Education in Nevada

Education Week is reporting that teenagers in a majority of industrialized nations taking part in a leading international exam showed greater scientific understanding than students in the United States–and they far surpassed their American peers in mathematics, in results that seem likely to add to recent consternation over U.S. students’ core academic skills.

New results from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, released today, show U.S. students ranking lower, on average, than their peers in 16 other countries in science, out of 30 developed nations taking part in the exam.

The test measures the performance of 15-year-old students, regardless of grade level, examining the skills they pick up both in the classroom and outside school, as well as their ability to apply that knowledge to a variety of situations.

In science–the main subject tested on the 2006 PISA–American students scored an average of 489, below the international average among industrialized nations of 500, on a scale of 1 to 1,000. Finland, which has shone in worldwide comparisons in recent years, notched the top science score of 563, followed by Canada, Japan, and New Zealand.

While the United States’ science score on PISA lagged statistically behind more than half the developed nations’, it ranked in the same statistical category as eight other industrialized countries, including Poland, Denmark, France, and Iceland. The United States outperformed such nations as Italy, Greece, and Mexico.

In 2003, the last time PISA measured performance in science, U.S. students tallied an average of 491, 9 points lower than the average of 500 in industrialized countries.

In math, which was tested in less depth on this PISA, American teenagers fared even worse, producing an average score of 474, 24 points below the international average of 498 among the 30 participating industrialized countries. Finland also landed on top in math.

The top-scoring American students’ averages were statistically worse than those for 23 of those nations, and equal to only those of Spain and Portugal. Just four countries–Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Mexico scored lower than the United States.

But hey, our students really know how to text message their friends when they are supposed to be paying attention in the classroom.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nevada’s largest teachers’ union has launched its initiative targeting the state’s gaming industry in an effort to get more funding for public schools.

The Nevada State Education Association submitted its petition to the secretary of state Monday. The proposal would raise the gaming tax on Nevada’s largest casinos to 9.75 percent, from 6.75 percent. The union estimates that an additional $250 million per year, although others contend $400 million is more accurate, could be used for public schools and teacher raises.

The higher tax would apply only to casinos that make more than $1 million a month in gaming revenue.
…
The union’s next step is to gather 58,628 signatures by May. 20.

How much would you like to bet that the initiative will be rejected just hours before the deadline to place on a ballot leaving no time for a re-write?

Posted by Zounds Off at 1:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think this article in the Las Vegas Sun sums up some of the problems:

Churchill County High School Principal John Riley says he’s retiring partly because the school was labeled as being “in need of improvement” for three straight years.

And now to the last line of the article:

Last week, the school board added 18 months to Riley’s tenure in the district so he would be fully vested in retirement benefits because he is not yet 65.

Obviously, this school board has taken a page from our corpoate practice; when someone can’t do the job, you reward them with a nice package or retirement. That money has to come from somewhere and he certainly didn’t earn it. Maybe it was part of an incentive to get him to leave early, thereby releasing the school from its contract with him. All I know is that the more I consider the role of school boards, the more amazed I am at their ability to have little clue over the consequences of their decisions. Bottom line–school boards seem to be made up of some of the least competent and poorly educated people known to be making educational decisions.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Sun has reported that Regents are joining Chancellor Jim Rogers in rejecting budget cuts.

“A week after Gov. Jim Gibbons got a letter from higher education Chancellor Jim Rogers rejecting Gibbons’ request to plan for 5 percent budget cuts, some regents got into the act.

Regents Bret Whipple and Stavros Anthony sent a message Oct. 29 telling Gibbons they “were unaware of — and disappointed by — the tone and content” of Rogers’ letter.

…

Anthony, who’s planning to run for Las Vegas City Council, said he didn’t have enough information to give an opinion on Gibbons’ suggestion. He said the point of his and Whipple’s letter “wasn’t to slam anybody,” but to ensure state and higher education leaders continued communicating.

Regent Steve Sisolak said although Anthony and Whipple are entitled to an opinion, ‘I disagree with them very strongly. I think the chancellor presented a well-thought-out, pointed, direct letter to the governor.”

