Providing an opportunity for a quality education for every Nevadan requires that we need to immediately begin a steady overhaul and reform of the current education system. There are any number of reforms that have been tried and tested and have shown significant success. They deserve to be implemented and promoted in a proactive manner. It will take leadership on the part of a Governor who can guide, persuade, and collaborate with the legislature and the citizens of Nevada in achieving the goal of giving every child the opportunity to receive an education that prepares them for excellence in any field of endeavor.

The 65% Solution

The crisis in K-12 education is systemic. Before we can even address the merits of education funding it’s imperative that we take serious steps in determining the necessary changes in how we deliver a quality education to all of Nevada’s children.

It is clear to me that the first step is to establish a benchmark of ensuring that sixty five cents out of every dollar that Nevada spends on elementary education goes directly into the classroom. This will immediately establish the primacy of educating over bureaucracy.

Empowerment Schools

There are few things more frustrating and discouraging than dealing with a bloated education bureaucracy. This antiquated system stymies the ability of schools to create the best education environment for their students. Nevadans don’t need to be trapped by this wasteful unaccountable system.

Empowerment schools, or school based management, allow individual school administrators, teachers, and parents to make the crucial decisions regarding curriculum and budget. There are currently only a handful of schools in Southern Nevada that now practice some form of this, and they are reporting significant improvement. Empowerment Schools are a crucial step in returning education back to the people on the front lines of education.

Charter Schools

Our neighbors to the south, in Arizona, have shown us the tremendous benefit of providing choices in education environments. Arizona has aggressively promoted charter schools and it is about time that Nevada follows their lead. Charter schools are still part of the school system, but they are allowed to be created by private citizens, and often times in response to the specific needs and skills of the group of potential students that they would serve.

The education establishment and their willing accomplices in the Nevada legislature have held working families hostage to subpar schools. Charter schools would instantly create a greater choice as to where parents could find the learning environment that best suits their child.

Charter schools can be located anywhere and are not confined to large expensive campuses. They can instantly relieve school crowding and create a better student-teacher classroom ratio. Oversight is important and necessary and can be suitably accomplished with the same veracity of larger campuses.

Home Schooling

My children have benefited from both public and home school education. The important thing is that we made a choice as to how we wanted to educate our children. It’s remarkable that the education elites in Nevada, while standing in the wretched remains of much of a public school system that they commanded, should be so arrogant in their dismissal of home schooling families.

Home Schooling should be encouraged as a viable option for families that choose to pursue this education environment. Nevada has at best been tolerant of this option as opposed to being enthusiastic about our families finding the best education for their children. An intelligent, common sense, confident Nevada education policy would wholeheartedly embrace home schooling as an important choice in education that should be exercised by Nevada families.