It is now a well-established fact that education in the State of Nevada has taken huge budget cuts as a necessity of the budget malaise. Whenever 'cuts' to education are proposed, the people whine that people will suffer because they will be uneducated and underfunded etc., and yet I see zero stories or studies that show or claim that our students are performing under par or losing out now that fewer funds are available. If as they claim reductions in costs lead to laziness, waste, and stupidity, then the rising generations of Nevada's youth can be expected to make zero contribution since education funding has been cut by 25% or more compared to previous years.
Moreover, people in Las Vegas routinely criticize the Clark County School District for its incompetance and inability to educate. I graduated Valedictorian from a High School in this school district several years ago. Granted, I did not come up through the ranks from the earliest years, but to simply lay the blame at the feet of the school district is a Roorback argument and ipso facto fallacy.
Experience and logic show that throwing money at a thing and hoping blindly for good without metrics for accountability is foolishness. If you have lousy teachers, paying them more or buying them new equipment will not make them better. If you have lousy standards, hiring more administrators will not make the standards better. If the parents do not care or do not have time to support the education of their own children because of economic distress, then paying for classrooms will not help.
I agree that governmental priorities and societal priorities are awack. However, the amount of money spent on them is a poor yardstick when textbooks cost $100 each and staplers $4, but it costs $15 million for an F-15 jet and $1050 for an AR-15 rifle. People routinely criticize the military for buying $300 hammers, and nobody thinks twice when a university buys a refrigerator from ThermoSci for $3000 when they could buy a perfectly comparable one from Home Depot for $800. Education expenses, even when not justified, are acceptable carte blanche, while defense spending is cut and criticized.
Education suffers, not because of money, but because of other resource bottlenecks. Until and unless we find the best people we can for the wage we offer, education will continue to languish. Until and unless we direct most of the funds to the classroom instead of the bureaucracy, the bureaucrats will find ways to spend it before the students see a dime. Until and unless parents are as invested in the education of their children as they are in the stock market, stock car racing, livestock, and living room sets, the children will not perform to potential. Until and unless we hold people accountable to teach by the way, we will continue to fall by the wayside in the global market.
Like most federal agencies, the Department of Education is a misnomer. Nobody is educated by the DoEd. None of its employees, to my knowledge anyway, teach, even in an adjunct capacity. We got along just fine until 1979 without it, and since its inception, our children have grown increasingly lazy, stupid, and wasteful. Coincidence? I think otherwise.
Moreover, people in Las Vegas routinely criticize the Clark County School District for its incompetance and inability to educate. I graduated Valedictorian from a High School in this school district several years ago. Granted, I did not come up through the ranks from the earliest years, but to simply lay the blame at the feet of the school district is a Roorback argument and ipso facto fallacy.
Experience and logic show that throwing money at a thing and hoping blindly for good without metrics for accountability is foolishness. If you have lousy teachers, paying them more or buying them new equipment will not make them better. If you have lousy standards, hiring more administrators will not make the standards better. If the parents do not care or do not have time to support the education of their own children because of economic distress, then paying for classrooms will not help.
I agree that governmental priorities and societal priorities are awack. However, the amount of money spent on them is a poor yardstick when textbooks cost $100 each and staplers $4, but it costs $15 million for an F-15 jet and $1050 for an AR-15 rifle. People routinely criticize the military for buying $300 hammers, and nobody thinks twice when a university buys a refrigerator from ThermoSci for $3000 when they could buy a perfectly comparable one from Home Depot for $800. Education expenses, even when not justified, are acceptable carte blanche, while defense spending is cut and criticized.
Education suffers, not because of money, but because of other resource bottlenecks. Until and unless we find the best people we can for the wage we offer, education will continue to languish. Until and unless we direct most of the funds to the classroom instead of the bureaucracy, the bureaucrats will find ways to spend it before the students see a dime. Until and unless parents are as invested in the education of their children as they are in the stock market, stock car racing, livestock, and living room sets, the children will not perform to potential. Until and unless we hold people accountable to teach by the way, we will continue to fall by the wayside in the global market.
Like most federal agencies, the Department of Education is a misnomer. Nobody is educated by the DoEd. None of its employees, to my knowledge anyway, teach, even in an adjunct capacity. We got along just fine until 1979 without it, and since its inception, our children have grown increasingly lazy, stupid, and wasteful. Coincidence? I think otherwise.
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