As I pointed out in an earlier posting, complete with excerpts, Rogers’ letter was a rambling, often confused, and grammatically deficient letter. One would have hoped that someone in Rogers’ position would have reviewed his letter before sending it to the Governor, but apparently he is so convinced of his intellect that he doesn’t need to proofread. Therefore, I also have to wonder if Sisolek actually read the letter before praising it. It would also be nice if newspaper headlines actually reflected the content of the stories within, since the headline from the Sun suggests the Regents support Rogers, but the article has two Regents separating themselves from Rogers’ letter. But of course, I am simply asking too much of publicly educated Regents, educators, politicians, reporters, and other Nevada citizens to write what they mean, when they barely teach writing and critical thinking in Nevada schools.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

http://www.inbusinesslasvegas.com/2007/10/26/lawutil.htmlIn Business is reporting that the new dean of the Boyd School of Law left a strong impression on local lawyers in his first public appearance Oct. 17 at a Clark County Bar Association luncheon.

Dean John V. White, who joined the Boyd Law School in June after years on the faculty of Louisiana State University and other law schools, spoke of the Boyd school’s teaching philosophy, its standing on the national stage and its future plans.

White discussed what he deemed “optimistic” future goals for the school as well as why it has no plans to chase higher rankings for the school on the national stage.

He noted that the school has come a long way in a short time and has achieved things far beyond what even long-established schools can boast. The quality of applicants (both from Nevada and out-of-state) has improved and the bar passage rate of graduates this year reached more than 85 percent — significantly higher than the national average of 70 percent.

…. Their high rate of bar exam passage indicates significant success in establishing a quality program.

I have to write that I have often wondered about our legal system which seems so very broken–probably everyone except an attorney would admit that the more money someone has the more “justice” they receive–and especially amazed in the ’90’s when the media talked about the two lawyers in office when Bill Clinton was President and Al Gore the V.P. I never could find that Bill Clinton took the bar exam in Arkansas, even when he was Attorney General and Al Gore failed the Tennessee bar exam twice before giving up and entering politics (and this in a state where the passing rate had always been 85 percent; even “dumb as hell” Fred Thompson appears to have been able to pass it).

So, now the dean of UNLV’s law school is praising the pass rate for the Nevada bar as proof of the quality education students get and compares the state pass rate against the national average. News bulletin: Each state writes a major portion of its own exam so you cannot compare pass rates among states. Plus, if you look at other years’ exams, the Nevada graduates’ pass rate jumped to 85 percent from under 50 percent overnight. Guess what…Nevada wrote an easier exam so that students could be more successful which would make the law school look more attractive. After all, if you can’t pass the Nevada bar, why come to the law school.

So, no matter what spin is put on the issue by Dean “I need you to believe this” White and no matter that Chancellor “I quit; I don’t quit” Rogers of the Nevada System of Higher Education wants to blame Governor ” I only touched that waitress once” Gibbons for the sorry state of education Nevada has wallowed in for decades, the truth is that education in Nevada is in worse shape than a third world country, Nevada businessess and agencies only pay lip service to wanting well-educated workers, and no amount of re-writing tests can really hide Nevada’s plummet to the bottom. But at least now we have lots of attorneys who couldn’t have been licensed just a couple of years ago, which is exactly what the people of Nevada deserve for passively condoning our state of corruption.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From a Newsreview.com article:
For years local government workers, including school teachers, have opted to join in a state retirement program because the state retirement system subsidized post-retirement health care and local governments provided a smaller subsidy.

Unfortunately, the locals didn’t pay into the system the revenues needed to cover the costs; thus Senate Bill 544 was designed to end the problem.

Senate Finance Committee chair William Raggio of Washoe County said, “What’s happened is the local governments that don’t participate and don’t pay in [to the state system] have been shuffling off their retirees to the state, and then of course that throws it out of whack.

[Washoe County School District spokesperson Steve ] Mulvenon describes the bill as telling school district employees this: “If you don’t retire effective Nov. 30, ’08–anything after that you’re not going to get this state subsidy. … So you’ve got to make a decision to jump ship effective November 30, ’08 in order to get this existing subsidy. They will not let you come into that group after that date.”

The school district’s employee newsletter is more formal in its language: “One provision of SB544 states that effective November 30, 2008, employees of local governmental agencies will no longer be eligible to enroll and participate in PEBP [Public Employees Benefits Program, the state system]. … To meet the November 30, 2008, deadline, employees must actually retire and join PEBP by September 1, 2008, as PEBP has a 60-day waiting period and coverage only begins on the first of the month. Employees who retire after this date will still have the option to continue health insurance coverage through the district.”

