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By Paul Takahashi (contact) 
Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012 | 2 a.m.
Beyond the Sun
Related stories
- With ‘No Child’ no longer in play, Nevada looks to its own strategies, goals (8-9-2011)
- Nevada gains waiver from federal No Child Left Behind law (8-8-2012)
- School District put on No Child Left Behind watch list (8-3-2011)
- School District sees big drop in test scores (7-14-2011)
- States brace for grad rate dips as formula changes (7-27-2011)
- Effect on Nevada unclear as Obama calls for education reform (3-14-2011)
- More states defying federal gov’t on education law (7-21-2011)
Sun coverage
For more than a decade, Nevada’s public schools were required to meet annual academic benchmarks set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
The goal was to improve every year until all American students became 100 percent proficient in math and reading by the 2013-14 school year.
It was a noble goal, but one that educators found soon enough to be unattainable. As testing standards were raised higher and higher each year, it became harder and harder for schools to meet the law’s “adequate yearly progress” measure.
As the years went by, more and more schools across the country were deemed “failing.”
In 2008-09, nearly 60 percent of Nevada public schools made “adequate yearly progress.” By 2010-11, just 45 percent of schools made the grade.
However, the Silver State reversed the downward spiral despite tougher standards.
Last school year, 49 percent of the state’s 688 public schools passed No Child Left Behind, which represents an increase of 4 percentage points. It was a remarkable improvement for a state that will soon replace No Child Left Behind with its own education accountability system by next school year.
Nevada’s rebound was fueled in large part by significant gains in the Clark County School District, which experienced increases in graduation rates and test scores last year.
Those improvements translated to a 3-percentage point increase in the number of Clark County schools making “adequate yearly progress” — from 40 percent in 2010-11 to 43 percent last school year.
Still, the fact remains that the majority of Nevada and Clark County schools are deemed “failing” by the federal government.
Last school year, Nevada schools were supposed to hit the benchmark of having 77 percent of students proficient in math and 76 percent of students proficient in reading.
Of the 368 schools in Clark County, just 156 (43 percent) met those targets, according to the most recent data released by the Clark County School District on Monday.
It’s difficult to meet these targets because, under No Child Left Behind, schools had to demonstrate achievement in all student subgroups. Failure to show improvement among any student group — even challenging ones such as English Language Learners or special education students — means that the entire school fails.
This all-or-nothing policy became a source of frustration for educators, who complained their students were making immense strides but still didn’t quite make the proficiency cuts.
However, Nevada recently received a waiver from the federal government, freeing it from the ever-rigorous No Child requirements. This waiver paves the way for Nevada to finish implementing a new system of accountability for schools.
“(Adequate yearly progress) was a train wreck for the whole country,” said Ken Turner, an education consultant who is trying to reform the Clark County School District. “We’re replacing it with something better.”
Nevada can keep its waiver as long as it adopts a statewide school rating system, develops a more-rigorous Common Core curriculum and implements a new teacher evaluation system that accounts for student performance.
Nevada will have to report "adequate yearly progress" for one more year until it meets these three requirements. But the state is well on its way.
Last year, the Clark County School District implemented a school rating system, which measures schools on a 100-point scale that largely hinges on students’ academic growth and proficiency scores.
Nevada will pilot a new teacher evaluation system by the end of this school year. The state is also entering its final year of a three-year rollout of the Common Core Standards, which will bring a new state standardized test that proponents argue will better evaluate students’ critical thinking skills.
Although No Child Left Behind’s “adequate yearly progress” will likely be a thing of the past, its focus on school accountability will endure in Nevada, Turner said.
“We believe raising the standards and ratcheting up expectations is just right,” he said. “We still know there’s a lot of work ahead — we’re still not faring the way we should be. But, along with Colorado, Nevada is leading the nation in improvements.”
Break up the school districts. Henderson will lead the way, with stellar performance, while LV and God help us NLV will trail. It's all about the parents (parent in NLV). Teachers can't change culture.
