Education Spending Makes Mail
January 17th, 2008I woke up to find this in my inbox this morning…
Senator Beers:
It probably comes as no surprise that I am writing to you to express my disappointment that you have not come out against the Governors mandated 4.5% budget cuts for education. Already mired at or near the bottom of the national list in per pupil funding , this move is sure to guarantee our place AT the BOTTOM!!
Cuts are going to be far reaching into areas other than education. They will make it more difficult to attract new enterprises to Nevada, all indications are that it could and probably will be a factor in an increased crime rate and tax revenues will fall off due to industries opting to locate elsewhere.
When you step on an airplane ask yourself whether the mechanic assuring the safety of that plane was publicly educated? When you visit your physician ask him if he was at anytime the product of public education,
As education is among the few MANDATED programs in the budget by the federal government, and one that cannot raise fees or charge admission for the services it offers….Education is solely reliant on monies from the state and Federal governments, where other agencies can raise revenue for the services they offer. Our education system has to take EVERY child that comes through their doors and cannot turn anyone away.
Growth in the district has outpaced funding and now the Governor wants 4.5% of the already funded money back. I am sorry to say… That is just wrong.
I am asking you as an influential member of the Senate finance committee to contact the Governor and tell him the Education cuts are just WRONG!
Thank you for your time.
Steve
I’ll protect Steve’s last name, but he is a 45 year old Democrat in Assemblyman Joe Hogan’s district.
Thanks for writing, Steve.
What’s your authority for ranking us “at or near the bottom of the national list in per pupil funding?” We rank closer to the middle than the bottom (37th of 51 states) in total spending per student (according to the National Center For Education Statistics). We rank 46th in one subgroup and 13th in another, but CCSD now admits to systematically violating NCES guidelines on how to classify expenses in those subgroups, rendering them useless for comparison.
I disagree that the budget cuts will impact our ability to attract relocating businesses, for several reasons:
- The reductions in increased spending in most other states is even more severe than it is in Nevada. In fact, it seems likely that some states could actually see reduced funding for K-12 education. The relatively moderate scope of Nevada’s revenue shortfall leaves us with a still-healthy increase.
- Most businesses that relocate operations to Nevada are coming from California, where per-student funding is higher but performance is even worse.
- Most business operators are inquisitive explorers of the world around them. They are likely aware of and compelled by the complete lack of correlation between per-student funding and performance.
I agree that we should lift our education mandate for children who insist on not learning. I would like to see their disruptive influence removed from our high schools, with the money saved going to create a more robust adult education system that would offer high school level educations once such people decide they want to learn. Most eventually do.
What is your authority on “growth in the school district outpacing funding?” All the data I have seen says the rate of school district funding increases has well exceeded enrollment growth this decade.
Steve, experience has shown that Government will spend all available revenue, and will even falsely inflate revenue forecasts in order to promise to spend more. This is why the Legislature removed itself from the forecasting function (after several sessions of falsely inflating it followed by interims colored by “budget cuts”) and put it in the hands of the Economic Forum. However, even they could not see the economic slowdown that has resulted in Nevada families employed in the private sector losing billions of dollars per year in wages, compared to our forecast. This has resulted in tax revenues not expanding as quickly as we had planned.
Government never determines “how much we need” and adjusts taxes to fit. I wish that were true.
The alternative to scaling back the scope of our spending increases would be raising taxes on an economy already experiencing more expenses than revenue. Just four years ago, Nevada implemented the largest tax and spend hike in it’s history, on a percentage basis. The American Legislative Exchange Council now ranks Nevada first amongst states in taxation other than income, sales and property tax, and we are not the only state without an income tax. We are the one with the highest level of other taxes. We are no longer a low-tax state.
For these reasons, I cannot support increasing taxes. There appears to be no choice for the Governor except to ride out this economic downturn by slightly reducing our planned spending increases.
Bob Beers, CPA
Nevada Senator, Dist. 6
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January 19th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Great rebuttal to the seemingly endless parade of special interest public relations press releases being passed off as serious journalism. It is a real challenge that I am afraid goes well beyond the attention span of the vast majority of citizens to critically evaluate all the PR flooding us from every “news” source on a daily basis. Thanks, Bob, for helping to expose some of this nonsense.