The Assembly’s budget committee held a short hearing on June 2 at which PEBP director Leslie Johnstone, Douglas County teacher Janice Florey, university faculty lobbyist James Richardson, and retired state workers lobbyist Martin Bibb all supported the bill. One assemblymember, Ellen Koivisto of Clark County, questioned whether the measure allowed enough time for the transition.

A threatened loss of post-employment health benefits would be all I would need to bail. With the lowered standards of education, poor performance of students, discipline problems, weak administrators, and a plethora of other ills, I don’t see why anyone remains in teaching when casino service people make so much more money. It seems pretty clear which professions or occupations are most respected in Nevada by the money spent. If Jim Rogers (Nevada System of Higher Learning Chancellor) really thinks that Nevada businesses are seeking better educated workers, he must have his head in the sand–and there is a lot of it out here–otherwise the businesses would pay more and attract these people from elsewhere, but what we get is more service people, because that is what the businesses require. Basic economics, 101.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was reading Chancellor Rogers letter in response to Governor Gibbons’ plan to explore where five percent budget cuts could be made by state agencies if there were a future revenue shortfall. For the most part the plan sounds like an exercise of “just in case.” For the most part Rogers letter is a long winded “no.”

For the readers’ information, the letter contains several statements which make no grammatical sense, which for a person in Rogers’ position is laughable, especially as computers have grammar check.

If you want to know why Nevada education stinks, one reason may be the people in charge aren’t the best, even if they are some of the wealthiest.

Here are some of Jim Rogers’ grammatically confusing points:

A budget reduction plan of this magnitude would require new policies, the Board of Regents would have to declare a financial emergency, which requires consultation among the Regents, institutions, and faculty. (a run-on sentence, at the very least)

The concept of utilizing the rainy day fund, which has the effect of spreading the pain of any budget reduction among all of the citizens and agencies of the State, would eliminate the reduction your request. (This sentence just doesn’t make any sense; dipping into the rainy day fund is supposed to cause pain? I thought using it was to avoid pain and budget reduction. Faulty logic here, Jim.)

Reducing the funding of education will make our ability to keep our best high school graduates from going out of Nevada to college. (Simply, huh?)

I indicated that I thought we were headed for a TRAIN WRECK if we did nothing to reverse that trend to provide the quality graduates and trained workers that Nevada needs to sustain growth. (I believe he meant reverse the trend and begin to provide quality graduates and not reverse the trend to provide them. But I guess I shouldn’t try to guess what Rogers means when he so obviously makes more money than I do and so more people listen to him.)

The State has extensive sources of new revenue. (Name one, Jim, other than hoping businesses want to donate, or do you mean…RAISE TAXES!)

It just figures that the man who wrote this is himself a product of Las Vegas High School, although circa 1956. I’m still trying to figure out how he got all his other degrees or did someone confuse confusion with brilliance and B.S.

Posted by Zounds Off at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Houston Chronicle reports that a Richard C. McDuffee filed suit in a Montgomery County district court earlier this week claiming a violation of free speech. McDuffee was asking the college district not be allowed to deny access to the blog that criticizes Chancellor Richard Carpenter.

But Steve Lestarjette, associate vice chancellor for external affairs, issued a statement on Thursday saying, “The college has unblocked the site from the college’s server. It was never the intent to deny anyone’s First Amendment rights.”

The blog, richardcarpenterwatch.blogspot.com reports on Carpenter’s conduct while chancellor of the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas. The blog contains allegations of racism, corruption, purposeful intimidation and incompetence, according to McDuffee’s lawsuit.

After a couple of blurry and anonymous conversations with employees of CSN listing website failures, phone line breakdowns, failure to order books for classes by administrators, and a multitude of other infrastructure and administrative problems, including possible corruption and theft by top officials, I have to give CSN a D– — ! You can change the name, but it seems to still be a bottom of the barrel school. Obviously, readers just might get the impression that Richard Carpenter left hoping to avoid the rising number of apparent problems with the school. At the very least, the community should be concerned that administrators, who dislike criticisms, can block free speech on a college campus. We should be teaching students to be critical thinkers and to examine all sides of an issue for complete understanding, but apparently only certain views are correct on college campuses.

