By DR. LARRY MOSES
No one asked me but… It is the holiday season and while many in the community had hoped to open a shiny new educational structure of great value, all they got was a lump of coal.
There is a great book about the national education dilemma entitled Waiting for Superman. The author indicates that his greatest disappointment as a child living in the poverty of inner city was when his mother told him Superman was not coming to his rescue. Well, not only is Superman not coming to Moapa Valley schools, neither is Santa Claus.
It began in the 2015, as an attempt to break up the 322,000-student Clark County School District; which spent $5,237,796,765 for the year of 2016-2017; into smaller locally controlled units. But it has ended up being nothing more than an attempt to modernize the delivery system of a flawed product. It matters little if a flaw product is delivered by Fed-EX or UPS; when it arrives it is still flawed.
The reform issue at hand was not how services were to be delivered; although that too could be improved. Rather it was the fact the behemoth that is CCSD is incapable of educating children at the local level. This is evidenced by the fact that in all possible measurements, Nevada ranks near the bottom when compared to students in schools across the nation. I can remember when Nevada educators used to laugh at Mississippi and its failed education system. The State of Nevada is the now the new Mississippi.
I reluctantly must admit that I was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee to Reorganize the Clark County School District. Never have so many done so much with so little effect. After a year and a half of meetings, testimony, and debate, the status quo remains. My only consolation is that we were merely an advisory body with no power to enact any educational reform.
The actual ability to enact reform rested with the Legislative Advisory Committee. But in a last-hour meeting; that actually lasted nine hours; the four Democrat members of the Legislative Advisory Committee were able to emasculate the plan and remove all meaningful changes to the status quo in the Clark County School District.
While CCSD Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky was masterful in blocking all change efforts, he failed to convey his success to the Board of Trustees. The CCSD Board of Trustees, not comprehending that nothing had changed, got their backs up and refused to cooperate in the cosmetic effects of the results of the Legislative Advisory Committee.
The LAC then retaliated by establishing yet another committee. This Committee is named the Community Implementation Committee. This CIC immediately hired a consultant firm at the tune of nearly two million CCSD dollars to reshuffle the central office.
The District has now filed for a permanent injunction to halt the “reforms”. If I may date myself, this has all the appearance of a Mack Sennett Keystone Kops movie.
When all of the parties involved quit chasing their tails, there will still be third graders not at reading level, fifth graders who will do worse on national normed test than they did as third graders, and eighth graders who will do worse than they did as fifth graders. There will still be nearly 6,000 students each year who will fail to obtain a high school diploma after completing twelve years of education in the CCSD.
There was hope that by bringing the control of education to local level, the toxic effect of a district so large that it can not address the individual educational needs of each student would end.
While there is no Santa Claus, there are supermen who have figured out how to solve the problem of educating youngsters who do not have the advantages found in many of the successful educational homes in America. Harlem Success Academy has developed a program that has 100% of their third graders passing math exams and 95% passing English. At Harlem Children Zone’s Promise Academy, 100% of the third graders scored at or above grade level in state wide math exams.
The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) has been successful in various cities of the United States. “In 2008, KIPP assessed the first 1000 students who had completed all four grades of KIPP middle schools. Students from about 20 KIPP schools were involved in this assessment. Eighty percent of the students sampled had family incomes low enough to qualify for federal lunch subsidies. Ninety-five percent were black or Hispanic. On average, they had gone from the 32nd to the 60th percentile in reading and from the 40th to the 82 percentile in math. …These students had in just four years moved from typical urban levels to suburban levels, at or above grade level.” (p. 179, Waiting for Superman: How We Can Save America’s Failing Public Schools)
Maybe the Community Implementation Committee would do a greater service to the people of Clark County if they quit worrying about purchasing a 10 to 30 million dollar computer program to streamline the central office of CCSD and spend their time exploring the opportunity to emulate these successful urban educational programs. However, that is beyond their stated goal or expertise.
It may be time to put together a group of educators who understand that no central office computer program will ever educate a student.
No one asked me but… As I sit down to write today, Christmas is two days away, and by the time this column is printed Christmas will be over. I have selected some Christmas gifts for the following:
To all those disappointed Hollywood elites who promised to the leave the country if Donald Trump was elected, I would like to give them passage on the first flight to Venezuela where the socialist government is more to their liking.
To President Donald Trump a filter for his Twitter account that includes a twenty-four hour delay and an opportunity for his press secretary to explain what he means before it is sent.
To the sanctuary cities and college campuses, a law that will allow the non-sanctuary cities to ship all convicted illegal aliens to the sanctuary mayors and college presidents with instructions that the felons are not to leave the campus or the city limits.
Thought of the week…One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me “Superman” did not exist. …She thought I was crying because it’s like Santa Claus is not real. I was crying because no one was coming with enough power to save us.
– Geoffrey Canada
Waiting for Superman
