An Eye On Getting What We Pay For In Our Educational Funding
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
On my daily commute from Reno to the Nevada Legislature in Carson City, I pass three different billboards which implore that Nevada Educational funding not be cut. On the trip home there are a couple of additional billboards on which I can read the same message. These billboards are paid for by the major union for teachers in the state, a group that has already managed to leverage their way, through a vote on an advisory question in two major population counties of the state, to acquire the proceeds of the third largest tax increase in Nevada’s history.
This tax increase on hotel rooms in Clark and Washoe Counties was supposed to bring in about $200 million, but so far hasn’t been doing quite that well, since the economy hasn’t been as friendly to visitors renting hotel rooms as our educational community would prefer.
At this writing (Friday afternoon, May 8th) the legislative process has ground to a halt (partly because it’s Friday before Mothers’ Day) and also in no large part to the inability for key legislators to reach an accord on how much to spend on Higher Education. Governor Gibbon’s budget called for a decrease of about 36 percent for Higher Education and the discussions in the Legislature seem to have reached an impasse about the neighborhood of a decrease of 13 to 15 percent. As we see from this report, University officials are pressing hard to something where the decrease would be in single digit description.
Lost in all the back and forth on educational funding (for whichever level – and they both do a very good job of playing one-against-the-other to ratchet up the take for each other)… is the question of “what are we getting for the money we’re spending?”
The champions of “you can’t ever pay enough” (even after they get all there is to get) maintain that Nevada ranks in the least desirable spot of 50th in the nation when it comes to how much funding the state provides on a per-student basis. That “objective” measurement has lots of room for improvement since the comparisons with other states is often a hodge-podge of different calculations on any number of variables. The point though in most arguments isn’t to actually communicate facts, but instead to instill feelings of how badly trod upon are those dedicated souls who are sacrificing their lives so that our children will have a future.
It would seem if the amount of funding from the state treasury, on a per-pupil basis, were to be greater…we could raise above being 50th in the nation. Whether it would matter for how much better an education our students received isn’t covered. Neither is a detailed analysis of how the actual amount of per-pupil support translates to reach a student in the classroom (I’ve got a fifth grader and I’d kinda like to know what “he” Is doing with his share of the state allocation).
One piece of insights into Nevada’s educational funding approach has been prepared by the Nevada Policy Research Institute. The report is entitled “Funding Fantasies -- Nevada K-12 Spends More Than You Think”. This isn’t to suggest that it should be the final word in the public discussion that is needed on funding our educational system, but perhaps it can serve as an informational background document for others to expand on as we go forward.
On my daily commute from Reno to the Nevada Legislature in Carson City, I pass three different billboards which implore that Nevada Educational funding not be cut. On the trip home there are a couple of additional billboards on which I can read the same message. These billboards are paid for by the major union for teachers in the state, a group that has already managed to leverage their way, through a vote on an advisory question in two major population counties of the state, to acquire the proceeds of the third largest tax increase in Nevada’s history.
This tax increase on hotel rooms in Clark and Washoe Counties was supposed to bring in about $200 million, but so far hasn’t been doing quite that well, since the economy hasn’t been as friendly to visitors renting hotel rooms as our educational community would prefer.
At this writing (Friday afternoon, May 8th) the legislative process has ground to a halt (partly because it’s Friday before Mothers’ Day) and also in no large part to the inability for key legislators to reach an accord on how much to spend on Higher Education. Governor Gibbon’s budget called for a decrease of about 36 percent for Higher Education and the discussions in the Legislature seem to have reached an impasse about the neighborhood of a decrease of 13 to 15 percent. As we see from this report, University officials are pressing hard to something where the decrease would be in single digit description.
Lost in all the back and forth on educational funding (for whichever level – and they both do a very good job of playing one-against-the-other to ratchet up the take for each other)… is the question of “what are we getting for the money we’re spending?”
The champions of “you can’t ever pay enough” (even after they get all there is to get) maintain that Nevada ranks in the least desirable spot of 50th in the nation when it comes to how much funding the state provides on a per-student basis. That “objective” measurement has lots of room for improvement since the comparisons with other states is often a hodge-podge of different calculations on any number of variables. The point though in most arguments isn’t to actually communicate facts, but instead to instill feelings of how badly trod upon are those dedicated souls who are sacrificing their lives so that our children will have a future.
It would seem if the amount of funding from the state treasury, on a per-pupil basis, were to be greater…we could raise above being 50th in the nation. Whether it would matter for how much better an education our students received isn’t covered. Neither is a detailed analysis of how the actual amount of per-pupil support translates to reach a student in the classroom (I’ve got a fifth grader and I’d kinda like to know what “he” Is doing with his share of the state allocation).
One piece of insights into Nevada’s educational funding approach has been prepared by the Nevada Policy Research Institute. The report is entitled “Funding Fantasies -- Nevada K-12 Spends More Than You Think”. This isn’t to suggest that it should be the final word in the public discussion that is needed on funding our educational system, but perhaps it can serve as an informational background document for others to expand on as we go forward.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 5/8/2009 3:43 PM 
Categories: Nevada Educational Funding
Tags: Nevada Educational Funding Nevada Budget
Categories: Nevada Educational Funding
Tags: Nevada Educational Funding Nevada Budget
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