Options For Nevada’s Education -- Where Angels Fear To Tread
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
“Yea tho I walk…” or something to that effect, Nevada’s Governor Jim Gibbons has offered some ideas on possible alternative actions to address a significantly important area for Nevada…Education. The discussion about the proposed package of changes is going to take some time to unfold, but along with the surface analysis of how the ideas will affect classes – we really need to have a full conversation about what will result in achieving better results than what the current approach is producing.
Doing the things that are being done, the way they are being done isn’t exactly coming up roses. In spite of the refrain over how much money Nevada doesn’t spend on education, considering national rankings of dollars spent as a measure of note…the amount of spending being spent is not insignificant.
As dollars spent have gone up the outcome in terms of educational results has gone down. Does doing the same, with the blank check approach that appears the preferred option of apologist, educational bureaucrats and union officials, make sense? When do we get the information that could explain the details of what extra funding will achieve? Where or how do we even get to have a meaningful public evaluation of options for making improvements that focus on the students instead of the well-being of the institutions of education?
Governor Gibbon's proposal is going to stir the mix, but other than dismissing the plan out-of-hand, we need to actually take the level of debate to even greater heights with specifics and exchanges which weigh the gains that are required with details on how those improvements might be realized. Taxpayers and our children deserve changes, producing quality education and not just higher tax bills.
In their continuing process of putting out policy ideas to offer alternatives for the needed public debate, the Nevada Policy Research Institute offer edition IV stimulating some noteworthy points for the expansion of turning greater flexibility and accountability over to the local delivery system…where the gains need to be accomplished.
“Yea tho I walk…” or something to that effect, Nevada’s Governor Jim Gibbons has offered some ideas on possible alternative actions to address a significantly important area for Nevada…Education. The discussion about the proposed package of changes is going to take some time to unfold, but along with the surface analysis of how the ideas will affect classes – we really need to have a full conversation about what will result in achieving better results than what the current approach is producing.
Doing the things that are being done, the way they are being done isn’t exactly coming up roses. In spite of the refrain over how much money Nevada doesn’t spend on education, considering national rankings of dollars spent as a measure of note…the amount of spending being spent is not insignificant.
As dollars spent have gone up the outcome in terms of educational results has gone down. Does doing the same, with the blank check approach that appears the preferred option of apologist, educational bureaucrats and union officials, make sense? When do we get the information that could explain the details of what extra funding will achieve? Where or how do we even get to have a meaningful public evaluation of options for making improvements that focus on the students instead of the well-being of the institutions of education?
Governor Gibbon's proposal is going to stir the mix, but other than dismissing the plan out-of-hand, we need to actually take the level of debate to even greater heights with specifics and exchanges which weigh the gains that are required with details on how those improvements might be realized. Taxpayers and our children deserve changes, producing quality education and not just higher tax bills.
In their continuing process of putting out policy ideas to offer alternatives for the needed public debate, the Nevada Policy Research Institute offer edition IV stimulating some noteworthy points for the expansion of turning greater flexibility and accountability over to the local delivery system…where the gains need to be accomplished.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 1/7/2010 6:53 AM 
Categories: Nevada Educational Funding
Tags: Educational Spending Nevada Governor Gibbons Education Proposal Educational Reform
Categories: Nevada Educational Funding
Tags: Educational Spending Nevada Governor Gibbons Education Proposal Educational Reform
Who would have thought it would take more than 4 years to get FFA program established at Lincoln. Entropy and inertia are alive and well at all levels.
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