Real property taxes are due again this month. A little over one-third of our ad valorem taxes goes to pay for the operation and indebtedness of the Washoe County School District. Are we getting a good deal for our tax money?

A national report just issued sheds some interesting light on the subject. If a school's mission is to graduate its students then Washoe County, with a graduation rate of 75.1 percent, is doing better than Clark County (63.5 percent) but not as well as Lyon County (79.2 percent), Douglas County (82.8 percent) or Carson City (83.5 percent). Over the last several years Washoe County's graduation rates have ranged between a low of 74.1percent and a high of 80.3 percent, so this latest performance is fairly typical.

It's always nice to beat Clark County at anything but Washoe's superior performance in this important education measure would indicate that on a comparative basis our local tax dollars are being well spent. However the reciprocal is that on average 20 percent to 25 percent of the 65,013 students in Washoe County schools do not graduate. That figure may be high because it is often not possible to track students who transfer to out of county or out-of-state schools but even so, since the state pays school districts $5,000+ per student, it represents a potentially enormous waste (or at least misallocation) of taxpayer money.

These figures are further broken down by ethnic group and as might be imagined Hispanic and African American students perform more poorly than students of other ethnicities. With respect to Incline's three schools this presents a challenge. Although all three are performing satisfactorily under the testing regime imposed by the federal No Child Left Behind Act (the high school even rates "exemplary") and Incline High School's graduation rate averages 86 percent yet there are some ominous signs buried in other data.

The studies show that we must do a better job of dealing with minority and ESL students' needs because their test scores in all jurisdictions lag those of white and Asian students.

Ethnicity at Incline Elementary School is approximately 56 percent white and 45 percent Hispanic. Enrollment at Incline Middle School is about 64 percent white and 35 percent Hispanic. Incline High School is 71 percent white and 26 percent Hispanic.

As Incline students progress from grade to grade will the ethnic mix of our middle school and high school change to reflect the present mix at the elementary school? If so we have a challenge ahead. Moreover the stringency of compliance under No Child Left Behind gets tougher each year until 2014 when 100 percent of the students are required to perform at grade level in math and reading.

PBS' Jim Lehrer News Hour (Reno Ð channel 5; www.pbs.org) is doing a series of presentations on how the nation's schools have fared under the No Child Left Behind Act. One provision of the law requires that after five straight years of failing test scores noncompliant schools must "restructure." They looked at two failing minority schools in urban San Diego faced with this in 2004 and told the story of how principals inspired teachers who inspired parents and together they converted the two schools to charter schools, independent of the school board. They had to deal with seniority provisions in teacher union contracts and a host of other problems but finally they succeeded.

The results were marked increases in attendance, a decrease in disciplinary problems and significantly improved test scores. The story shows that there are answers to educational challenges no matter how grim things appear on the surface.

It's not too early for Incline residents to be thinking ahead about problems our schools may be facing in the future. After all, it's our tax dollars.

Jim Clark is president of Republican Advocates, a vice chair of the Washoe County GOP and a member of the Nevada GOP Central Committee.