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Opinion
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — For over a year the nation has been focused like a laser on the arguments, rhetoric, lies and back room deals leading up to the cliff-hanger congressional vote putting Obamacare on the law books. While the media feasted on partisan wrangling over health care reform, hardly anyone has paid attention to the one area in which bipartisanship is flourishing ... education reform. Democrats are starting to sound like Republicans.
It all appears to have begun with President Barack Obama's appointment of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education. As former superintendent of Chicago public schools, Duncan knows fully well what it will take to turn education around. He came up with his “Race to the Top” which offers huge chunks of money for which states must compete by cleaning up their education laws and practices so resources can be better matched to students. Nevada was ineligible to compete because at the time we had a teacher union sponsored law that prohibited tying teacher compensation to student performance. Lawmakers may have fixed that at the recent special legislative session ... we'll find out because Nevada is now applying Race to the Top funds.
Meanwhile, here in Nevada, Republican and Democratic candidates for governor are making remarkably similar proposals for education reform in the Silver State. I rarely say anything nice about Democrats so let me illustrate the bipartisan nature of these proposals by describing Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Rory Reid's Economic Development through Great Education proposal.
Under the EDGE plan parents would be empowered to choose among competing public schools whose funding would be based on the number of students enrolled; principals would have autonomy in the use of the funds and choice of teachers for that school while teachers would be left free to manage their classrooms. Under Reid's plan student performance would be tracked and teacher bonuses would be based on improvements in student achievement rather than preset benchmarks. The three Republican gubernatorial candidates propose similar education reforms for Nevada.
At least one impetus for these kinds of reforms comes from the National Working Group on Funding Student Learning, founded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and composed of education researchers from the top universities and institutions in the United States. Their conclusion: “The connection between resources and learning has been growing weaker, not stronger.”
Even the conservative Nevada Policy Research Institute sees merit in the EDGE plan. “Autonomous and accountable public schools, performance pay, tenure reform, virtual education, value-added assessment and freeing teachers from bureaucracy are all essential policies needed for proper education reform” the Institute wrote in an article titled: “The emerging education consensus.” Incline's Assemblyman Ty Cobb, R–Reno, said; “If (Rory Reid) is to be believed in the core principles he is mentioning that is something that will get a very good reception from Republicans.”
Indeed, independent of politicians, Clark County Superintendent Walt Rulfes was ahead of the Nevada Empowerment School Legislation by converting one-size-fits-all public schools to empowerment schools which fit the EDGE criteria, and in the process, luring Southern Nevada corporations to contribute substantial additional funds to supplement taxpayer funding.
And, as reliably reported in the Bonanza, Washoe County School Superintendent Heath Morrison plans to create in Incline Village a virtual semi-autonomous “sub-school district” and is conducting a nationwide search for a K-12 principal to provide supervision of all three Incline schools while retaining the traditional elementary and middle school principals.
Is this really bipartisanship or do EDGE principles just make too much sense to screw up with partisan wrangling?
— Jim Clark is president of Republican Advocates, a vice chair of the Washoe County GOP and a member of the Nevada GOP Central Committee. He can be reached at tahoesbjc@aol.com.
It all appears to have begun with President Barack Obama's appointment of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education. As former superintendent of Chicago public schools, Duncan knows fully well what it will take to turn education around. He came up with his “Race to the Top” which offers huge chunks of money for which states must compete by cleaning up their education laws and practices so resources can be better matched to students. Nevada was ineligible to compete because at the time we had a teacher union sponsored law that prohibited tying teacher compensation to student performance. Lawmakers may have fixed that at the recent special legislative session ... we'll find out because Nevada is now applying Race to the Top funds.
Meanwhile, here in Nevada, Republican and Democratic candidates for governor are making remarkably similar proposals for education reform in the Silver State. I rarely say anything nice about Democrats so let me illustrate the bipartisan nature of these proposals by describing Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Rory Reid's Economic Development through Great Education proposal.
Under the EDGE plan parents would be empowered to choose among competing public schools whose funding would be based on the number of students enrolled; principals would have autonomy in the use of the funds and choice of teachers for that school while teachers would be left free to manage their classrooms. Under Reid's plan student performance would be tracked and teacher bonuses would be based on improvements in student achievement rather than preset benchmarks. The three Republican gubernatorial candidates propose similar education reforms for Nevada.
At least one impetus for these kinds of reforms comes from the National Working Group on Funding Student Learning, founded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and composed of education researchers from the top universities and institutions in the United States. Their conclusion: “The connection between resources and learning has been growing weaker, not stronger.”
Even the conservative Nevada Policy Research Institute sees merit in the EDGE plan. “Autonomous and accountable public schools, performance pay, tenure reform, virtual education, value-added assessment and freeing teachers from bureaucracy are all essential policies needed for proper education reform” the Institute wrote in an article titled: “The emerging education consensus.” Incline's Assemblyman Ty Cobb, R–Reno, said; “If (Rory Reid) is to be believed in the core principles he is mentioning that is something that will get a very good reception from Republicans.”
Indeed, independent of politicians, Clark County Superintendent Walt Rulfes was ahead of the Nevada Empowerment School Legislation by converting one-size-fits-all public schools to empowerment schools which fit the EDGE criteria, and in the process, luring Southern Nevada corporations to contribute substantial additional funds to supplement taxpayer funding.
And, as reliably reported in the Bonanza, Washoe County School Superintendent Heath Morrison plans to create in Incline Village a virtual semi-autonomous “sub-school district” and is conducting a nationwide search for a K-12 principal to provide supervision of all three Incline schools while retaining the traditional elementary and middle school principals.
Is this really bipartisanship or do EDGE principles just make too much sense to screw up with partisan wrangling?
— Jim Clark is president of Republican Advocates, a vice chair of the Washoe County GOP and a member of the Nevada GOP Central Committee. He can be reached at tahoesbjc@aol.com.
