We Are Measured By The Yardsticks We Choose
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
As a Minnesota farm boy, I grew up watching my Dad do the things that he did. As he would drive down the dirt roads and highways of southwestern Minnesota, he spent as much time looking out the side window as he did the windshield. I came to understand that the purpose for this activity was to check out how straight the corn rows were – the ones that he had planted as well as those of other farmers in the neighborhood. Growing up I came to understand that planting straight corn rows was an important measurement of how good of a farmer you were.
Later as I was exposed to the realities of business and the facts of life associated with paying bills and earning income, I figured out that planting straight corn rows might be important, but harvesting a profit was even a bigger deal.
During the recent meetings of the Legislative Commission's Budget Subcommittee, and in particular the grilling of the state budget director, Assembly Barbara Buckley zeroed in with a significant swipe by drawing attention to her calculations that with the Governor’s funding proposal for K-12 education (as well as the proposed six (6) percent salary cutback) Nevada would now be 50th on the list for per-pupil spending support.
Being 50th, if that’s where Nevada might rank (with as many different ways as this gets calculated and what gets included), appears to be a rather big deal in the minds of many – most of who seem to give the impression that our priority should be on raising Nevada taxes and expanding the tax base so more entities can be tapped in additional ways.
As a non-member of the education community (I’m only a parent with a fifth grader and with another student in college), I mistakenly have thought the purpose of education was learning. By this messed-up thinking, I would have considered that the measurement of achieving the desired objectives would have been linked to the output (learning) instead of the input (how much funding was allocated on a per-student basis).
Last week my fifth grader brought home his report card and I found one grade on the card that didn’t measure up to what I would have expected for him to have received. I didn’t take the point of view of Nevada’s legislative leaders and educational hierarchy because I didn’t blame the level of state spending on a per-student basis for the grade. I didn’t take the perspective of University of Nevada Chancellor Jim Rogers and holler at myself for being a poor parent, who’s not paying enough in taxes.
We had a little “father-son” talk and “we” came to the conclusion that his less than stellar grade was because he hadn’t been doing the work required to earn the grade he should have received.
We then set out to correct the problem. Not by contacting our representatives to keep budget cuts from “dismantling” our education system – not by finding some tag-board and a stick to make a protest sign so we could parade around the state legislative building – not by any of the apparent ways you are supposed to do these things.
“We” decided that somebody was going to start putting in the work (with dedicated time every night for the task) so “he” would get his grade back up where it belongs.
It would seem that while being 50th in the nation shouldn’t be a very worthy goal to shoot for. If we were measuring the quality of education that students were receiving – that would put us Number 1 on the list for the effectiveness of the education process, delivering the best educated students…for the least amount of per-pupil spending.
(After preparing this entry, I came across a very worthwhile commentary prepared by Patrick Gibbons of the Nevada Policy Research Institute. His Jan. 27th piece clearly demonstrates in numbers the details of what I was attempting to say. Hopefully, you will take the time to click over to this link and see for yourself the information presented.)
As a Minnesota farm boy, I grew up watching my Dad do the things that he did. As he would drive down the dirt roads and highways of southwestern Minnesota, he spent as much time looking out the side window as he did the windshield. I came to understand that the purpose for this activity was to check out how straight the corn rows were – the ones that he had planted as well as those of other farmers in the neighborhood. Growing up I came to understand that planting straight corn rows was an important measurement of how good of a farmer you were.
Later as I was exposed to the realities of business and the facts of life associated with paying bills and earning income, I figured out that planting straight corn rows might be important, but harvesting a profit was even a bigger deal.
During the recent meetings of the Legislative Commission's Budget Subcommittee, and in particular the grilling of the state budget director, Assembly Barbara Buckley zeroed in with a significant swipe by drawing attention to her calculations that with the Governor’s funding proposal for K-12 education (as well as the proposed six (6) percent salary cutback) Nevada would now be 50th on the list for per-pupil spending support.
Being 50th, if that’s where Nevada might rank (with as many different ways as this gets calculated and what gets included), appears to be a rather big deal in the minds of many – most of who seem to give the impression that our priority should be on raising Nevada taxes and expanding the tax base so more entities can be tapped in additional ways.
As a non-member of the education community (I’m only a parent with a fifth grader and with another student in college), I mistakenly have thought the purpose of education was learning. By this messed-up thinking, I would have considered that the measurement of achieving the desired objectives would have been linked to the output (learning) instead of the input (how much funding was allocated on a per-student basis).
Last week my fifth grader brought home his report card and I found one grade on the card that didn’t measure up to what I would have expected for him to have received. I didn’t take the point of view of Nevada’s legislative leaders and educational hierarchy because I didn’t blame the level of state spending on a per-student basis for the grade. I didn’t take the perspective of University of Nevada Chancellor Jim Rogers and holler at myself for being a poor parent, who’s not paying enough in taxes.
We had a little “father-son” talk and “we” came to the conclusion that his less than stellar grade was because he hadn’t been doing the work required to earn the grade he should have received.
We then set out to correct the problem. Not by contacting our representatives to keep budget cuts from “dismantling” our education system – not by finding some tag-board and a stick to make a protest sign so we could parade around the state legislative building – not by any of the apparent ways you are supposed to do these things.
“We” decided that somebody was going to start putting in the work (with dedicated time every night for the task) so “he” would get his grade back up where it belongs.
It would seem that while being 50th in the nation shouldn’t be a very worthy goal to shoot for. If we were measuring the quality of education that students were receiving – that would put us Number 1 on the list for the effectiveness of the education process, delivering the best educated students…for the least amount of per-pupil spending.
(After preparing this entry, I came across a very worthwhile commentary prepared by Patrick Gibbons of the Nevada Policy Research Institute. His Jan. 27th piece clearly demonstrates in numbers the details of what I was attempting to say. Hopefully, you will take the time to click over to this link and see for yourself the information presented.)
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