Saturday, January 15, 2011

Our Schools, Our Future

You've heard me talk about it for ages. So this morning, I'll let you read about our legislators actually seeing it for themselves.

The lawmakers got an ear and an eye full as they were quick-marched, among other classes, through a risk-management class, an advanced-placement government class, and an elementary school mathematics class where second-graders sang about “My Hero, the Zero.”

It was also an opportunity for School District officials to lobby a captive audience of legislators. Lauren Kohut-Rost, deputy superintendent of instruction, asked the assemblymen on the bus, “What is $189 million?”

When no one knew, she answered her own question: “That’s the dollar amount the Class of 2010 at Clark High School won in scholarships last year.”

There are some amazing kids doing amazing things at our schools... But that may change, and not for the better, if school budgets are further slashed to death.

Hey, don't just take my word for it... Desert Beacon has the facts and figures to back it up.

We get what we pay for. Do we want a smarter workforce or fuller prisons? We need to rethink our priorities.

If politics were principle based, we could get a lot more done. Since we all agree that our efforts would be better spent teaching a man to fish than just handing him one, perhaps we should agree to keep our education system accessible and affordable so all people can learn to fish. [...]

While our tax environment in Nevada is one of the best in the nation for businesses, our overall business environment is horrible because of our poorly funded education system. Ikea and other businesses will continue to pass up coming here if we refuse to change.

The very conservative neighbor state of Arizona has more taxes and spends more on education than we do because they see business opportunity over ideological stubbornness. If we truly want to be business friendly, we need to provide services in this state that attract business. Education is number one on that list. To do this, conservatives need to write their legislators and tell them that education is too important to cut.

Will we?

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