Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Nevada has a new formula for success

Sandoval

AP Photo/John Locher

Gov. Brian Sandoval, center, laughs as he looks at a picture presented to him by students at Matt Kelly Elementary School during a bill signing ceremony Wednesday, June 3, 2015, in Las Vegas. The ceremony was for Senate Bill 432, which allocates millions of dollars for low-performing schools in the 20 poorest ZIP codes in Nevada.

While full-day kindergarten and expanded literacy programs earned headlines during this year’s legislative session, the state’s multibillion-dollar K-12 funding formula quietly underwent one of the most significant reforms in its history.

State school officials and education advocates had been trying for years to change the 48-year-old Nevada Plan, and they finally succeeded. The result, they say, will be one of the biggest improvements in education in decades.

Here’s what changed.

What is the Nevada Plan?

Created in 1967, the Nevada Plan is the formula that determines how much money each county receives to run its schools. Picture a dozen confusing spreadsheets, each with a bunch of complex calculations.

It was designed with equity in mind, so the needs of small and large counties are weighed the same.

How does it work?

Each spreadsheet calculates something different, and the data sets build on themselves. For example, the first spreadsheet calculates the enrollment numbers, which are used in the next spreadsheet, which calculates revenue and costs, and so on. The final figure tallied is the most important. It’s called the basic support guarantee and is the dollar amount that determines how much a school district will receive each year.

Where does the money come from?

It’s a mix of state and local money.

First, each district adds up all the local revenue from sales and property taxes earmarked for education. If the district’s basic support guarantee is higher, the state chips in the rest.

In other words, if a district receives less money from local taxes one year, the state increases its share to make sure the district is fully funded. That tends to happen a lot in some rural counties, where the mining industry accounts for much of the local revenue.

Is Clark County treated unfairly?

Many say yes. Clark County accounts for more than two-thirds of the state population; therefore, its taxes fund a majority of state spending. While the Nevada Plan tries to treat every county equally, it doesn’t take into account where the money comes from. Clark County funds most of the state’s education spending but receives an equal share of the pot for its own schools.

What was wrong with the Nevada Plan?

The problem, advocates said for years, was that the formula treated every student the same, while research shows that students who live in poverty or who are behind in learning English require more time and effort from teachers, which requires more money. The decades-long loser in this equation was Clark County because it has a huge number of low-income students and English-language learners.

In his State of the State address this year, Gov. Brian Sandoval said the Nevada Plan “must be modernized to consider the needs of individual students.”

What did the Legislature change?

Education advocates had long called for the formula to give more money to districts with a lot of at-risk students, and that’s exactly what Senate Bill 508, passed this year, aims to do. It adds “weights” to the parts of the Nevada Plan that calculate student enrollment, so special education students, English-language learners and low-income students count more, garnering their districts more funding.

The weights won’t take effect immediately, however. They’ll roll out over the next six years as details are hammered out by state education leaders.

Nevada schools Superintendent Dale Erquiaga called the change “a gigantic leap forward.”

What does the change mean for Clark County?

It means urban and low-income districts such as Clark County will receive a lot more money to put into the schools that need it most. Funding could be spent on anything from hiring more teachers to buying new computers.

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