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Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013 | 2:02 a.m.
On Monday, education advocates and activists from across the state will meet at the Legislature for Education Awareness Day. Organized by the Nevada Education Coalition, the day is branded as a chance to bring attention to the idea that “a great education for all is the most effective means of ensuring equal opportunities for everyone.” This view is seemingly the only idea upon which Nevada’s education establishment and corporate reformers agree. How to get there is an entirely different matter. Teachers unions and practicing educators call for improved working conditions and adequate funding, which they argue translate into better learning ...
Dr. Sonya Douglass Horsford is the senior resident scholar on education at The Lincy Institute at UNLV.
There is already no real "apples" to "apples" comparison of accountability for charter schools because "no excuses reformers" spent millions lobbying against it. Vouchers would surely meet the same fate with students paying the ultimate costs just as Dr. Horsford presumes. The for-profit education systems spend years demanding public school accountability only to turn around and refuse to be held accountable itself.
Nevada's state of education is consistently at the bottom of the heap. You can't make meaningful progress by using minute changes at the margins. We need major reforms and revitalization of the status quo. Governor Sandival recognizes this fact and is moving in the right direction. Teachers and administrators need to think outside the box and demand real not marginal changes. Sadly, I opine they can't, won't, don't and all the above. Time for real change from the bottom up and top down. Turn the status quo inside out. What do we have to lose? Can't hurt. We're at the bottom, in the cellar, as low as you can go. Time is now. Let er rip.
CarmineD
In the idea of making big changes, why does the US cling to a school calendar that dates back to 1850? In 1850, the US was an agricultural society with kids needed to work on the farms. Today we are an urbanized society, yet we still have a school calendar that says that kids will be workng in the fields. No other industrialized country in the world has a 180 day school calendar nor do they give their students 3 months off in a row. If you need an example, just look to the year round elementary schools that CCSD used to have. The test results were improved, attendence was better and less time was spent in reviewing after breaks
Class size has a limited and weak impact and is much much lower than teacher quality. Why is Horsford writing on this, she doesn't even know the basics, she's just politicking like her husband.
Give me a break, you are against standardized testing but won't allow tuition tax credits without it? The logic is laughably bad.
Dr. Horsford, we could randomly select students who win and use the scholarship and compare it to the control group... Ie the students who applied for a scholarship but didn't win one. No massive statewide standardized test needed.
There, a solution for your objection. Now let us have the program so we can improve the quality of education for Nevadas neediest students.
Lots of vocabulary, little insight. More money, more money, more money has not helped and will not help a broken public K-12. Fund school choice and allow options for students that PERFORM and for students with issues. Charter schools for learning disabled. "Private" schools for location, safety, concentration on subjects (majors/minors/college prep/vocational), different hours--night classes for student-parents, longer days, longer school years so students have better odds of learning.
$12,000-$16,000 per year per student and we get lots of dropouts that can't speak or write the English language. Offer a charter school an ongoing contract--say minimum of 500 students for 5 years--and see what happens. Grades 5-12 or whatever level the school wants to start with.
CSR needs CHANGE. We've been funding class size reduction in K-4, some 5-6. Let's let the schools and school districts determine class size--so they can allow somewhat larger elementary classes and somewhat smaller high school classes. We're creating some of our own problems. What does the student do when s/he is used to 15-22 students per class with individual attention and then lands in 35 students per class?