Lawmakers must revamp broken education system

By Nicholas Gartner, Henderson

Monday, July 27, 2015 | 2 a.m.

For more than 20 years I have been complaining about the cost associated with the administration of the Clark County School District. When former Gov. Guinn was doubling the state budget, the administration costs were half the education budget and the education budget was half the state budget. Surely legislators could find some way to cut the amount of funds being stolen by the administrators before the education of our children takes place.

Henderson, North Las Vegas, Mesquite, Laughlin and Las Vegas should all have the opportunity to spend the allocated tax dollars the way they see fit without state interference. Unfortunately, some archaic law supposedly says each county has to have its own district. Fine, so let’s make whatever changes needed to see the CCSD broken up. It would seem that all those fancy buildings and those positions and those cars and trucks could be used for something better than finding ways to waste education dollars. The teachers and the facilities should be the number one priority for those dollars, and the teachers union should be doing all it can to see that that is the case.

Simple tests should be used to find the teachers who deserve better pay. The superintendent should have an office in one of the schools, and any district business should be done via the Internet or phone. There is no money for all the assistants and their pet programs. Facilities should be taken care of out of one location for each district.

The state does not have the wherewithal to continue to try to be like other places. We are a tourism destination, and most folks get paid just enough to get by. If the rich folks from other places want a better system, let them do something about it, such as lobbying for the breakup of the nation’s fifth-largest school district.

Today’s huge education bureaucracy is too far from the students and the teachers, and the facilities along with our children are suffering for it. No amount of more money is going to fix this; they have quadrupled spending with worse results. Time for the legislators to do something for the students and the teachers before it gets even worse, if that is even possible.