Well Said And Worth Repeating – Often, In Many Places
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
Given the fact that those who wish to convince us that our state is circling the drain because we don’t spend enough constantly infuse their message into almost every breath – it’s worth noticing and then sharing information that comes along to put things into perspective. The Las Vegas Review Journal published this editorial insight on June 12th, giving some context to the less than complete picture that has been presented as “fact”.
We wholeheartedly endorse the idea that parents who care should be up-in-arms about the state of Nevada’s education system. We also believe that the attention should be on understanding what we get for the education dollars that are spent – not just what some group tells us our ranking might be.
Reform efforts need to concentrate on measurements that matter, especially where classroom learning is involved – notice we said “learning” and not improvements in grades. It’s not about teaching to pass tests – it’s about students learning the fundamentals they will need to know in order to be successful adults.
Improving our K-12 educational system may require more funding and should be a priority, but that doesn’t equate to pumping more dollars into the system, expecting a better outcome. From where we stand right now the only thing that we would expect the result of more funding to be would be a greater bloat to the bureaucracy and bigger paychecks for all involved.
Increase understanding of what we’re paying for; fix the system to make it more accountable in terms of meaningful results – and then we can discuss where possible increased funding would play a role for accomplishment.
Given the fact that those who wish to convince us that our state is circling the drain because we don’t spend enough constantly infuse their message into almost every breath – it’s worth noticing and then sharing information that comes along to put things into perspective. The Las Vegas Review Journal published this editorial insight on June 12th, giving some context to the less than complete picture that has been presented as “fact”.
We wholeheartedly endorse the idea that parents who care should be up-in-arms about the state of Nevada’s education system. We also believe that the attention should be on understanding what we get for the education dollars that are spent – not just what some group tells us our ranking might be.
Reform efforts need to concentrate on measurements that matter, especially where classroom learning is involved – notice we said “learning” and not improvements in grades. It’s not about teaching to pass tests – it’s about students learning the fundamentals they will need to know in order to be successful adults.
Improving our K-12 educational system may require more funding and should be a priority, but that doesn’t equate to pumping more dollars into the system, expecting a better outcome. From where we stand right now the only thing that we would expect the result of more funding to be would be a greater bloat to the bureaucracy and bigger paychecks for all involved.
Increase understanding of what we’re paying for; fix the system to make it more accountable in terms of meaningful results – and then we can discuss where possible increased funding would play a role for accomplishment.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 6/12/2009 5:09 AM 
Categories: Nevada Educational Funding
Tags: K-12 Education Nevada Educational Reform
Categories: Nevada Educational Funding
Tags: K-12 Education Nevada Educational Reform
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