It's not 'annual yearly progress.'. It's adequate yearly progress. Annual and yearly are redundant.
"Less than a third of Clark County schools made the grade under No Child Left Behind in the 2011-12 academic year, marking a new low for the country's fifth-largest district."
"Although a record low, the decline in local schools meeting federal requirements is nothing new."
http://www.lvrj.com/news/clark-county-sc...
"Last school year, 49 percent of the state's 688 public schools passed No Child Left Behind, which represents an increase of 4 percentage points. It was a remarkable improvement for a state that will soon replace No Child Left Behind with its own education accountability system by next school year."
Who's telling the truth?
Readers need to understand how No Child Left Behind could never work: every year, although there is growth, the STANDARD was raised, so all the schools had to do 5-10% EACH year, compounding the expected rate. Can we ever expect, with all reason and all givens, that ALL the students (including students born with half to a tiny part of their brain functional)enrolled in public schools, including those with profound life and learning challenges, to ever read or do math at 100% in 5, or even 10 years?
The FACT is that No Child Left Behind had an impossible to achieve goal to begin with, and those who truly profitted from this ill conceived educational agenda were: the publishers, test makers, score analyzers, "consultants", administrators in every sector involved with education, etc.
No Child Left Behind, authored by Diane Ratevitch, denounced it later and claimed it to be a terrible mistake.
Education in the United States of America is under the influence of corporate billionaires. No Child Left Behind and (the competition for educational funding) Race to the Top are promoted by these Billionaires as well as these Billionaires are also receiptiants benefitting from publishing, testing, analysis, other industries, etc. Can you see how the very wealthy, powerful, elite billionaires of the USA, are are unfairly influencing public education? To uncover this little known truth, please take the time to read the Winter, 2011, Dissent article, "Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools," by Joanne Barkan.
http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?arti......
Futher read:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/aug...
This responds to (Governor Sandoval's Educational consultant) Michelle Rhea(StudentsFirst) and the anti-public education movie, Waiting for Superman, and this article in Disent sets the facts straight about WHO is really controlling public education...and it ain't the public!
Part 1 of 2
Blessings and Peace,
Star
Continued, Part 2 of 2:
From the Dissent article, Ms. Barkan writes, "All children should have access to a good public school. And public schools should be run by officials who answer to the voters. Gates, Broad, and Walton answer to no one. Tax payers still fund more than 99 percent of the cost of K-12 education. Private foundations should not be setting public policy for them."
See the YOUTUBE interview: http://youtu.be/bat-ByGSWa8
Thomas Friedman, in Other Voices with the Las Vegas Sun's article found on, http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/sep...
stated, "There is a quote attributed to the futurist Alvin Toffler that captures this new reality: In the future "illiteracy will not be defined by those who cannot read and write, but by those who cannot learn and relearn." Any form of standing still is deadly."
No Child Left Behind leaves children behind. It did not take long for Nevada and CCSD to realize that it was a recipe for disaster. In response, they began to look at options as the Growth Model, which deals with the given realities educators and students face. Finally, we are on the road to not only recovery, but success for our students.
Blessings and Peace,
Star
Tick,
You do realize Clark County is not the only county in Nevada right?
Both stats are correct.
Ms. Smith
Yes I do, and thank you for pointing out Clark County schools were one of the worse performing in the state. Does this mean Clark County is dragging the rest of the state down? That makes me fell so much better now.
Thanks for the catch, Nancy (@ASadTeacher). We've updated the story.
@Tick. You also do realize that many of the smaller district get more per pupil funding than CCSD does from the state. The class sizes in the rural district are also much smaller than CCSD. Do you think those two facts might make a difference?
Tanker1975
So your telling me that Mr. Duggan's post may be correct? That Clark County is dragging the rest of the state down because it's is too big and should be broken up into separate Districts? May be your right!
