It turns out very few people can answer that question, or even guess close.
Here’s an interesting new article by William G. Howell, associate professor in the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and Martin R.West, assistant professor of education at Brown University, that says, on average, most people are off by […]

It’s about time for the Clark County School District to roll out its annual teacher shortage.
Two years ago, KLAS-TV called Clark County’s teacher shortage “staggering” - even adjusting for their news department’s keen eye for over-dramatization, they make it sound pretty serious with a thousand empty teaching slots forecast.
Times have changed. NVTeacherJobs.com apparently has lost […]

The Reno Gazette Journal was quick to report on a new survey that ranks Nevada poorly - they note that we’re “bottom ten” on a measure comparing equitable funding between all the school districts in each state. They ran the story under the headling “Nevada among worst 10 states in 2005 spending for poor, minority […]

You have to hand it to Walt Ruffles, the superintendent of the Clark County School District. He is shameless.
There are many ways to describe school funding, but one of the simplest is to break it down into [Legislated $$ per Student] times [Number of Students].
Because growth has slowed in Nevada, growth in the number of […]

Governor Gibbons called it the “Washington Monument” phenomenon. Unprofessional government managers, who have lost sight of their actual mission (to reduce inefficiencies in the most inefficient pursuit known to mankind) and replaced it with self-service (to increase funding for their program no matter what), react to not being able to spend as much as they […]

My mom was a teacher, though she ended up a certified Marriage and Family Therapist. When we discuss politics and education, she fondly recalls when the NEA was a professional association dedicated to improving the craft rather than a union dedicated to muscling taxpayers and voters.
Apparently, she is not alone. I got this press […]

Some community leaders suggest Nevada should set a collective goal of increasing our K-12 school spending so that we are one of the top-ten spending states.
That set me wondering what kind of performance increase we could expect from our schools if we did that.
So, using the NCES 2004/2005 “Current” spending per student data (which, alone, […]