There has been a lot of talk in Nevada’s halls of power regarding improving K-12 education. People on both sides of the aisle have murmured in sad, sincere tones about the urgent need for education reform. They cry, with broken voices, about how our schools are failing the children of this state. Everyone emphasizes the importance of setting politics aside and working together to do what is best for the kids. Then the election is over and the political game begins. Suddenly, the struggle becomes about everything except the kids.
Of course, some of the players in this game have actually shown sincerity. Indeed, the 2015 Legislative session, led by a gang of fresh new Republicans, produced some of the most innovative ideas for education reform, perhaps in state history. Admittedly not all of these ideas were flawless. Some emerged from the session a bit rough around the edges. But at least they were new ideas. At least there was an honest hope to challenge the stagnant status quo.
But this year, as the Democrat regime returned to the majority, the pendulum has swung right back. The current leadership has proven far less interested in forging new territory with innovative reform measures. Oh! they can definitely talk the talk! Many of these Democrats actually sat atop the 2015 reform wave and rode it in for all the political gain it was worth. But as the current session has gone by, the Democrat leadership has shown itself to be more interested in retaining the status quo than in reforming it; more interested in keeping the support of special interests than in improving education for the kids.
As a result, the reform efforts from 2015 have been decimated in the 2017 session. Instead of improving, strengthening, building upon and deploying those 2015 reforms, there has been a systematic dismantling of them by the current Democrat leadership. In the end, it has become increasingly difficult to reconcile the talk from Democrats about their desire for reform with the walk of the shameful, bald-faced politics they have exhibited in this year’s session.
For example, the CCSD reorganization bill was supposed to be a bipartisan measure. In 2015, legislators on both sides of the aisle locked arms and passed the bill “for the good of kids.” But Democrats showed their true colors a few months later when they paraded a litany of special interests before the Interim Committee and invited each one to take a big bite out of the reform plan. In the process, nearly every reform in the plan was neutralized. When the dust had settled, the only special interest left out of the deal were the kids in the classroom.
Another example was a 2015 bill that formed the Achievement School District (ASD). This bill was meant to be a final resort for chronically failing schools; allowing a complete changeover of school governance to a tightly monitored charter school model. Unfortunately, left-leaning elements in the inner city communities sowed fear and discontent into parents and community leaders from the identified failing schools. Ironically, everyone in those schools was suddenly up in arms and vocal about wanting to keep the status quo in their desperately failing schools. There were virtually no takers for the new ASD model.
But education advocates in Moapa Valley and Henderson, craving more autonomy for their local schools, found the ASD reforms attractive. Long seeking independence from the CCSD bureaucracy, they asked for an opportunity to petition into those ASD spots that no one wanted. They would then be free to form their own community charter with full local autonomy over school governance, they thought.
But last week they were purposefully drawn out of the circle. An amendment to a bill proposed by Sen. Mo Denis (D-Las Vegas), which was approved by the Senate on Sunday, might have opened the way for schools to petition into the ASD. But Denis’ amendment limited eligibility only to lower performing 1- and 2-star schools. These struggling inner-city schools had already made it clear that they had no interest in the ASD. Denis knew that. He also knew that the only other schools interested were the 3-, 4- and 5-star schools in Henderson and Moapa Valley that his measure was now deeming ineligible. Thus the measure would effectively shut the ASD down all while appearing to open more options. If nothing else, Mr. Denis’ bill showed innovation in preventing any education reform from actually happening.
Finally, there was the mammoth debacle, near the close of the session last week, over the Governor’s prize Education Savings Accounts (ESA). This statewide school choice voucher system was set up by a groundbreaking bill passed in 2015.
The Republicans began the 2017 session with a vow that they would not vote for any budget that did not include ESA funding. Last week, after Governor Sandoval thought he had reached an agreement with Democrats in the matter, the Democrats backed out of the deal and refused to fund the ESAs.
This was the last straw for Republicans. Having watched nearly all of their 2015 education reforms relentlessly chiselled away by the political gyratons of Democrat lawmakers, GOP leadership decided this was the hill they would defend to the death.
This unfortunate situation set the entire Legislature on fire in its final hours. On Thursday, Republican senators walked out of the chamber in protest. Numerous important budget strings and strands, many of which had nothing whatsover to do with education, were left hanging in the balance in uncertainty.
In a final effort to tie up the loose ends, Republicans finally capitulated their hard line on ESAs, thus bidding farewell to the last of the 2015 reforms.
And so, as the 2017 session ends, education in Nevada eases back into the good-old status quo. What a shame!
Given their wholesale dismantling of the 2015 advances in education reform; considering their vigorous championing and defense of the very same special interests at the heart of the problem with education; and witnessing their calculated preservation of the miserable status quo; how can the Democrat leadership be taken at their word that they ever had educational reform anywhere on the radar? How can it be remotely construed that they have ever had any inclination to put the needs of the state’s children above their own political interests?
Despite all of its talk, the state of Nevada still lacks the will to walk the walk on education. Education is still apparently not enough of a priority to the majority of voters to bring and keep real reform in the state’s failing public school system.
Over the past two years, the relentless efforts of would-be reformers have been admirable. They have boldly brought hope to parents who have rallied and advocated for reforms. But it was not enough to beat the political game.
Sadly, all of these efforts have proven similar to the act of slowly pushing a giant millstone. With tremendous exertion and a titan struggle, the only product of all this labor has been to plod around the threshing floor in a great circle. Now the visionary reformers, the parents, the schools and, most of all, the children; all seem to find themselves right back where they started.