@Tick. The Nevada Constitution requires that each county have one school district, so what you are proposing would require a constitutional amendment. The per pupil allocation of resources doesn't reflect the size of the districts. Why should a district with less than 200 students get more than 3 times the per pupil funding of CCSD? Almost 75% of the students in Nevada belong to CCSD. CCSD has the largest class sizes in the state. The students in the smaller districts stay with the same teachers, even in high school. If we want to improve results, maybe we need to follow the model of the rural districts. Small class sizes, increase the per pupil funding to the same levels as the rurals. Apparently, that model works, so why won't it work here in CCSD?
I am so sick and tired of hearing how our schools are failing because of "single family homes" or because of the parents. Yes, part of the situation is a direct result of homelife, but 2/3 of our students cannot pass a MINIMUM BASIC SKILLS test! A single family home makes the difference between a C- and an A+ or even a D- and an A+, but complete failure? No way. Besides, that's the job folks! These are the students you're paid to teach. TO TEACH! And you're not getting the job done. I would LOVE it if just for once a teacher came forward with one idea about what they are going to do to overcome the obstacles they are complaining about. Truth: It's not because they're hungry, or shy, or bulllied, or because mommy is a cocktail waitress. It's because YOU aren't teaching them - for whatever reason. Stop using the exceptions to justify your failure to educate the majority.
Tanker1975
Please direct me to the NRS that "requires each county to have one school district". Thank you
Skeptical about the hype coming out of the school district, past and present hype. It is NOT rocket science to teach reading, writing, rithmetic. We continue to spend a fortune on each and every student in public K-12 but with abysmal results. Richard Dean says it well. Sounds like teachers need to emphasize teaching the basics--before grade 4--or that student is all but lost and we CANNOT AFFORD REMEDIAL programs for everybody. Longer school days and longer school years are clearly necessary. The public is saturated with complaints from teachers who don't perform. I understand the challenge for reporters covering education--to not alienate the teachers while trying to explain the issues. But enough with the cries for more money. They're not using the fortunes they get each year, not using the money to TEACH OUR KIDS TO READ.
Tanker: The rural counties get more money per student because they cannot function without it. What do you do with 11 kids in 6th grade? Just 11. So the class size IS smaller. How does an SD pay a teacher for 11 kids? With a few bucks more from DSA. And consider that rural counties get nothing from LSST / Sales Tax funding--which CCSD gets in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Tick, Tanker, the world: NRS and even the Nevada Constitution do have requirements but those LEGAL REQUIREMENTS CAN BE CHANGED. K-12 in CCSD and many other places is DYSFUNCTIONAL. Past time to change the way we do K-12. Let's start by subsidizing parents who home school--give them a stipend of at least half the dsa funding the school district would get. Ditto for teachers sacrificing to send kids to private / parochial schools--could even "require" the school have a performance record equal to or exceeding CCSD.
Wynn Romney Adelson: these kids are part of the 47% - so take them out to the garbage dump, they are entitlement non-entities that don't count. Let them get jobs cleaning Sheldon's gold plated toilets. If they were any good, they would have been born with trust funds likes Romney's 5 sons.
The problem is the educational system and it's proponents -- educating the public does not mean the same thing as public education. The goal of "educating the public" is learning, irregardless of race, faith or economic status (everywhere else in the world, it is usually measured by standarized testing). "Public education" is a unionized one size fits all bureuacracy whose main objective is preservation and expansion of the bureacracy (measured by funding and personnel). We need to jettison "public education" and come up with policies that support "educating the public", probably with a competitive scholarship system for K-12. Maybe Gov S should get to work on that instead of touring the state on a PR campaign better suited for someone like Dolly!
Whatever amount the district spends per each pupil should be attached to the kid, then let the parents decide which school to spend the money at, either private, public or charter.
Public (government) schools will not improve until the money is attached to the students and the parents have real school choices.
