Putting State Educational Policy (And Money) Where It Can Deliver Improved Results
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
Now that the University of Nevada System has extricated itself from the unfortunate integrity-damaging, money-laundering project of buying out water rights from Nevada agricultural producers in the Walker River Basin, turning the unspent money they had left and the process for acquisition over to the more experienced and capable hands of the well-wired environmental non-profit taking over – they can turn their attention to the more traditional methods of getting the cash they need. As we see from this account, the educational elite are deeply involved in the plans for avoiding the crunch of everyone else when the available funds are less than what would be hoped for.
The apparent entrepreneurial motivation of keeping the extra revenue generated by out-of-state college students is a good idea and could be well-worth public policy consideration – as long as the concept also includes an offset of required general fund dollars being spent. Given the natural cynical tendencies that I labor with, something tells me the actual plan includes keeping what they’ve got and getting more too. It’s the educational principle of having your cake – and as much as you can get of everyone else’s cake – then eating it all while seeking more…
Overall there is nothing wrong with the educational community wanting and believing that they should have as much funding as they can get. Like any other special interest they have every opportunity to make their case for the more that they consider their rightful entitlement. As to the matter of whether they should be given the blank check they seek, without an improved measure of justification and accountability – that needs some attention. Delivery of measured performance has to be included in the public policy conversations and final decisions that take shape before those checks get cashed.
Education is one of the key quality-of-life components that the Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group will be working on over the course of their deliberations to improve Nevada’s standing. Not liking where we are with education is almost a religious cause in the Silver State, with no shortages of zealots who believe that if we only spent more money there would be no limit on how much better things would be. A major yardstick used to measure how bad we are includes specially designed rankings to put us at 50 in the nation for how much we don’t spend – for the children.
We offer our “Thanks” to Patrick Gibbons of the Nevada Policy Research Institute and his third installment in a series of pieces on how Nevada educational policy and structure improvements could advance the quality of education. It would do us well to actually put more focus on how to improve our educational system, as opposed to only considering the taxes we don’t have yet to stabilize the revenue for spending more. Ideally, that will be given some attention in the vision and policy setting processes.
Now that the University of Nevada System has extricated itself from the unfortunate integrity-damaging, money-laundering project of buying out water rights from Nevada agricultural producers in the Walker River Basin, turning the unspent money they had left and the process for acquisition over to the more experienced and capable hands of the well-wired environmental non-profit taking over – they can turn their attention to the more traditional methods of getting the cash they need. As we see from this account, the educational elite are deeply involved in the plans for avoiding the crunch of everyone else when the available funds are less than what would be hoped for.
The apparent entrepreneurial motivation of keeping the extra revenue generated by out-of-state college students is a good idea and could be well-worth public policy consideration – as long as the concept also includes an offset of required general fund dollars being spent. Given the natural cynical tendencies that I labor with, something tells me the actual plan includes keeping what they’ve got and getting more too. It’s the educational principle of having your cake – and as much as you can get of everyone else’s cake – then eating it all while seeking more…
Overall there is nothing wrong with the educational community wanting and believing that they should have as much funding as they can get. Like any other special interest they have every opportunity to make their case for the more that they consider their rightful entitlement. As to the matter of whether they should be given the blank check they seek, without an improved measure of justification and accountability – that needs some attention. Delivery of measured performance has to be included in the public policy conversations and final decisions that take shape before those checks get cashed.
Education is one of the key quality-of-life components that the Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group will be working on over the course of their deliberations to improve Nevada’s standing. Not liking where we are with education is almost a religious cause in the Silver State, with no shortages of zealots who believe that if we only spent more money there would be no limit on how much better things would be. A major yardstick used to measure how bad we are includes specially designed rankings to put us at 50 in the nation for how much we don’t spend – for the children.
We offer our “Thanks” to Patrick Gibbons of the Nevada Policy Research Institute and his third installment in a series of pieces on how Nevada educational policy and structure improvements could advance the quality of education. It would do us well to actually put more focus on how to improve our educational system, as opposed to only considering the taxes we don’t have yet to stabilize the revenue for spending more. Ideally, that will be given some attention in the vision and policy setting processes.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 12/31/2009 7:56 AM 
Categories: Nevada Educational Funding
Tags: Walker River Water Acquisition Nevada Educational Funding Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group University of Nevada
Categories: Nevada Educational Funding
Tags: Walker River Water Acquisition Nevada Educational Funding Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group University of Nevada
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