Recently the Education Justice Center named Nevada as one of the states where funding was most inequitable and inadequate. Teacher Angie Sullivan in Nevada sends out the following news:

 

Just to be clear . . .

There were one billion in cuts to education under Democratic leadership and the Governor of Reno. We have not restored that money.

Our schools are starving.

No one has the guts to fund public schools in Nevada. Our scores have declined as our funding has declined.

Our schools are starving.

Now the state is going to participate in wholesale union-busting which affects how many under-funded schools? And how many under-supplied professionals? Take Over?

Our schools are starving.

Nice to see some failing charters that further siphon tax payer money on the list too – but what did you think would happen without regulation and oversight. Twice the cost and not able to produce.

Our schools are starving.

The state is going to “take us over”. Who is that? The state will love my at risk students more than I do?

Our schools are starving.

Does that mean sell us to a corporation – like Edison? Remember that Edison Corpirate experiment on kids? $10 million later there was no improvement. What a failure – sad to think we might do that again.

Our schools are starving.

This state can blame teachers who are on the front line all it wants. Go on a witch-hunt again. Waste time and money without addressing the community issues of poverty and racism and disenfranchisement.

Our schools are starving.

You get what you pay for and you wanted to starve the schools – and look what happened.

Our schools are starving.

Tell me this is not union-busting plain and simple. Tell me this is not about punishing women who teach kids to read. Tell me it’s not the already impoverished schools with at-risk populations that will be sold to the highest bidder.

Our schools are starving.

If you keep looking for solutions from a CEO who refuses to acknowledge the real issues – you will continue to fail. Public schools are not about return on investment – they are investment in community, democracy, and opportunity.

Our schools are starving.

O God hold your children in your hand. Where will kids go to school if they privatize them all. Please do not allow experiments without research to kill our schools and hurt our most vulnerable children.

Angie

 

 

 

 

 

http://m.reviewjournal.com/news/education/nevada-mulling-dramatic-crackdown-low-performing-schools

NEVADA MULLING DRAMATIC CRACKDOWN ON LOW-PERFORMING SCHOOLS

 

 

By TREVON MILLIARD
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

 
Nevada’s underperforming public schools are about to feel the squeeze from state education officials who have long identified the chronic strugglers but have done little more than watch them.

 

Plans are in the works at the Nevada Department of Education in Carson City to tighten the state’s grip on struggling schools that receive extra support, taking action if they fail to improve, say state Deputy Superintendent for Student Achievement Steve Canavero and members of the State Board of Education.

 

“We would all like to make nice, and we would all like to have the grownups get along,” President Elaine Wynn told her fellow state board members Nov. 6. “But I would remind you of the mood we had at our last meeting, when we were horrified at the results.”

 

Those results: 51 public schools labeled low-performers, with few making substantial improvements often requiring urgent and disruptive changes instead of the small, incremental steps commonly seen in Nevada education, Canavero said.

 

Of the 51 low performers, 29 schools are in Clark County.

 

The state has identified nine “priority schools” on the 51-school list. All but one shared in $34 million in federal School Improvement Grants over the past three years, but none improved their standing in the state’s one-to-five-star accountability system ratings.

 

“We obviously can’t go back and fix the past,” said board member Allison Serafin, calling for an accounting of how the grant money was spent and any effect it had.

 

Wynn asked the board to “send a very clear signal” that it won’t passively accept the status quo.

 

“We’re here not to have meetings once every six weeks. We’re here to make a difference in how our kids learn and achieve,” said Wynn. “What is the evolving role of the state board?”

 

The state department and board have never used their power to regularly monitor underperforming schools and mandate improvement plans, which can include choosing principals and other school leaders and prescribing curriculum.

 

Canavero said he doesn’t see the state choosing a curriculum for schools, which harkens to the concern of board member Alexis Gonzales-Black. She said the state needs to be careful to not micromanage schools.

 

The state also can turn chronically underperforming schools over to management organizations, which usually run charter schools, or close them and send students elsewhere.

 

That far-reaching power came to the state board in 2012, when the federal government offered states a chance to opt out of certain provisions of No Child Left Behind, the federal accountability system implemented under the George W. Bush administration in 2002.

 

The state submitted an alternative accountability plan to the U.S. Department of Education, creating the school star-rating system and granting more autonomy to high-performing schools while setting in place more state power over underperforming schools.

 

In that waiver from No Child Left Behind, Nevada defined low-performing as schools that fit in one of three designations: focus, priority and those schools earning one star.

 

Focus schools are those with the largest achievement gaps for certain groups of students, such as poor or minority students who lag far behind their peers.

 

Priority schools are the bottom 5 percent in terms of student achievement, as determined by annual state test scores.

 

But an impending extension to the three-year waiver may increase that number from nine to about 38 priority schools, due largely to the inclusion of high schools with graduation rates below 60 percent, Canavero said.

 

“I think we have plenty of accountability,” said Canavero, referencing the powers granted by the waiver. “What we have yet to do is build the system to exercise that accountability.”

 

He advocated a more prescriptive process for spending, especially at priority schools. That would entail a memorandum of understanding between the state and local schools laying out improvement needed to be removed from the underperformers list, as well as what the state will do if nothing changes.