In fact, looking at websites and books on college choice, not one Nevada college appears to make anyone’s top 200 list for any discipline one might study. So, Chancellor Jim Rogers of the Nevada System of Higher Education might be right in condemning Nevada education, but Nevada seems to get further behind every year, even with Jim in charge.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chancellor Rogers of the Nevada Higher Education System appeared at events in Reno and Elko on Tuesday and is in Las Vegas Wednesday with school superintendents from those areas giving their own individual addresses on the state of K-12 education.

Rogers noted that Nevada ranks 49th in the nation in education and is nearly last in college educated people in the workforce. (Thereby plummeting past such perennial education powerhouse states as Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana.)

Apropos in our one economy state, Tuesday’s breakfast meeting of the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada took place at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa.

At the same time Nevada teachers want an increased gaming tax. The Nevada State Education Association has voted to pursue a ballot initiative that would increase Nevada’s gaming tax by 3 percent to fund K-12 education. The teachers’ association would have to collect more than 58,000 signatures in all 17 counties to qualify the measure for the ballot.

Where do I sign up? Nevada taxes gaming at a lower rate than any other state or country. Plus, we don’t seem to have a plethora of far sighted individuals striving for diversification of economy in this state. It appears that politicians are mostly content to kowtow to the desires of casinos for the jobs created in the casinos and the services which support them. Unfortunately, those jobs seldom call for a college education and have led to a one industry economy–if gaming ever takes a hit (such as being less of an attraction than new gaming meccas such as Macau) we could become like Michigan which relied on the strength of the auto industry, at least until the major three companies lost $15 billion last year and cut some 80,000 jobs.

But I guess we will run out of water before the lure of Vegas gambling fades.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

LAS VEGAS, Sept. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Senator Barbara
Cegavske, Commissioner Rory Reid and Mayor Oscar Goodman, joined Ed in ’08
Campaign Chairman Roy Romer and other leaders at the Clark County
Government Center, during the campaign’s state-wide kick-off in Las Vegas
today, to challenge the presidential candidates to lay out their plans to
fix America’s public schools.

“The presidential candidates recognize that Nevada is a key primary
battle ground state,” said Romer, as he was flanked by parents, teachers
and school reform advocates. “I urge all voters to send a message to the
candidates: Tell them they must stand up to the special interests that
oppose fundamental reforms because America’s failing schools are a national
crisis that can only be solved with strong leadership.”

Strong American Schools’ Ed in ’08 campaign, an up to $60 million
nonpartisan effort supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The
Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, urges the candidates to put forth a plan
of action to implement stronger American standards, ensure that there is an
effective teacher in every classroom and increase time and support for
student learning.

In our society today we will NEVER have an effective teacher in every classroom.

1. Teacher programs don’t attract the best students; in the 1990’s 40 percent of all education
majors tested in the bottom 20 percent of all college students.

2. An extraordinary number of education majors want to be coaches, meaning that they get a certificate in physical education. A few years ago George Will wrote an opinion piece where he noted that in the state of Arkansas during a five year period its teacher programs graduated 4,400 p.e. teachers and 1 physics teacher. I challenge Nevada colleges to provide the numbers of qualified teachers in each discipline to the public. I will bet the numbers are frightening.

3. Corporations claim to want an educated population but, hey, it’s cheaper to outsource, and in Nevada the “corporation” is simply the gaming industry, an industry which relies on mundane service–parking valets, dealers, waitresses, room service, clerks, bartenders–so how much education do they really require from employees while taking money from the clientele.

4. Corporation have apparently more rights than individuals (and certainly buy more influence with our politicians than ordinary people) so it is more likely that the corporate tax will be lowered in the U.S. leaving less money for programs (but probably not ending corporate welfare).

5. If Nevada wanted to raise education standards, it could simply raise taxes on the “corporation” that controls all of Nevada: Gaming! Nevada taxes casinos at the lowest rate of any state or country in the world. But we know that won’t happen, because that would take “strong” leadership, something sorely lacking in Nevada.

