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Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013 | 2:04 a.m.
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval delivers the State of the State address at the Legislature in Carson City on Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013.
Sandoval's top three issues
1. K-12 education
2. Higher education
3. Getting Nevadans working again
Other views
The Sun's opinion page provides a wide range of opinion about the start of the 2013 Legislature.
From the Sun:
The Sun's editorial Break the status quo.
Brian Greenspun's "Where I Stand" column.
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Elected officials
Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson
Assembly Minority Leader Pat Hickey
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Political scientist
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Political journalists
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Have your own opinion?
Write a letter to the editor.
The most important action Nevada Legislators can take during the upcoming legislative session is to train their eyes on our state’s most important resources — our students and educators.
For decades, Nevada’s public education system has struggled to keep up with increasing demands. Over the past 20 years, our K-12 schools have been some of the fastest growing in the nation. The rapid growth in student population forced our school districts to invest heavily — and quickly — in educators, capital improvements and administrative systems to manage the growing student population. Sometimes they did this with great success, sometimes they did not.
Compounding the demands of student growth was the fact that as the population grew, the demographics changed. A significant portion of our student growth was made up of English-language learners, and today more than 15 percent of our students are English-language learners. In the Clark County School District alone, there are 50,000 ELL students representing more than 150 languages.
When the Great Recession hit Nevada, unemployment rose, housing foreclosures increased, and state and local tax revenues plummeted. The reduced revenue levels required sometimes difficult cuts to state and local spending.
The pressure of student growth, demographic changes and reduced funding resulted in problems that persist. We have too many students who struggle to read at grade level, our graduation rates remain dishearteningly low, good educators labor to remediate students who have fallen behind and we have too many students who are neither college nor career ready when they graduate.
That said, as we embark on the 77th legislative session, the outlook is improving. Our unemployment rate has fallen, foreclosures are down, job growth is up, and the ability to make more resources available to our schools is on the rise. What’s more, last year graduation rates in Clark County rose slightly, third-graders in Washoe County posted their highest reading scores ever, and high school math and science performance across the state increased.
But we can do more.
This legislative session represents our opportunity. We must start with the early years of a child’s schooling, focus resources on the ELL population, take a targeted approach to improving high school graduation rates and ensure that the marketplace of education ideas is as dynamic as possible. That’s why I’ve proposed expanding all-day kindergarten, funding locally designed ELL programs, expanding a proven drop-out prevention program and creating opportunity scholarships for the state’s most at-risk students.
I am also proposing a focus on educators. Last session, the Legislature and I worked together to pass historic educator effectiveness reforms. These reforms establish the backbone against which we will evaluate not only the success of educators and schools, but of ourselves as well. No one single group bears the burden of moving our state’s education system forward. We must therefore continue the implementation of this system while also recognizing the need to give teachers the tools they need to meet the new standards. My budget includes a significant investment in teacher development and effectiveness training dollars to do just that.
This legislative session, it’s vital that we focus on our students and teachers — they are my most important priority. Of course, there are other matters to consider. We must be vigilant in protecting our fragile economic recovery and continue to work hard to create jobs in our state.
I am optimistic that by working together, we can make great progress toward ensuring the promise of opportunity for all Nevadans.
Brian Sandoval is the 29th governor of the state of Nevada.
Governor Sandoval is absolutely right by putting children and their educations first in the state of Nevada's budget priorities. Children are our most precious resource and the more that we do to encourage, support, and teach them to be productive citizens in the future, the better we will become.
CarmineD
Carmine I'd say what he needs to do first is have people that can actually run the district correctly. I still don't think its the money more so the organization.
Dear Governor,
What you listed are positive steps.
I hail from a state(Texas) that has a higher high school graduation rate among Hispanics at 81% versus 53% here in Nevada. Texas Hispanics however, are below the US average in college graduation rates at 40% versus 51% nationally so we have some work still to do. IMHO, Texas has focused much better on Hispanics from Mexico learning english which helps Hispanics learn and graduate from high school.
Reducing the number of high school dropouts has been identified as a key issue for the state's economic success. A Texas A&M University study from 2009 found that one year's class of dropouts costs Texas $9.6 billion in lost wages, reduced sales tax and welfare expenses.
Lifetime earnings
Young people who receive their high school diplomas earn about $630,000 more during their lives than those without diplomas or GEDs, according to a National Council of La Raza report released earlier this year.
In 2010-2011, Texas allocated $500 million in state and federal funding for dropout prevention and recovery initiatives.
I'm in favor of spending funds to give minorities the help and resources necessary to graduate high school. Nevada needs to turn around the graduation rates for Nevada minorities(Black =43%,Hispanic=53%, Limited English-proficient students=29%).
My guess is that most Nevadans would support increased education funding that would identify and help those who need help graduating from high school the most. The funding needs to support a program that leads to a favorable student outcome, not just money going into a general pool of education funds.
The extra focus on helping ELL and minorities learn and graduate high school is a step in the right direction.
Way to gloss over so many problems without actually offering a single solution that will fix them. The truth is that only increased funding will fix these problems and he has already stated that he is opposed to actually funding any solutions that data proves will fix them. We need $175 million for ELL funding, we currently offer $0, and he's stated he support less than $10 million.
Governor Sandoval made it perfectly clear he's unwilling to negotiate across the aisle in 2011, but he somehow thinks people should just believe that he has citizens as his core interest even though he's worked tirelessly to fortify mining corporations' profits and to give sweetheart deals to other corporations looking to exploit workers for personal profits?
The Sandoval strategy is to do nothing, say you support everything, and hope they vote for your reelection. Nevada citizens need to be smart enough to not buy the wizard behind the curtain act.
Since I am actually in the educational trenches, please consider my "revenue-neutral" suggestion: put ENforcement teeth in the taxpayer funded, yearly administrated, Nevada public schools, "PARENT/TEACHER/STUDENT INVOLVEMENT ACCORD".
Last legislative session, Lawmakers enacted laws to make administrators and teachers accountable with a new evaluation system. You cannot possibly isolate the vital roles the parents, caregivers, and students play in their own outcomes with education.
We already have available an ENforcement system, through administrators, school counselors, truant officers, school police, office clerks, and the juvenile justice system. So let's EMPOWER them!
Only until all parties are involved, will any meaningful and effective outcome happen. It will take great courage and a backbone to address and hold accoutable and liable, the parent, a child's first and lifelong teacher. Also, children must be held accountable for their action or inaction in regards to their own enlightenment and formal education. The current standard is simply whether or not they graduate. Waiting for that time does not and will not serve them very well. Our economy continues to suffer because of it. The lives of thousands of young people lie in the support they are given on the road to graduate, and that includes support from the parent/caregiver AND the educational system.
But what happens when the child refuses to study and practice what they have learned? Or when there are chronic problems with a child's emotional state or physical state coming TO school from their home? There are many educators there wanting to help, but whose hands are tied. Lawmakers need to address this.
Blessings and Peace Respectfully,
Star Ali Mistriel