No One Asked Me But… (April 19, 2023)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… I have spent the last week working a booth at the Clark County Fair. The booth was an attempt to educate the many Fair-goers of a movement to break up the 300,000-student Clark County School District (CCSD) into more manageable and more locally responsive Districts. There seems to be an overwhelming sentiment in favor of this among those who stopped at the booth to sign a sheet in support of the effort.

In the film “Shawshank Redemption,” Morgan Freeman’s character says something to the effect that “it’s time to either get busy live’n or get busy die’n”. One can easily apply this to the state of education in Clark County.

A few years ago, a federal study designated several urban schools in Las Vegas as “dropout factories.” In the worst of these schools only thirty percent of those who begin their high school education finish. I would suggest little has changed over the last five years in those schools. Each year the CCSD has from 4,000-6,000 seniors who fail to graduate with their class.

While the graduation rate for the CCSD is only 81 percent, Moapa Valley High School has a constant 98-100 percent graduation rate.

What is the difference in our rural valley schools and the urban schools in Clark County? Is it the curriculum? No! The curriculum is standard throughout the District. Is it the faculty’s education?

No! The Moapa Valley faculty has the same education as those in the inner-city schools. Maybe it’s the facilities, but, no, many of the 110 failing schools (one third of the schools in CCSD) are newer and more modern than the facilities in our valleys. Mack Lyon Middle school is one of the oldest facilities in the District, but it is still rated exemplary.

I believe community involvement in the schools is a major part of the answer. There is a feeling in our valleys that these are our schools and they are here for us and our children. There is a strong core of adults who are a product of these schools. There are a large number of ex-teachers and administrators who, upon retirement, remained in our valleys and are still committed to the school. Our business community is committed to the success of our schools.

I further believe that teacher commitment to students beyond the requirements of the classroom is imperative. A central office administrator, reacting to the internet misconduct of a teacher in Las Vegas, stated: “No teacher has any business having contact with any student outside the classroom.” This is the educational equivalent of the brick walls that isolate neighbors in Las Vegas.

I would contend that contact outside the classroom is what makes the classroom happen. Teachers who work with students in extra-curricular settings have better relationships with students in the classroom.

Student commitment to education is imperative, and this commitment comes when students interact with teachers who love the subject matter – but even more importantly love the students to whom they present the material. There is the old saying: “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

What is amazing is the central administration of the CCSD continues to work hard at making our valley schools more like the urban schools rather than making the urban schools more like our valley’s schools. Where inner-city schools have been successful they have done everything they could to create the physical, social, and economic conditions similar to those our youngster inherently have and take for granted.

Students and parents identify with the school as something they value and to which they want to belong. In successful schools, the teachers, administrators and community members have developed a school atmosphere that tells the students they are valued as individuals and education is important.

With the CCSD institution of the restorative discipline program, the drug dealers, gang members, sex offenders, as well as other social misfits are not removed from the general school population. Is it any wonder that more and more students are found with guns on campus? Those who do graduate should get a Combat Infantry Badge to go with their diploma.

I find it interesting when dealing with the ills of the failing schools that those very people who insist the program is broken challenge any attempt to fix it. Rather than center efforts to improve inadequate schools, they attack successful schools and programs. Why not leave those schools that are successful alone and work on programs for the failing schools?

Why not attack those failing schools with radical reforms? If the reforms fail, are you going to be any worse off than the 70 percent failure rate you now have in the worst of these schools? Why not adopt one of the most successful inner-city charter schools in America’s motto “No Excuses! Whatever it takes!”

But when one argues for home schooling, distance education, the breaking up of the district, or any other alternative, the powers that be state that these options deny the student an opportunity for equal education. Spare me the equal education found in these failing schools!

The answer is not an equal educational opportunity, the answer is found in an equitable education opportunity. Equality is every kid has a pair of shoes; equity is every kid has a pair of shoes that fits.

Oh, and by the way, our education system is failing these students as it is. But let’s not change it for them. Let us spend time, effort and money placing a greater burden on successful schools, to a point of where they will become less adequate. Tell me the logic of that argument.

All you need to know is if you keep doing what you have been doing, you will keep getting what you have been getting.

Education in Clark County needs to “Get busy live’n or get busy die’n.”

Thought of the Week… Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
– Margaret Meade