School District has suspect hiring record

Richard Rychtarik, Las Vegas

Tuesday, April 1, 2008 | 2:01 a.m.

While discussing with friends the plight of public education here in Nevada and across America, we covered the usual issues such as uninvolved parents, social promotion, underfunding and jobs that pay a living wage but require little education.

Then the subject of the lack of qualified teachers or simply not enough teachers came up. Many of our friends here are either near retirement or in retirement. I happened to have an acquaintance who I thought was qualified to teach, but after contacting the Clark County School District and interviewing for a position, the individual was never contacted.

Horror of horrors, my friend said the same thing! She thought she would be qualified to teach high school math or economics here. So she applied. After all, she held an M.B.A. and a Ph.D. in economics, had held a high-level administrative position in education, was a very successful investor, and spoke and wrote three languages. Again, there was never a follow-up from the School District.

And we wonder why nearly 90 percent of our high school students cannot solve a simple equation with one unknown? Let’s bring in more teachers from the Philippines and Indonesia; that should do the trick!