By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… Have you ever wondered where all those plastic bags you get at the grocery store come from? I had assumed that they were made in a factory somewhere, but no, I have found their source. They grow on bushes.

If you don’t believe me next time you go to Las Vegas look out your car window. After you get south of the intersection of I-15 and State Highway 93 you too will see them growing there. One of the largest fields of plastic bags in the world is in our very own county.

There are plastic bags growing as far as your eye can see. It reminds me so much of the vast cotton fields of Mississippi. The pride begins to swell just to know that our plastic bag farmers are doing so well.

On one trip home from Las Vegas I was lucky enough to see the bag farmers planting their crops. It is done with a large red truck. As the truck moved down Interstate 15 the farmer seeded the field by allowing a seed-bag to fly in the air and land where it may. I really felt bad one day when a bag was released in front of me and I hit it at seventy-five miles an hour. I slowed and looked around but the bag seemed unharmed. I wondered however, if it was the same as hitting a cow on State Highway 397, did I owe the farmer restitution?

From the seed bag, the little bag plant grows and its white blossom fills the desert until harvest time. It would seem to me the harvest would be larger if the bags were placed in a more meaningful way. However, not being in the business I will accept that the bag farmer knows better than I. This seems to be an ideal crop for the desert as the plants bloom year round.

However, what I find interesting is that while I have seen the seeding I have never seen the harvesting process. Can anyone tell me when harvesting takes place? I would like to see the process from beginning to end. I have a large side yard and once I learn how to harvest the bags I will plant my own bag field and then I apply to the United States Department of Agriculture for a subsidy not to grow plastic bags. I will join the wheat, cotton, and corn farmers of America in the farm subsidy program. We can then give China millions of dollars in agricultural aid funds and have them raise our plastic bags for us. Then maybe the bag fields will disappear from the road to Las Vegas.

No one asked me but…While the Department of Education spends billions of dollars trying to develop educational programs that fail to improve education in America, a young educator in Chicago has solved the problem. In Chicago, the graduation rate for African-American boys is about 40 percent. Urban Prep Charter School, located in the city’s tough Englewood neighborhood, has produced a very different statistic. In March, this school, which is made up of young African-American men, announced that all 107 boys in its first graduating class have been accepted to a four-year college. Just four percent of those seniors were reading at grade level as freshmen.

Tom King, the founder and CEO of Urban Prep, has instituted a longer school day that means a student has an additional 72,000 minutes in school each year, a double period of English, and required extracurricular and public service. The school emphasizes four R’s instead of three. Students are taught to read, write and add, but equally they are taught, resiliency, self-confidence, self-awareness.

The students are addressed formally, using their last name, and they wear coats and ties. The school of about 450 students offers a warm, friendly, and collegial atmosphere in which to learn.

“For us, it’s not just about teaching new vocabulary words. We really do have to understand what is going on with this student outside school,” King says.

Faculty members develop close relationships with students and are available by phone on evenings and weekends. Often, they provide help on issues that seem to have nothing to do with school: homelessness, family tensions, or money problems.

Contrast that with the Clark County school central office administrator who last year declared teachers have no business contacting or being involved with students beyond the classroom.

The teachers and members of the administration at Urban Prep are expected to be positive role models. King stated having those role models is important. “None of us are particularly shy about sharing with students our life stories.”

The number one criterion in hiring is the teacher must believe in the mission of the school. The most notable aspect of Urban Prep’s culture is its focus on its mission, an emphasis that infuses every aspect of the school – from an achievement-oriented creed that students recite daily to the framed letters toting the success of previous students that decorate the walls. Every single adult in the building – from the director of finance that handles payroll to the CEO to all the teachers – has a very clear understanding of the school’s mission.

Like most charter schools, Urban Prep raises a sizable amount of its budget (about 20 percent) privately. It operates outside union rules and requires an enormous time commitment from its teachers says Eric Smith, the head of the English department. “We’re now a surrogate family.”

How hard is it to understand the success of such a place? Clark County wants to know how to improve education for its urban students. They don’t need Department Education tests. Come to Moapa, look at the Meadows in Las Vegas, and copy the success there. If they need the expert from afar, go to Urban Prep.

No one asked me but…You want to know why America is bankrupt? Here is an example of America spending.

When NASA started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion dollars developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside-down, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300 Celsius. The Russians solved this problem by issuing each cosmonaut a pencil.

Thought of the week…If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.

- Ignacio Estrada

Column reprinted from earlier edition.