6. There is just something basically wrong with expecting “fixes” to come from the federal level; it was the failing state of education which led to the “No Child Left Behind Act” which has caused school administrators to creatively find ways to skew numbers so they can remain in hiding, and done little to change education at its most fundamental levels–raise the damn bar back to where it was forty years ago when our county put men on the moon using slide rules.

And it is really time that we seek out talented people and pay them what they are worth to be teachers and truly forget about the obscenely overpaid celebrity monkeys making the news on ESPN or ET. The next news story on TV about O.J. Simpson, Brittney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, try turning off the TV; instead, read a book to or with a child; I guarantee you will survive.

Posted by Zounds Off at 1:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Clark County School District lost $2 million in funding because a federal survey underestimated the number of Nevada students whose primary language isn’t English.

Local and state education officials say the Las Vegas district will receive slightly more than $4.4 million from the federal government this school year, down from $6.4 million last school year.

Is it the fault of the Feds that the estimate is low or did our state and local education officials forget something? When students are enrolled, officials know the ethnic background of the students and the language spoken at home, so that information would be available if local officials passed it on to the appropriate Federal level. My guess…the mistake was at the local level.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Three months before his departure as chief of the Clark County School District Police, Hector Garcia sent $11,750 in business to a longtime associate to evaluate the feasibility of metal detectors at a North Las Vegas High School.

Within weeks of his Aug. 10 resignation Garcia had new employment – as vice president of his associate’s company, the School Safety Advocacy Council, which offers training and security assessments for school police and resource officers. (Las Vegas Sun)

Former school superintendent Carlos Garcia did the same. After fiddling for five years until his pension vested Garcia then took a position as vice president of urban markets with the book publisher, McGraw-Hill, with whom he had committed the district to for textbooks throughout its schools and had also hired the company to provide a variety of educational services

Cronyism, bribes, kickbacks, campaign contributions, Lacy Thomas, Erin Kenny, Dario Herrera, Senator Harry Reid, attorney Jay Brown, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Rick Rizzolo…the more the Vegas area changes, the more it stays the same. Is there a seminar at UNLV on “How Business Really Works In The Valley?”

And while Clark County District Attorney Dave Roger still can’t find his way to the District Court House for a corruption case (He is still “reviewing” cases, such as the UMC scandal.), he certainly made sure to find it so he could participate in the farce called O.J. Simpson. Dave must be thinking about a run for political office and hoping to capitalize on the national media attention. It normally would be a good ploy; at least one other former prosecutor who never found reason to prosecute corruption was eventually rewarded with the governorship of the state–Bob Miller. Hopefully, this time Roger has attached himself to a media circus that only the media is interested in.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Las Vegas Sun article dated August 27, the first day of classes for the Fall semester, reports;

The College of Southern Nevada is stepping up oversight of maintenance and construction work following reports by the Sun about alleged abuses at the school.
…
Former and current employees have accused [college construction chief Bob] Gilbert of using his position to arrange sweetheart deals with contractors who helped build his personal ranch estate off Kyle Canyon Road. The Nevada attorney general’s office raided college offices, Gilbert’s ranch and WGDL in June as part of a criminal investigation.
…
Gilbert is now on leave, which college officials say is to recover from shoulder surgery.
…
Interim CSN President Michael Richards said college officials had taken action, including closing some contracts, when circumstances showed that collusion occurred. He would not be more specific.Richards inherited the problems this summer when former CSN President Richard Carpenter left to take a job in Houston . Carpenter told the Sun earlier this year that an internal investigation into Gilbert’s activities found no actionable offense

As of yet, no one has said, “At least I’m not going to jail!” I wonder if Carpenter thought he was pulling an Atkinson-Gates by getting out of the job before an investigation included him. We know we have crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked doctors, crooked judges, blatently crooked politicians, crooked developers, crooked hospital administrators, crooked roads, etc. I wonder if I missed something; is there a special class that Nevadans take where some of the students learn to be ruthlessly corrupt and the rest to be unbelievably apathetic?

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Should be another interesting year for Nevada education. Some of the summer highlights include:

1. CCSN is now CSN meaning that Community College of Southern Nevada is now College of Southern Nevada–not to be confused with Southern Nevada College. As if dropping the word community from the name will somehow make this a “real” college.

