CCSD Trustees Banking On Taxpayers Signing Blank Check »
(Victor Joecks/NPRI) – Earlier today, CCSD trustees approved a proposal to raise taxes by $669 million over the next six years. The plan must clear a couple of more hoops and then it goes to the voters in November. This is not a bond campaign, because the CCSD trustees are going to propose a pay-as-you-go plan. As Trustee Carolyn Edwards noted, this is a capital program campaign. I’ll address some of the arguments being used [...]
Highly Paid Teaching Couple Prefers High Salary Over Improving Qualifications »
(Victor Joecks/NPRI) – Don’t shoot the messenger; teacher Vicki Steffenhagen is the one who wrote that. Vicki Steffenhagen is an English teacher who earned $88,432.90 in 2011. Her husband, a high school counselor, earned $104,895.88 in 2011. That’s total compensation of over $193,000 in 2011. If you just look at base pay, Vicki and her husband received over $135,000 last year. With that in mind, here’s part of Vicki’s recent letter to the editor to [...]
State Funding ‘Cut’ Results In Increased Funding To CCSD »
(Victor Joecks/NPRI) – I’m currently reading CCSD’s 2011 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and came across this gem. In their transmittal letter, CCSD Superintendent Dwight Jones and CCSD School Board President Carolyn Edwards write (p. xviii): During fiscal year 2010, the Nevada legislature was forced to respond to continued declines in revenues and cut state aid to the district from their original budgeted amounts. The result was that the District only received an additional $10 per pupil [...]
No Funding Available For Review Of Nevada Public Education Funding Plan »
(Sean Whaley/Nevada News Bureau) – A panel of lawmakers today began a review of the state’s 45-year-old formula for funding public education with an eye towards addressing the needs of the state’s urban districts as they work to educate special education students, English-language learners and children in poverty. The panel is still searching for funding for a study to help in the review, however. The failure to find private funding for a study could jeopardize [...]
National School Choice Week Spotlights Educational Options »
(Sean Whaley) – As National School Choice Week gets under way today state officials say Nevada school children have more opportunities than ever before to choose a school that works best for them. But one element of choice, a school voucher program, remains an unrealized and divisive issue for the state’s policy makers. Successes include a strong charter school law that is helping make the semi-autonomous schools available to more Nevada students, expanding distance learning programs, [...]
Is Clark County Teachers Union Protecting a Health Insurance Scam? »
(Ben Velderman/Education Action Group Foundation) – While the Great Recession has affected almost all Americans, Nevadans may be the hardest hit. The state leads the nation in unemployment (13 percent) and home foreclosures (three times the national average). Because of the faltering economy and slowed tax revenue, the Clark County School District needs to cut $78 million from its budget over the next two years. The district must do this either by freezing teacher pay and [...]
Nevada’s Foray Into Online Education Gains Strength »
(Victor Joecks/NPRI) – Imagine you or your child could have personalized lesson plans with almost instantaneous feedback on how you’re doing on a particular subject area. That’s the power of digital learning, and it’s just not possible in a traditional classroom. The teacher prepares lessons for the class as a whole and has to teach the class, not a particular student. For many students — especially with a high-quality teacher — this model works great. [...]
NPRI’s Transparent Nevada Now Features CCSD Vendor Payments »
(Victor Joecks/NPRI) – For the first time, Clark County School District payments to vendors are publicly available and easily searchable on the Web. The district — to facilitate transparency and public understanding — worked with TransparentNevada, a public service of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, to make its information easily accessible to taxpayers. Payment warrants on the site cover the period from January 2009 to May 2011, number more than 114,000 and detail more than [...]
Underperforming Teacher Not Fired, Transferred To Another School »
(Victor Joecks/NPRI) – Dave Berns with the Las Vegas Sun has been writing a series of articles on Chaparral High School. Included in Berns’ most recent article was a perfect example of why school must be allowed to fire bad teachers. Chaparral High School Principal David Wilson refers to math as “the gatekeeper” that determines the success or failure of high school and college students. Those who pass will move on. Those who don’t will [...]
Where’s The Scandal? »
(Victor Joecks/NPRI) – Government corruption takes many forms, but one of the most obvious is when an elected or unelected official uses his authority to benefit himself, a spouse or a supporter financially. That’s the reason Rep. Shelley Berkley is in hot water. As The New York Times reported, she used her influence with regulators “to pursue an agenda that is aligned with the business interests of her husband, Dr. Larry Lehrner.” (I’m not commenting [...]
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