Hey Star, your Dissent Magazine link won't open. I find it ironic that teachers condemn Wall Street excess and corporate interests, but NVPers as well as CalPERS and CalSTRS are heavily invested in the stock market, and they all assume a Bernie Madoff fictional 8% annual growth in their pension funds. (In case you didn't know, the 10 Yr. treasury bond only pays 1.8% !!) Not only that, but teachers pressure kids to go to college and don't warn them about the predatory nature of student loans, and banks are more than happy to put a whole generation of kids in massive debt. Have you been reading the "Degrees of Debt" series in the NY Times? The latest installment talks about the BIG business of student loan collection.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/busine...
Tanker1975
Are there not some schools doing well in CCSD now? They receive the same funding per student, my understanding, and have same class size as others in the District. Yet, there are other schools at are underachieving, why? It's obviously not the funding problem or class size reduction issue. There was 3% increase in CCSD making "adequate yearly progress", as the report states.
@Tick. The schools that are doing well are the schools that have high parental involvement, or have the ability to pick and choose the students that are admitted. I am talking about the Magnet and Tech Schools. The part you are looking for is in Article 11, Section 3 of the Nevada Constitution.
@Roslenda. The rural counties get additional funding from mining that is not available to the rest of the school districts. Yes, the class size is smaller and you only need one teacher to teach that grade. Look at Eureka, etc.
Gee, Noindex, that would be $11K-$15K per year depending on inclusion of cost of school construction. That's why I say we spend a small fortune on each and every student--upwards of $150,000 for K-12. The status quo is simple unacceptable. Money will not fix this unless it means taking money away. Catholic schools are able to teach it all in much larger classes, upwards of 60 students in some places. More parents would opt into alternatives if we INSIST ON RESULTS.
Some readers would benefit from visiting their neighborhood school and observe what is going on. In the first few weeks of school, there are benchmark assessments ALL teachers in the trenches are mandated to do. Students are returning from their summer break, or any extended break from school, needing remedial practice because they have not bothered to read or do a few math practice exercises in the interrim. There are new students coming in from outside schools that may present other dynamic issues (unbeknowst to their new teachers).
Education is not a "one size fits all," deal. There is a place for ALL avenues of education, other than the classic neighborhood school classroom setting. Some of these avenues may be more appropriate and least restrictive for some students. Citizens need to do whatever works for them and their child(ren). No matter what, all children in our country deserve and are entitled to an education and should be equipped to LEARN.
Blessings and Peace,
Star
Since March of 2011, Ken Turner has been paid as a consultant to CCSD. Transparent Nevada shows that he has been paid $250,000. The monthly rate is $16,666.66.
Allison Serafin, the candidate for the State School Board, and the former executive director of Teach For America, has been paid as a consultant to CCSD since June 2011. The payments total over $134,000.
This is the link for Ken Turner.
http://transparentnevada.com/ccsd-warran...
This is the link for Allison Serafin.
http://transparentnevada.com/ccsd-warran...
Since Government Schools are a Marxist concept, and since Karl Marx adhered to the "principle of Reversal," keen observers have known right along that the real meaning of "No child left behind" is "EVERY CHILD LEFT BEHIND." :-D
Tanker1975
"@Tick. The Nevada Constitution requires that each county have one school district"
Help me out here buddy. There was nothing that stated the school districts had to be a County. I'm not a scholar in Constitutional Law, but I don't see it. It talks of money going to the counties. Talks of one school established and maintained in a school district.
Article 11:
Sec. 3. Pledge of certain property and money, escheated estates and fines collected under penal laws for educational purposes; apportionment and use of interest.
"The interest only earned on the money derived from these sources must be apportioned by the legislature among the several counties for educational purposes, and, if necessary, a portion of that interest may be appropriated for the support of the state university, but any of that interest which is unexpended at the end of any year must be added to the principal sum pledged for educational purposes."
"Section 2. Uniform system of common schools. The legislature shall provide for a uniform system of common schools, by which a school shall be established and maintained in each school district at least six months in every year, and any school district which shall allow instruction of a sectarian character therein may be deprived of its proportion of the interest of the public school fund during such neglect or infraction, and the legislature may pass such laws as will tend to secure a general attendance of the children in each school district upon said public schools."