 

“It’s a very thick, muddy place that we’re in,” said Wynn, re-emphasizing her question to the state board. “Are we ready to assume more responsibility for what’s happening in our state’s schools? I am very supportive of putting the pieces in place.”

 

Canavero and department staff have continued to draft the tighter controls and is expected to detail its next step later this month.

 

 

Contact Trevon Milliard attmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Find him on Twitter: @TrevonMilliard.

 

 

 

UNDERPERFORMING SCHOOLS

(* Clark County schools)

NEVADA PRIORITY SCHOOLS

Canyon Springs High School*

Chaparral High School*

Del Sol High School*

Desert Pines High School*

Mojave High School*

Valley High School*

Western High School*

Amargosa Valley Elementary School

Washoe Innovations Academy High School

NEVADA FOCUS SCHOOLS

Numa Elementary School

Craig Elementary School*

Diaz Elementary School*

Fitzgerald Elementary School*

Kelly Elementary School*

Lowman Elementary School*

One Hundred Academy*

Paradise Elementary School*

Petersen Elementary School*

Reed Elementary School*

Roundy Elementary School*

Squires Elementary School*

West Preparatory Academy Secondary*

Tom Williams Elementary School*

Owyhee Elementary School

Owyhee Middle School

McDermitt Elementary School

Caliente Elementary School

Lovelock Elementary School

Pershing Middle School

Corbett Elementary School

Hug High School

Robert Mitchell Elementary School

McGill Elementary School

If you guessed Nevada, you are right!

 

According to the Education Justice Center, Nevada ranks among the very worst state in supporting the education of its children adequately and equitably.

 

Because the state distributes aid unfairly and fails to use a reasonable amount of its economic capacity to support its public schools, Nevada’s funding system ranks among the worst in the U.S.

 

The State needs to design and implement a new school funding system that provides the opportunity to learn to all students.

 

On the National Report Card, the state receives an “F” in funding distribution, which measures the extent to which the state’s funding system is structured so that higher poverty districts receive more aid than lower poverty districts. In Nevada, the pattern is actually regressive with higher poverty districts receiving, on average, only about 69 cents for each dollar their wealthier counterparts receive. Such a skewed funding system thwarts efforts to improve achievement and close achievement gaps.

 

Nevada receives another “F” for state fiscal effort, measured as the proportion of the state’s economic productivity that is spent on education. Nevada’s ranking dropped this year. Furthermore, the state’s overall funding levels are below average compared to other states, when adjusted for regional wages, economies of scale, and other factors.

 

Nevada will need to increase “effort” if it is to improve funding distribution and raise the overall funding level enough to support student achievement. For example, the state funds only a few small pilot programs for students learning English, even though 19% of Nevada students are English learners.

 

Legislators recently voted a $1.3 billion subsidy to lure a Tesla battery factory to the state. But nothing for the children.

 

 

Nevada is soon to vote on whether to tax big business to raise more money for public schools. The state’s public schools are among the worst funded systems in the nation. Big business is pulling out all the stops to kill the Initiative. They warn that it will kill the economy and jobs.

Columnist Steve Sebelius here explores why the state’s business community is so frightened by the Initiative, why they are trying so hard to block it.

He writes:

“There may be a good reason the elites of the Nevada business community are so vehemently campaigning against The Education Initiative.

“But it’s not what you think.

“There’s certainly a reason you’re seeing billboards, TV ads, mail pieces and spokespeople endlessly parroting the line that The Education Initiative is a “deeply flawed,” “job-killing” tax that will cost the state business.

“But what if it’s not the shortcomings of the tax that’s behind the anti-tax campaign?

“What if there’s another reason the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, the Nevada Resort Association, the Nevada Mining Association and their allies of convenience in organized labor fear and hate this tax?

“What if they hate it not because of its flaws (and there are a few) but because of its successes?

“The Nevada State Education Association actually succeeded in writing a tax that the corporate elite of Nevada tried and failed to stop in court.

“The teachers union had the unmitigated gall to succeed in gathering more than the required number of signatures in the various congressional districts of Nevada. And they went on to boldly champion the measure in the Legislature as lawmakers (especially Democrats) uncomfortably squirmed in their seats.

“And now, having survived court challenges, legislative indifference and a campaign of more than $2 million spent against it, the voters are about to have their say on Question 3.

“Could that be what Nevada’s corporate elite despises about The Education Initiative most of all?

“The Nevada Legislature was long ago captured by the commercial interests that run the state — first mining, then railroads, then gambling, land development and general business. The cumbersome, Balkanized legislative process makes it easy to kill bills, especially with a majority of friendly lawmakers from both parties on your side.

“The courts are a less certain prospect (after all, judges failed to stop the petition from going forward). But Nevada’s courts are generally quite friendly to business.

“The executive branch? Gov. Brian Sandoval — who now pledges an earnest effort to reform the state’s tax system in 2015, predicting success where his predecessors have failed — is not exactly an independent. He’s come out squarely against The Education Initiative from the start.

“But direct democracy? The people themselves? Well, that’s a frightening prospect for Nevada’s corporate elite, because the people are, at the very least, unpredictable.”

Imagine that! Business elites bought every elected official, but they haven’t figured out yet how to buy the public. Let’s see if all that advertising and TV manages to persuade the public to vote against the interests of their own children.