No One Asked Me But… (August 18, 2021)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… With the caveat that I am a historian by trade, I am going to go where most social studies majors fear to tread: the realm of mathematics.

Here are some interesting budget figures from Clark County School District for the 2021-22 school year. The total of all funds for this year is posted as $6,595,862,610. Yes, that is over six and half billion dollars!

However, the district budget department subtracts $623,142,127 for interfund transfers. I am not sure what an interfund transfer is but it lowers the net funding to only $5,972,720,482. Yes, that is still almost six billion dollars that will be spent on the projected 309,000 students in CCSD.
Most of the money will be from local taxes. State support for the schools of Clark County will be $892,259,000 or approximately $2,888 per student.

Interestingly, this per student support from the state varies from district to district. This is called the Nevada Plan and is based on the ability of the local governments to tax their people to pay for the local education. Don’t asked me to explain the Nevada Plan. Only a troll who lives under a bridge in Carson City understands how this is calculated.

Rural school districts receive more per pupil state educational funds than urban districts. Nevada school districts are co-terminus with the county. With the exception of Clark County, every other county and school district in Nevada is considered to be rural by the State legislature. The fact that CCSD has more rural students than all but three of state school districts seems to have little effect on the funding for the District.

The State supplies only fourteen percent of the funding for CCSD. Keeping that in mind, one might want to question why the State Board of Education and the State Superintendent, under the direction of the Governor, run the local school district. One must question why our locally elected School Board of Trustees, who cost around three quarters of a million dollars a year – and our local Superintendent, who is paid nearly a half a million dollars a year – are not the ones who to set the course for CCSD. Since the Governor and the state have taken over the schools, we could save a million dollars a year by getting rid of the CCSD Board of Trustees and their hired manager.

Now, I really don’t think this is a good idea. It would be best if the Governor were to stay out of the business of CCSD.

The District never wants to talk about the total budget. So let’s just start with the General Operating and Special Education Budget that CCSD willingly shares with the public. While the student population has actually dropped since last year, this part of the budget was increased by $234,051,153. This part of the budget’s total is $4,227,562,147 dollars. This computes out to $13,681 dollars per student.

The Other Funds category, the hidden part of the budget, totals $2,368,300,463. All the funds together total to $6,595,862,610 dollars. This is $21,345 dollars per student. The District subtracts the Interfund Transfers, for a Net All Funds total of only $5,972,720,482. Yes, this is still almost six billion dollars. This is approximately $19,329 per student.

How does this funding compare to the tuition charged by the best private schools in Southern Nevada? Only one private school charges more per pupil than the funding that the people of Clark County supplies to the CCSD. When one compares the educational success of these schools and that of the average CCSD school, one must wonder about the value of the public dollars spent. When CCSD cries poverty, the parents of CCSD students need to demand efficient use of the six billion dollars that is already provided to the district.

No one asked me but… We in Moapa Valley are blessed with teachers and administrators who understand that the success of the student is their responsibility and that our local school success can be attributed to our parents, faculty, administration, and students.

It is time for Central Office to emulate what is happening here and in the private sector rather than lowering standards.

While the CCSD leaders believe it is racist to require all students to achieve high standards I believe the most racist thing that has happened in American education is the perpetration of the belief that students of African and Hispanic descent cannot compete educationally with those of European and Asian Descent.

During the eighteen years of classroom experience and thirteen years in administration in inner city schools, rural schools, and schools where students would have been considered privileged, I found no difference in a student’s capability to learn based on their ethnic heritage. The major task was finding the students knowledge level when they entered my class and then devising a curriculum that allowed them to achieve the standards set.

It meant different programs for different students and with the right instructional strategy and encouragement they could all meet the standards set.

Our schools don’t need to lower standards. They need to take on the Marine Corps motto: “Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.”

This cannot be done from the confines of the CCSD Central Office. It is done in the field with each classroom teacher and student, one on one.

The Central office may establish goals but once they set those goals they need to get out of the way of the local administration and teacher allowing them to deal with their unique students in their unique ways to accomplish those goals. My reaction to Central Office personnel has always been: If you know best, get off your comfortable office chair and get to teaching students.

No one asked me but… If you want to question the premise that Central Office leadership in CCSD is lacking, take a look at the latest fiasco in the testing of non-vaccinated teachers. Many of those who got a notice that they needed to be tested were vaccinated but the online verification established by the District failed to convey that information.

So many teachers who were vaccinated were directed to testing centers causing longer lines than necessary. One must wonder why testing centers were established rather than spreading the test kits out to the individuals schools.

It would appear that the powers that be selected the most inconvenient and distasteful way to accomplish the task. Most schools have school nurses or some staff member who could have administered the test on site without long lines and with no disgruntled teachers.

Thought of the week… “There are no rules here — we’re trying to accomplish something.”
― Thomas A. Edison