No One Asked Me But… (April 21, 2021)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… The Clark County School District has just announced that there will be some “face to face” graduation ceremonies for the 2020-2021 school year. If that is the case, then there is no reason that our local high schools in Moapa Valley and Virgin Valley should not be allowed to hold a traditional graduation ceremony. Both football fields will be completed by then and what better way to initiate the new stadiums.

Is there any chance that the CCSD used this disruptive year to organize and reform the bureaucracy that has become the fifth largest school district in the United States? We can only hope that someone in the District had the foresight to realize this ridiculous shut-down of the schools would be an opportunity to fix a very broken education system.

There are those of us who can remember the failed four year fight to reform the District on a legislative level. While some laws were passed to localize educational control, those were either overturned by the pressure of CCSD and the local teachers union or merely ignored by the Superintendent and his Board of Trustees.

While county-wide school districts may very well be a benefit for rural Nevada, where one or two high schools can service the whole county and still remain small enough to be manageable, this model is disastrous to counties like Clark and Washoe. A school district of over 330 schools servicing a variety of communities cannot be efficiently ruled by a single Board of Trustees and a single Superintendent.

Education is a local issue and should be ruled locally. The needs of an inner city school, suburban, and rural school are not the same. A “one size fits all” model is ridiculous.

However, that is what the State of Nevada has chosen for its most populous counties. But this is probably whipping a dead horse, as neither the District nor the State Legislature has the desire to attack the issue of breaking up the CCSD.

As the district has “reopened” for the last month of the 2020-21 school year, it has done some rather interesting things. In the Las Vegas Metropolitan area, the District has required teachers to deal with the student in the classroom as though the child was in his home communicating with them over a computer.

Each student has his chromebook at his desk which is three feet from his fellow student’s desk. The teacher has a computer at his/her desk and communicates with the student over their computer. The teacher has a physical or assumed barrier they are not to cross. They communicate with the student only electronically.

Parents have been given the option of sending their students to school or remaining at home. Now one might logically think that the student at home would tune into the class while it is being given to those who returned to school. That apparently is not the case. Those who stay at home will have the option as to when they will deal with the lesson being presented. That requires the teacher to prepare two separate lessons.

Another interesting point is that any parent who withdrew a student and placed them in a home schooling situation is not allowed to return their child to the public school until next fall at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year. This makes some sense when you consider that those students who were withdrawn from school cost the District in state and federal funding $10,000 per student. With the average teacher costing the District nearly $60,000 in salary and benefits the withdrawal of every seven students cost the District the ability to pay for one teacher.

It will be interesting to see how many parents return their student to school if the District continues the option to have the child taught at home. While this, in my opinion, is educationally unsound, it would be a financial boon for the District if all students stayed home and learned online. It would, of course, defeat the major role of public education as day care and the feeding of the American child.

Where is the big savings in educational cost? Let me speculate; and I emphasize this is mere speculation. Something the local educational bureaucracy has found out in this year of large scale home schooling is there is an unlimited number of students one certified teacher can teach. The problem is the management of testing, one on one answering of questions by the student, and grading of papers.

The state has already made a move to solve that problem. By the decree of King Sisolak, the Governor of the State of Nevada, the school districts of Nevada may hire substitute teachers with a high school diploma to fill the classrooms.

Here is where speculation comes in. What if the District were to purchase computer programs in all subject matters and make it available online in classrooms of no more than twenty students? All of the information coming to the students in the classroom over their chromebooks would be from the same certified teacher. This would meet the requirement of the present Superintendent and Board of Trustees of a standardize program throughout the District.

In the classroom of twenty students, a high school graduate with specific training in subject matter would supervise students, correct papers, and establish grades. This supervisor of student would be paid minimum wage. The cost of education would drop significantly. Day care and feeding would be accomplished at about a third of the cost to the District.

I am not suggesting that is educationally sound or good for students. I am, however, suggesting that is not beyond the realm of possibilities as the educational soundness of a program has not heretofore been a top priority for our local school board or Superintendent.

Keep in mind these are merely the random thoughts of an old retired educator who is frozen in the 1960-1990’s education. None of this may come to pass and that which does come to pass may indeed be better than what was going on in education during my thirty year tenure as a teacher and administrator. I may very well be nothing more than a luddite who is resisting the machinery of the future.

Thought of the week… Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.
– Bill Gates