2. Clark County School District has announced it’s C.A.P.S. program–also not to be confused with a similar sounding program known as Exploited Children Comprehensive Action Program (“M/CAP”), although when it comes to education in the valley, our children are certainly exploited and shortchanged. But with a few fancy letters and some public relations work, we can pretend that something has changed in our public schools, except for failing to educate our students

3. University of Nevada Las Vegas has announced a new program of study in engineering of stage show productions. The course will include hands on experience and internships with Cirque du Soleil shows at Strip venues. Sounds to me like an euphemism for unpaid labor and fewer dealings with unions but on the plus side, UNLV claims that students will actually have to learn some math and physics for a change.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Although the Clark County School District has hired nearly 1,800 teachers for this school year, supposedly due only to the valley’s growth, as of the week of August 13, the district is still 445 teachers short.

And probably part of the reason the district needed 1800 teachers might be because after working for a failing district many teachers leave each year. And I just can’t wait to see the new “crop” of teachers brought into the district by recruiting in Midwest cities that have laid off teachers or that have an abundance of unemployed teachers. If I had to guess, I would say that those available teachers are the ones that have the least experience and poorest qualifications, leaving them unemployed and ready to enter Clark County schools. Perhaps we will end up with 40 percent or more of all teachers only qualified to teach P.E.

Posted by Zounds Off at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on July 9 as a letter to the editor.

To the editor:

Because more and more teachers in Clark County have expressed discontent with their representative unit, the Clark County Education Association, the Teamsters have decided to throw their hat in the ring.

But the fact of the matter is neither the association nor the Teamsters is looking out for the best interests of teachers. Teachers are professionals who deserve a professional organization that will engender the type of respect and recognition that unions do not bring to the table. The Teamsters are no better a solution to the concerns of the teachers of Clark County than the association.

…

It’s understandable that Clark County’s educators are wondering if there are better options than a union. The answer is yes. In fact, there is a groundswell among America’s teachers, who are leaving traditional teacher labor unions to join non-union professional associations. Nearly 300,000 teachers nationwide have opted to join non-union educators associations such as the Association of American Educators, which has members in all 50 states. Members can get most of the benefits that the unions provide but at a fraction of the cost.

…

Gary Beckner

MISSION VIEJO, CALIF.

THE WRITER IS CHAIRMAN OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN EDUCATORS.

Ah hah! No agenda here, is there Gary? I think if I was a teacher in Clark County I would be looking for hard ball, kick butt representation and not a tea and crumpets professionalism. This is Nevada after all, a state run by professional crooks who are only one generation–if that–from break your knees or dump the body in the desert solutions.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Latin Chamber of Commerce is hosting a series of tequila tastings this summer to benefit the La Oportunidad Scholarship Fund.

Just how do you taste tequila? I thought it was by the shot glass with a lick of salt and bite of lime. Perhaps Metro should park a few officers outside the event with a breathylizer. Maybe check a few documents while they are at it.

Posted by Zounds Off at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Teamsters Local 14 wants to take over the Clark County Education Association.

They would need 50-percent of the vote to be able to overthrow the CCEA, yet some union members say they aren’t worried.

They should be…with low pay, lousy administrators, and a weak union teachers in Clark County probably are ready for anyone but who they have, especially as teachers see unskilled workers making as much as they are–and more–in the hotel and casino industry. I noted earlier this month that the county’s garbage collection provider, Republic Services, met with officials from the Teamsters Local 631, whose members now earn $24.34 per hour (approximately $20,000 a year more than a starting teacher), to reject an $8.39 wage and benefit increase over five years–prompting me to suggest the teachers needed a better union.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

U.S. Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign of Nevada today introduced legislation that establishes a conservation program that helps ranchers prevent the occurrence, spread of, and damages caused by wildfire to rangeland.

“Nevada, along with other Western states, is facing unprecedented threats to the rangeland,” said Reid. “In the past, Nevada wildfires have devastated our rural families and ranches. This legislation will help prevent wildfires and mitigate damages from ones that occur. This is a good step forward in addressing the conservation and environmental concerns of Nevada and the Great Basin.”

Meanwhile in Carson City, Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons joined with Senator Maurice Washington (R-Washoe), Senator Barbara Cegavske (R-Clark), Clark County Superintendent Walt Rulffes, Clark County Assistant Superintendent Dr. Karlene Lee, and others to sign a bill providing for the establishment of 29 empowerment schools across Nevada and provides an additional $400 in per pupil spending at those schools.

