Sandoval's Education Reform

During the campaign, Governor Sandoval talked about the need for education reform. Nevada ranks last in the nation in education and ranks near the bottom in per pupil spending. Nevada’s legislature just finished their regular session and the Governor signed a few laws aimed at education reform. AB 225 allows for a tenured employee to be returned to probationary status relating to unsatisfactory employee evaluations. This would make it that much easier to terminate substandard teachers by removing the protections of tenure. I like this bill, one thing that hampers student learning is an ineffective instructor and anything to that helps remove bad teachers is a good idea. I like AB 229 even better than the first bill. This bill revamps the evaluation process, allowing 4 categories instead the 2 from the old review process. Establishes performance based pay structures, enhanced compensation for retention and recruiting teachers and revised standards for demotion, reassignment and termination including not allowing seniority to be the only factor in lay-offs. SB 197 changes the state board of education and the method for choosing the state superintendent of public instruction. Before this bill, the 10 member board of education would choose the superintendent; this bill gives the governor the authority to appoint the superintendent. It also changes the make-up of the board, going from 10 elected officials to an 11 member board made up of 4 elected, 3 appointed and 4 non-voting members. It also revises the plan to improve student achievement. The last bill, SB 212 creates a charter school authority that would oversee the formation of schools, which is now a duty of the board.
While I feel these reforms are a step in the right direction, I do not feel like they are by themselves are enough to bring our academic achievement out of the cellar. Leaders from both parties agree that the reforms should help our education performance, those that oppose the newly passed reforms claim the only way to reform the system is to dump more money into it. Simply throwing more money at a problem will not solve the problem. Take Florida, for example, President Obama recently visited with Governor Jeb Bush to discuss the reforms that helped skyrocket student achievement in Florida. Florida did not rely on more federal spending, or even the Department of Education. They implemented real reform, much like Governor Sandoval proposed during the campaign. Increasing virtual classrooms, getting rid of the automatic passing of students that do not “make the grade” and allowing more choice in where students attend school. That means allowing more charter schools, magnet schools, technical based schools and allowing parents to decide which schools their children will attend. Parents should not be forced to send their children to a failing school just because it is the closest.
So until we are all ready to what is necessary to implement some real reform in the education system in Nevada, I don’t see us improving on that last place ranking.