“Our schools deserve parents’ support” was the scintillating headline of Nevada System of Higher Education chancellor Jim Rogers’ op-ed in the Las Vegas Sun on Tuesday. Rogers kicks his column off by equating Nevada’s per-pupil funding levels to child abuse and neglect. (Read it to believe it!)
Rogers then goes on to criticize Nevadans for not paying enough taxes to adequately fund education in Nevada.
FACT ONE: Based on U.S. Census data on K-12 spending and doing a little quick math, Nevada spent $8,926 per student in 2006 which, at an average classroom size of, say, 30, works out to $267,780 per classroom year.
FACT TWO: 43% of Nevada’s fourth graders are functionally illiterate, according to the National Assessment in Education Progress reading test.
Even allowing for the 3 to 18% of Nevada’s students who are ELLs (English Language Learners, meaning those who speak only or primarily Spanish) and who naturally cannot be expected to test as fully literate in English, that 43% is a pretty dismal number.
How is it that over a quarter of a million dollars of spending PER CLASSROOM is not enough money to ensure that by fourth grade our students have learned to read with basic competency?
And Rogers wants to lecture the taxpayers about ABUSE and NEGLECT…?
You can reach Rogers by email at chancellor@unlv.edu or call his office at (702) 889-8426.
Tags: abuse, chancellor, Education, fourth graders, funding, good grief, higher education, illiterate, Jim Rogers, neglect, reading, so-called, students, Taxation, Taxes, taxpayers
Well, I don’t relish raining on conservatives’ celebratory parade after Tuesday’s primary victories here in Nevada, but a commitment to fair analysis requires that I do just that.
Though from one point of view conservatives “won” with the ousting of three tax-raising Republican assembly reps, that result has given Democrats hope that they can gain between one and three seats in the Nevada Assembly in November. If that happens, their 27-15 margin will grow, they’ll have a majority, and they’ll end up with the more than 28 seats needed for a supermajority, i.e. the number needed to override a veto by Republican governor Jim Gibbons.
Which in light of the tax-hiking tendencies of Assembly Democrats would be very bad news for Nevadans.
Republican strategists I’ve spoken to seem to think the GOP can hold onto those seats, and I hope they’re right. The man who defeated Marvel, Don Gustavson (District 32), is pretty well known so there’s a fair degree of confidence he can hold down his corner of the fort. People don’t seem quite as sure that Francis Allen’s nemesis, Richard McCarthur (District 4), and the guy who beat Bob “Lite” Beers, Jon Ozark (District 21), can do the same in a year that is shaping up to be very competitive.
With 10 of 21 state Senate seats and all 42 Assembly seats up for grabs here in the Battle Born State, it’s going to be an interesting election night in more ways than one.
Tags: Allen, analysis, assembly, Beers, Blogs of Nevada, conservatives, Gibbons, GOP, Gustavson, majority, Marvel, McCarthur, Ozark, primaries, primary, Republican, results, seats, Senates, strategists, supermajority, tax, tax hikes, Taxation, taxed, Taxes, taxing
Posted by E!!
on August 14, 2008
2008 Elections,
Barack Obama,
Blogs of Nevada,
Clark County,
Energy Policy,
Government Spending,
John McCain,
National Convention,
Taxation,
Washington D.C. /
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This morning on the drive to work, I heard Heidi Harris say (on talk radio KXNT) that Obama will be opening four more campaign offices in Las Vegas this week. Not surprising now that McCain has a slight edge in the polls.
The good news for the Dems is their voter registration edge of about 60,000, many of whom were signed up by the Obama campaign in recent months. In addition, the Las Vegas Sun reports that the Dems have trained 600 new precinct leaders in addition to the 1,000+ who were trained for the caucuses.
The bad news for Obama is that he has to overcome the senate’s most liberal voting record in a state that is unwaveringly pro-gun and has a deep aversion to tax hikes. He’s also got a problem in re: to energy because the majority of Nevadans – in both parties – support creating more energy (drill, drill, drill) vs. cutting consumption.
The question is: will those extra voter registrations and the opening of these new campaign offices make a difference for Obama in November – and should the NV GOP follow suit?
Republicans tend to be more reliable voters, so the GOP doesn’t always have to work as hard to get their peeps to the polls. With numbers this close, though, McCain’s people may want to take a page from the 2004 Bush-Cheney playbook. The Republican ground operation in Nevada was huge and Kerry was defeated by 21,500 votes.
Not sure that’s going to happen, though. The McCain campaign seems to be focusing more on Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan — states with larger numbers of electoral votes than Nevada – I guess thinking that if they can win 2 out of 3, they can win the whole enchilada.
Obama seems to be taking a different approach: grabbing enough (other) Bush states such that losses in the big Midwestern states won’t mean as much. Clearly, Nevada is one he wants in the bag.
Tags: Blogs of Nevada, campaigns, Elections, electoral votes, grab bag, ground operation, McCain, Obama, polls, stats, strategy, Swing States, toss up
Question: How many years does it take a group of Clark County Commissioners to decide to open a finished beltway interchange for public use?
Answer: Two.
Read about it here. Hopefully common sense will win out at the August 19 meeting. Contact your commissioner before then if you give a hoot.
Tags: beltway, Clark County, Commissioners, delay, DUH, interchange, Las Vegas, meeting, open, vote