“By signing this bill, we are taking that next big step toward providing our children with an education that will better prepare them for the future,” said Governor Gibbons. “Who better to assess and meet the needs of students than the principals, teachers, and parents who spend time with these children each day?”

Maybe juvenile corrections officers? And who paid for two Clark County Superintendents to make the trip to Carson City?

Posted by Zounds Off at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The former Clark County School District superintendent is the only finalist for the position in San Francisco, and the school board is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to offer him the job and on the terms of a contract.

Garcia spent five years as superintendent in Clark County, the fifth largest school district in the nation, and six years combined as superintendent for Fresno Unified and Sanger Unified districts in Fresno County. He also was a social studies teacher and a principal, running San Francisco’s Horace Mann Middle School for three years until 1991. During his his five years in Clark County, test scores were stagnant or declined and dropouts increased.

Garcia left Clark County in 2005 to become vice president of urban markets of the educational services company McGraw-Hill.

Through Garcia’s efforts the Clark County School Board approved hiring a McGraw-Hill consultant to score tests for the district’s English Language Learner program in January of 2005

At the time Garcia said there is no conflict of interest in his switching to the private company.

“This was not an easy decision to make but it was the right one for me and for my family,” Garcia told the Las Vegas Sun. “It’s an opportunity to try something completely different after three decades in education.”

I guess it wasn’t the right decision after all. Notice how each time one of our public officials bail out of a position, they use the “it’s for my family” reason. (See Las Vegas quotes including “I’m not going to jail.” for Yvonne Atkinson Gates take on family.) In Clark County his major contribution appears to have been staying just long enough to allow his pension to vest. Good choice, San Francisco? I doubt it. Good luck, though, you’ll need it!

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have been percolating on this subject–at least after the coffee has kicked in–but I believe it will take a good bit more study than our legislators are giving it. (Or it could be I like to read and learn much more than I want to put this to an article.) But until I can wade through brain development studies, income demographics, and the refrigerator, I would like to give you the simplified version:

1. Parents don’t usually have good information or a clear understanding of the issue ( Hey, they are the product of a public education system that is not noted for teaching critical thinking skills.) but putting those kids to work earlier sounds like giving them a head start–even if kids learn more from play than structured activities at that age And besides, IT REALLY WILL BE LIKE DAYCARE, ONLY CHEAPER FOR THE PARENTS–NOT THE REST OF US. How many children is a daycare provider allowed compared to the number per teacher in our classrooms?

2. Democrats want to appear hard at work changing education in Nevada–which needs a lot of work which all day kindergarten won’t address–and certainly want to please the teachers’ unions, which like those in many states is substantially Democrat.

3. Teachers and administrators and teachers’ unions want all day kindergarten because it means hiring more teachers, possibly Democrats who will join the union, meaning more dues and voting power, and thus avoiding the one thing that would make a huge difference compared to kindergarten–making the school day longer for grades one through twelve. I believe that Nevada has one of the shortest school days of any state–Clark County teachers are only required to spend seven hours and ten minutes in the building, the students approximately six hours and fifteen minutes and that includes lunch. I can guarantee that a longer school day is not high on the teachers’ solution list, and with all the other problems with being a teacher in this state and especially Clark County, I actually don’t blame them. Who wants to spend more time trying to reach students who can make more money parking cars than being say…a teacher?

Posted by Zounds Off at 2:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A group of U.S. senators has introduced legislation that aims to improve how U.S. workers and industries compete against the rest of the world by pumping more money into math and science programs.

The bill, introduced Monday by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), combines the efforts of several Senate committees working to address U.S. competitiveness. The bill would double the $5.6 billion annual funding for the National Science Foundation, a major backer of scientific research in the U.S., and would create a grant program to help students struggling with mathematics.

Co-sponsors include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. See “U.S. ‘competitiveness’ bill…”

Posted by Zounds Off at 8:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I couldn’t help but notice that Barbara Buckley, elected Monday as Assembly speaker–the first woman in state history–promptly outlined an agenda that includes full-day kindergarten,

Why is it that of all issues facing Nevada and especially Clark County–crumbling infrastructure, rising disparity between the rich and working poor, home foreclosures, usurious interest rates, really bad drivers, rising crime, and general unhappiness (even if Las Vegas Mayor Oscar is happy), the first issue our politicians seem to want to address is…all day kindergarten?

