No One Asked Me But… (May 10, 2023)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… Governor Joe Lombardo has taken on the educational system of the State of Nevada; which is to say: the Clark County School District (CCSD).

The CCSD makes up 69% of all students in the State of Nevada. If you cure CCSD, you cure the disease that causes Nevada to be ranked as the 49th worst educational state in the Union.

The Clark County School District is the epitome of Ineptocracy, a system where the least capable to lead are selected by members least capable of understanding leadership. The District is a perfect study in the ‘unknowing’ requiring the ‘unwilling’ to do the ‘unnecessary.’

The decisions being made by CCSD has led many parents and students to look for better alternatives.
One of the most promising is the Southern Nevada Urban Micro Academy. The city of North Las Vegas created a city-sponsored charter school in response to concerns about the District’s inability to educate the city’s most vulnerable students.

One benefit of the pandemic was the city’s reaction to the remote learning offered by CCSD during that period. In essence, North Las Vegas established their own independent school outside the confines of CCSD. This could well be the forerunner of an independent school district made up of all the schools in the city of North Las Vegas.

According to an editorial that appear in the Las Vegas Review Journal, “all of the approximately 100 children who attended the school for the full year achieved at least a year’s worth of academic growth in English. More than 85 percent gained two or more years’ worth of learning.”

These were not handpicked educational elite students that CCSD has placed in the ever-growing number of magnet schools throughout the metropolitan area of CCSD. These students didn’t start from a position of strength. According to this report, 76 percent began the year below grade level.

However, 85 percent of the students ended the year at or above grade level in literacy.
In math, every student who started the school year with the academy began below grade level. More than 90 percent achieved at least a year’s worth of growth, and 35 percent gained two year’s worth. As a result, 87 percent ended the year at or above grade level in math.

Lawmakers and CCSD officials should study the methods and programs of this North Las Vegas school to see how they could be adapted to CCSD schools. If these programs were adopted and were successful, there would be no need for parents to seek out alternatives to the failing public schools their children are now forced to attend.

While North Las Vegas found a viable alternative in this single school, I would suggest that the movement to establish smaller independent school districts within Clark County is another alternative that would offer parents a choice to the failed efforts of CCSD. I would encourage Gov. Lombardo to look at this as another school choice.

The educators in Virgin Valley and Moapa Valley have already proven to be more effective than the average school in CCSD. This has been done in spite of continued interference of a huge central office who has little or no concern for the unique needs of our rural students.

Rather than embrace the programs that have allowed our valley schools to perform at approximately 25% higher achievement rate in language arts and math as well as graduation rate nearly 20% higher than the district at large, the effort of CCSD is to make our successful schools conform to the unsuccessful programs of the District.

I truly believe if an independent district made up of the schools of these two valleys was established, we could do even better. This movement of developing independent school districts within CCSD can be done legislatively, this is not a State Constitutional issue. The county-wide school districts were created in 1956 by legislative action and can be changed by the legislature.

While the District cries for another $2 billion, one must ask what have they done with the nearly $8 billion they had in their budget for last year?

While the Superintendent cried poverty before the Legislative Ways and Means committee and claimed progress is being made, he could not produce evidence of that progress.

I would contend that if the Superintendent bases the success of the district on the fact that the District’s central kitchen made over 4 million breakfast rolls last year, he is grasping at straws.

While testifying before the Legislators who were looking for a report on the increase in student achievement based on the funding increase from the last legislature, the Superintendent merely explained that those improvements are taking place. They are just not yet in evidence. If not now, one must ask: When will they be in evidence?

I must admit that I was a little surprised that the Superintendent used a chart that showed the failure to educate children as a need to continue to support the failed efforts of CCSD. I believe a show of progress would be a better argument than relying on the fact that less than 9 percent of CCSD students of color are proficient in math or language arts.

Oh! Silly me! I would see that as a great argument for abandoning a sinking ship and building a new model that works. But that is just me.

One must remember CCSD relies on poor academic results to increase their budget. But this, as past experience has shown, does nothing to help students.

Thought of the week…Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear or an idiot from any direction.
– Unknown