Jones wants growth panel to study quality of education

Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones criticized a growth panel report on educational needs for the next 20 years for only focusing on bricks and mortar.

At Monday's Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority, Jones said she was disappointed that the needs assessment committee was not also charged with investigating what it would cost to improve the quality of education.

"Is someone looking at the cost of educating the student?" Jones asked.

The committee recommended support of a 1998 tax freeze and bond referendum, which if approved would keep the property tax rate at its current level to help pay for new schools to keep up with growth. It also recommended a class size cap of 30 students.

"We can build all the schools we want in the valley, but if we are not addressing the quality of education we're not doing our jobs," Jones said. "I would rather have more dilapidated buildings and focus on teaching so we can improve our 30 percent dropout rate."

Developer Mark Fine, a member of the 21-member committee formed by the Legislature to look at growth and infrastructure needs, asked where maintenance funding was going to come from.

"There are in excess of $2 billion in school facilities but no authority other than to pass bond issues every two years to take care of maintenance," Fine said.

The subcommittee was given the task of assessing school construction needs for the next 20 years -- a time when student growth is expected to leap from the current 190,822 to almost 458,000 by 2018.

The committee said 86 schools would need to be built by 2008 and 166 by 2018 just to keep up with that growth.

Committee members agreed to revisit per pupil spending and other costs associated with approving educational quality.

"I think quality is appropriate for our committee," the AFL-CIO's Courtney Alexander said, noting that Nevada is ranked fourth from the bottom on per pupil spending on a per capita basis.

Jones tempered her criticism by applauding the committee's work, but recommended it go further.

"To not include (spending ratios) in our recommendation to the Legislature, that's not appropriate," Jones said.

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