Policy Update: Nevada: Adding Labels

Vital Statistics
17	Public school districts
436	Public schools
297,000	K-12 enrollment
34.9%	Minority students
14%	Children in poverty
10.6%	Students with disabilities
$1.5 billion	Annual K-12 expenditures (all revenue sources)

Meanwhile, committees completed work on state standards in language arts, mathematics, and science, which were approved last August. Work is under way on standards for social studies, health and physical education, computer education, and the arts, which are due this month.

The standards and accountability measures were required by education laws passed by the legislature in 1997. The state lawmakers were not in session last year.

Another 1997 law allowed Clark County, by far the state's largest district, to ask voters to freeze property taxes at current levels.

Voters approved the measure in the election last fall, along with a new bond issue that will pay for $3.5 billion in construction and maintenance over 10 years. The district, which includes Las Vegas, needs the money to cope with increases in school enrollment, which continues to grow at a remarkable rate. Its total enrollment was 190,822 in 1997-98, a 6.7 percent increase from the previous year.

This growth rate has made the state's class-size-reduction initiative as much a burden as a blessing for some districts. A 1989 law earmarked $20 million per year in state funds for reducing class size to 16 in grades 1 and 2; however, districts without enough classrooms have met the requirement by putting two teachers in one room.

In 1995, the legislature expanded the initiative to 3rd grade, but provided only half the needed money and gave districts the option of using the money some other way if they could make a convincing case to the state education department.

Though it has slowed elsewhere in the state, growth in Clark County creates the need "to build the equivalent of an elementary school a month or a classroom a day" to keep up, says Nancy Peterson, the state superintendent of schools.

A new planning commission on school construction, also mandated by the legislature two years ago, issued a report last year on facilities needs and is to make recommendations early this year on how to pay for construction. While schools' operating expenses are funded through a state formula that is among the most equitable in the nation, construction costs are still paid through local property taxes.

Both finance and account-ability are expected to be prominent issues throughout the state this year.

Republican Kenny Guinn, who was elected governor in November, is a former Clark County superintendent.

Guinn did not especially stress education issues in his campaign, although he talked about making it easier to start charter schools.

An early proposal to penalize schools financially if they failed to meet their own achievement goals drew wide criticism as encouraging low standards, but Guinn is likely to be a supporter of a strong accountability system.

If a school that received the "inadequate" label based on 1998 test scores does not improve in the 1999 testing, Peterson is required to appoint a committee to take a look at the school. Further intervention would occur over the following two years if there was no improvement.

Brian Cram, the superintendent of the Clark County district, says he supports setting statewide standards and holding schools accountable for results.

But he wonders whether the state is willing to do what will be necessary to improve the performance of low-scoring schools.

"All of these schools are low-income, heavily minority--basically schools where kids come not as well-prepared as we would like," the superintendent says.

"If we want to make genuine movement in these schools, there's going to have to be a safety net in place that addresses some of the indigenous problems outside the school," Cram says.

"The legislature needs to be educated about what really improves achievement; for example, teacher training, community involvement, parent education," he says.

But none of that can be done without a larger budget, Cram says, noting that Nevada is not a high-spending state when it comes to education and that spending ranks even lower when compared with income.

The legislature appropriated $3 million for the 1998-99 school year to begin helping the inadequately performing schools, but Cram says that is "barely a down payment." His district will use its share to beef up reading programs.

Jerry Conner, the executive director of the Nevada Association of School Administrators, is even less sanguine about the effects of accountability. "It's had a demoralizing impact," he says.

The association has recommended that the accountability system be changed so that it considers student ability as well as achievement, at least as measured by the test, and holds schools accountable for how much their students improve.

"If you have kids with an IQ of 125 and are scoring at the average, are you doing well? On the other hand, you can have low-ability kids who reach out and make great gains but are still below grade level," Conner says.

Peterson, the state chief, says lawmakers are focusing more on the future of the testing program, which could be substantially decided this year.

One critical question is whether the state will continue to rely on standardized, norm-referenced tests, which compare the performance of students against that of a national group of test-takers, or will develop its own criterion-referenced tests, which measure how much material a student has mastered.

This year, the state's only criterion-referenced test will be a high school exit exam.

"What I see happening is we'll have a testing program that includes both norm-referenced tests and criterion-referenced tests," Peterson says, adding that whether the accountability system eventually will be based on the criterion-referenced tests is unclear.

"I can't speak for everyone, but I think educators in the state would like to see us move toward [criterion-referenced tests] for accountability and diagnosis," she says.

The 1997 law mandating assessments requires that they be implemented in 1999-2000; Peterson says she would like lawmakers to agree that can be a pilot test, with permanent tests in place at a later date.