Brookings: Good policy is priority

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2014 | 2 a.m.

As a member of the Board of Trustees of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., I take great pride in the quality of the independent research the world's No. 1 think tank produces.

I am also proud of the small role I played in bringing Brookings Mountain West to UNLV and the academic status it has helped confer upon our university. Most important, though, is the impact Brookings has already had and continues to have on the quality of life in Nevada through the policy changes that result from its work.

Lately, however, an issue of plagiarism has arisen (with Brookings the victim), which is intolerable in academia. But this significant issue must not be allowed to overshadow the far more important pursuit of the policy recommendation from which it stemmed.

And that is the advancement of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in Nevada.

Toward that end, Brookings released a statement Tuesday evening that puts the matter in perspective and should end any controversy that was created.

That perspective must always be quality research driving what is best for the people of Nevada.

The statement, written by Brookings Mountain West co-directors Rob Lang and Mark Muro, follows.

—Brian Greenspun

Brookings Mountain West remains vitally interested in the many public policy issues facing Nevada, none more important than the state’s education and workforce systems. For that reason, we have focused heavily this year on the state’s critical STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education and training efforts, and in November we released a major report on the subject titled “Cracking the Code on STEM: A People Strategy for Nevada’s Economy.”

The well-received report contained numerous recommendations for improving the opportunities available to Nevada residents by improving the STEM workforce training available to them. This week, in fact, we are pleased to learn that Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Dan Klaich is now supporting a key recommendation from the Brookings Mountain West report to create a broad STEM workforce development challenge grant program aimed at supporting top-flight regional training initiatives. Brookings Mountain West looks forward to working with the Nevada Legislature, Gov. Brian Sandoval, NSHE, and the state’s Regional Development Authorities like the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance to advance this idea and others related to the state’s STEM education future.

At the same time, we wish to put behind us the unfortunate NSHE “plagiarism” issue that engulfed an early version of the Brookings Mountain West challenge grant proposal.

As we usually do in developing policy reports, we engaged in dialogues with multiple state and regional stakeholders on STEM education and training, including Chancellor Klaich.

In April, Klaich emailed Mark Muro to inform him that he was putting ideas forward on STEM education and that he wanted to use some of the concepts that we had shared with him on the topic. Klaich wanted to put it on record that he was drawing upon Brookings’ STEM ideas. Mark Muro replied that he could use our work provided he followed some basic ground rules: that the content of the Brookings STEM work be used “strictly for your [NSHE’s] edification;” and that NSHE “only loosely describe” the Brookings STEM concept. Chancellor Klaich noted he planned to present these ideas in a “panel discussion” associated with the policy development process. Yet, as it turned out, the concept memo that Muro sent NSHE was not loosely referred to as requested; rather, it was replicated almost word for word.

Also, the panel discussion turned out to be a formal presentation before an interim committee of the Nevada Senate. Our preliminary draft was thus entered into the public record as a supporting document for an NSHE STEM Challenge Grant. Staff at the Lincy Institute, which did not know about the exchange or ground rules, noticed the use of a Brooking Mountain West draft under an NSHE label and forwarded the document to Muro. It was at that point that Muro requested that NSHE provide proper attribution to Brookings.

That was done. The chancellor has apologized and we at Brookings Mountain West and the Brookings Institution consider the matter behind us. We are pleased the debate is moving forward on STEM education in Nevada.

We regard NSHE as a key stakeholder in the work of improving Nevada and look forward to constructive future engagement with its leadership. We therefore hope that this statement addresses all relevant questions concerning NSHE’s use of Brookings Mountain West’s intellectual property.

Hopefully the relevant stakeholders can return now to the work of developing a stronger system for delivering top-flight industry-led regional skills initiatives.