more than 3 years of experience and get a bunch of rookies in here to PROTECT us.
Keeping those bad cops just does NOT make sense, especially when we are firing teachers because, well, parents and the culture in general along with all those dumb teachers have failed year after year to edgukate.
You can google a whole bunch of websites and check for yourself if you want to see that one out every 49 of us is in line to be robbed or murdered or raped this year. Let's fire Nance before it happens again. Let's put an end to this miserable failing cop's tenure and let him get a real job.
Since the wisdom of the school board and our governors and all the elected legislators indicates that fewer teachers would help the education of our youth, it also follows that fewer cops would help with keeping the peace.
So let's get rid of a whole slew of experienced cops to make this a safer place just as we have decided to eliminate many current and future teachers to help educate the youth.
see, this way we can move towards a smarter and safer world plus save some tax DOLLARS.
Just call our generation, the "sound byte" or "attention deficient" generation! We have the attention span of a peanut. And care about as much, it seems.
Parents should be having conversations with their children about their future and the coursework at school they are engaged in. But nowadays, it seems,both parties are busily attached to their cell phones texting and communicating other nonessential things, than to be talking with one another about an all important FUTURE.
One shoe does not fit all. Nor does one path or style in education or career training. It is a profession dealing with professionals servicing individuals and individual needs. Career education is promoted as early as elementary school. The fact is that most parents do not concern themselves with their child's career interests until the later high school years, then it is too little, too late. Careers take detailed planning that is carefully followed over time.
As both a parent and educator, I have witnessed massive dropping of the ball for our nation's youth when it comes to careers. Every single thing a child learns is somehow connected towards a career skill or tool. A child's school experiences and their education is vital towards their future success in work!
The "machine is broken," as ImproveLV points out. We need to start there,line by line, fix what is hindering quality delivery of educational services. Number 1 Asset is human = your frontline teachers. It doesn't cost money to get the students who are major distractions and troublemakers out of the classroom. That requires teacher support. It doesn't cost money to provide remedial and transitional education for ELL/ESL students in a separate environment until they are prepared to read, write, and count at grade level in ENGLISH, so they don't hold up the rest of the students throughout a whole school. That requires another room and a willing teacher and support. Use what already exists on site.
The school district has many state of the art programs, high quality internet education and support, and adequate infrastructure. What seems to be lacking is the courage to do something different to evoke changes. Fear about being "politically correct" is costly BILLIONS of DOLLARS YEARLY in our current educational system and is keeping us from meaningful changes!
Students' parents need to be held accountable for their child's current and future success. They have until age 18 legally to do it. By middle school, parents should be regularly talking about careers, should have made an appointment with the school guidance counselor to map out a career path, and be actively enhancing home activities that support their child. Give youth opportunities to do chores that have job skills. Provide constructive feedback. Demonstrate how things are done correctly so they learn to do it. Be there.
Let's start with fixing what is broken, even if it bothers 'some' people.
Airweare, I don't know about cops and teachers, but I'm sure we could get rid of a lot of firemen and the city wouldn't be any less safe (I assume you've been following the outrage over firemen earning $180K a year). As for all the money you want us to spend on education--you must think we can just print money. They tried that in Zimbabwe and the result was 10,000 % inflation.
Bob,
Pedro failed in his last two positions, it is too bad CCSD didn't care about Pedro's past performance and hired him anyway.
Chicago, http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chic...
Reno, http://myinclinevillage.com/2011/03/21/i...
We in Reno are glad to get rid of him, it would have been better if he left NV.