Is it just babysitting? After all, what do kids do in all day kindergarten—kids need snacks, naps, play time, and extra time to get into activities and out of them and get ready to go home. After all that, are they actually getting more education and why would they? If I remember my Chomsky and others, the human brain handles different learning abilities at different stages of development and presenting learning activities when the child is not ready is meaningless at best or may frustrate or scare the child. What I find absurd is that as our students fail as against even third world countries in education, we believe early intervention is the answer where these other countries focus on longer school days, more homework, and an utterly blasphemous concept of little emphasis on school sports. What all day kindergarten seems good for is cheaper daycare for the working parents, an excellent way to remove a child from a home where the parents can’t parent, and a wonderful way to divert resources away from students who should be ready to learn. It seems strange to me that here in Clark County, which is always several hundred teachers short of servicing the grades already in place, they want to start a program, which several studies suggest has no lasting effect past third grade, and take resources that should be used to find math and science teachers and not to monitor a Play-Doh party.

Posted by Zounds Off at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I found this too good to pass up…

The man who invented the laugh track (also known as a “laff box,” or “canned laughter”), Charles Rolland Douglass, is a graduate of the University of Nevada. The laugh track, as we all know, is used to make fake laughter for shows that, frankly, are not very funny to begin with. The audience needs a cue because the jokes are lame. So basically, shows like “Friends” owe all 10 seasons of success to a Nevada education.
From Mexican sewer systems and other useful advice
By: James Grange

Posted by Zounds Off at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Arizona ranks as dumbest state in the U.S.

Morgan Quinto Press ranked states by a number of education factors, including dropout and graduation rates, school test scores and proficiency ratings, teacher salaries, student-teacher ratios and public school spending.

Before anyone gets too excited in Las Vegas, Nevada ranked 49th, just behind California and Mississippi. Is anyone seeing a problem where the fastest growing states are at the bottom of the education ladder? Is there any correlation to the illegal immigrant problems these states are burdened with? Will a fence have any impact at all? According to the Washington Post a report released by the Inter-American Development Bank estimates that immigrants living in the United States will send $4.5 billion to family members this year, up from about $2 billion in 1980. Why would Latin American countries, especially Mexico, have to work at improving their economies with this free money entering their countries–money that is not circulating in the economies of the states here where the workers live.

Posted by Zounds Off at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Southern Nevada Educators Get a Reality Check.

One of the nation’s leading experts in education says no matter how you do the math, Nevada students are at or near the bottom when compared to students in other states, and even other developed countries.

Southern Nevada educators and business leaders were assaulted with a slew of statistics Wednesday, none of which painted a positive picture about education in Nevada.

Rock bottom or close to it — that was the bottom line of the PowerPoint presentation by the director of the Washington-based education advocacy group called the Education Trust.

Kati Haycock, public education analyst, said, “Though we’re the richest country and spend more money than virtually every other developed nation, our 15 year olds aren’t doing so well.”

Haycock says in an international comparison of 15-year-old students, the U.S. ranked 25th out of 29 developed nations. In a state-to-state comparison, Nevada’s 4th grade students ranked fourth from the bottom in reading.

But I thought being at the bottom of the list was just Democratic scare tactics for Nevada.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From NBC:

On Wednesday morning, educators, legislators, business and community leaders came together at UNLV to discuss ways to improve our state’s public education system….
For example, when it comes to fourth grade reading, [Nevada] students only score better than students in Mississippi.

Thank some deity for Mississippi although someone should check statistics–Mississippi may be passing Nevada as I write this. Can Nevada citizens, who are the result of failed Nevada education, fix the problem or will they simply bring in another “California solution?”

Posted by Zounds Off at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From: North Lake Tahoe Bonanza [Registration Required]

A group of Nevada state senators and assemblymen, ominously named the Legislative Committee on School Funding Adequacy, paid $200,000 for an out of state consultant’s study which purported to show that Nevada needs to boost school spending by $1.3 billion.

I bet a class of fifth graders could have come up with the same result and all it would have cost is the price of a pizza party.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)