January 19th, 2008 at 8:37 am
This is from a different Steve. There are some very basic premises violated in the e-mail you received. They get to the very core of “America” and the basic values of “Americans” based on the heorics of our Revolution and the actions of a few outspoken, wise, and very brave men. These values speak to the survival of our way of life, but the defense of them requires all participants to take individual responsibility, courage of conviction and morale courage to keep them alive. “E-mail Steve” seems to cower to the “powers-that-be”. His worn-out party lines which are meant to strike fear into the hearts of men that “the end times will come if we all do not submit totally to the wisdom of government control” are weighing old on my American heart.
Here are the values that made America great and the ones that “e-mail Steve” seems to have forgotten (though he may not have even heard of them in our modern government schools):
1. Governments do not raise children, parents raise children.
2. Increased spending has decreased education effectiveness over the last 60 or so years. I would like to hear “e-mail Steve” objectivly explain to us why we continue to press a failed policy.
3. Truly successful businessmen and leaders-of-men were those who broke the mold and convinced others to follow them.
4. Student dedication is the ONLY clear path to success in school and life. The schools’ job is to guide this, not direct it.
5. School is not the means to success, but a tool to that end.
6. Federal MANDATES? This is the very thing our founding fathers warned us against and the very thing threatening the esablishment of the Constitution (read the Federalist Papers).
7. Our Government was meant only to give everyone a level playing field, not a “chicken in every pot”.
8. Finally, directly applicable to schools, administration does nothing to advance education, only students can do that. Parents and teachers are influencial here, but no part of administration is.
I guess what I am saying is that I would rather see us fail or succeed as individuals pulling for a common goal, not as slaves bowing to a common master. I would rather be a poor free man than a rich slave. Freedon is a gift that the Constitution bestowed upon our posterity, as Franklin said “if we can keep it”. People like “e-mail Steve” send the clear message that freedom takes more than a Revolution, it takes care and feeding by a populace to prevent the rotting from within indicated by the clear subservient attitude of “e-mail Steve”’s letter. When I think of “e-mail Steve”, it reminds me of the Borg from Star Trek (the Borg were a race of people who only did what they were told to do and were kept in a state of suspended animation at other times). I, for one, will die before I become an “e-mail Steve”, but that attitude seems to be fading from the American fabric.
Thank you for this forum. I notice that many of your respondents foray into debate, though some of it is not honest debate. Nevertheless, if we do not discuss it, our society will go the way of other democracies and degenerate into a form of dictatorship.
January 19th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
CCSD has got to learn to cooperate with the Nevada Legislature. The majority of non-licensed administrators should be let go into the private sector. All of this money can be used towards getting class size down in kindergarten, fourth, and fifth through twelfth grades. It can also be used for merit pay for teachers. Mentor teachers and grade level coaches and specialists should also be moved into regular classroom positions where they can be accountable on a full time schedule.
January 20th, 2008 at 12:42 am
There has been a big decline in the quality of education when it deals with basic subjects like English and math.
During the 1960’s to pass an 8th grade English, one could not make more than two spelling or grammatical errors.
I would bet that 80% of school teachers cannot pass an 8th grade English test.
Also, there seems to a significant number of “honor roll” graduates having to take remedial classes in college.
January 29th, 2008 at 1:11 am
MAN am I with Jim’s entry. Great rebuttal Mr. Senator.
As far as remedial classes, I must belong in those classes as well because I am STILL trying to figure out why the government has anything to do with the education process. I trying to find the document the Founding Fathers drafted that stated it was the governments responsibility to educate its people. I must be missing a document on my wall. Lets see I have a copy of The Declaration of Indep…..hmm. I have a copy of The Constitution….hmm. I even have a copy of the Gettysburg Address…hmm. No! It’s official, I must be missing one. Maybe it’s in the Magna Carta. I got it! It must be in Hillarity Clinton’s insightfull book called, “It Takes A Village Idiot…..”
Mr. Senator your words make complete sense because they are backed by sound truth and good ol fashioned logic. The man you addressed, however, will never choose to agree with what you’re saying because the above metioned book by the above mentioned Village Idiot is I’m sure proudly displayed on his bookshelf.