Racist policies hurt poorest students

By Michael Kreps, Las Vegas

Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015 | 2 a.m.

I would like to commend education reporter Ian Whitaker for his excellent exposé of the problems we have in Clark County in regard to the teacher shortage in low-income schools (“Teacher shortage hits low-income schools especially hard,” Las Vegas Sun, Aug. 30). We are always led to believe by the educators and teachers that children are our highest priority and that all children should have an equal education in our public schools. Apparently, this is not the case in Clark County.

In the first paragraph the reader learns of a principal, Miriam Benitez, who is the leader of an “at-risk” school and has to act as a salesperson to “sell the school” to staff it at the proper level. We also learn that this school was down five teachers last year and opened this year 10 down. The school is relying on substitutes to teach classes. This is also happening at other schools such as Martin Luther King, which is 69 percent Hispanic, and at Jeffers Elementary, where 100 percent of the children qualify for free or reduced-price luncheons. In other words, schools that represent a lower income group, often people of color who lack the political clout to force any changes in school policy. On the other hand, the highest-performing schools in Henderson and Summerlin that are mostly made up of white students have zero teacher vacancies. This is happening because the school district’s policy allows teachers to choose at which school they want to teach.

As a taxpayer who supports our schools and believes our children are our future, I find the policy allowing teachers to choose where they want to work ridiculous; it clearly places the needs and wants of the teacher over the students’. Could you imagine if the police department worked in that manner? In my 24-year career, which included the military and the federal government, I often transferred at the request of the organization I worked for. Sometimes it was for my benefit, and sometimes for the needs of my employer.

The Clark County School Board has seven members, and six of them are white. The board members and School District need to reflect on their hiring process and start assigning teachers based on the needs of the students, not solely that of the teacher. Teachers should not dictate policy about how our school system should operate. The teachers, management staff and board members need to attend a lecture about institutional racism, because that is what is taking place in Clark County.