Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

EDITORIAL:

County schools face challenges with optimism, realism and perseverence

The last time the Clark County School District started a school year with a certified teacher in each classroom, the population of the Las Vegas Valley was just shy of a million people and the Luxor was the tallest building on the Strip.

The year: 1994.

That was one of several eye-opening facts shared by CCSD Superintendent Jesus Jara on Friday during his annual state of the district address.

To Jara’s credit, he used the speech as an opportunity not just to note the district’s advancements but to underscore the steepness of its challenges and urge the community to help address them.

Don’t misunderstand, Jara wasn’t a doomsayer. His message was remarkably upbeat — the district is making improvements, and its shortcomings can be overcome.

But he didn’t sugarcoat the need for more progress, especially in terms of equity.

“Public schools are working, in spite of what you read,” said Jara, speaking in a ballroom at Wynn Las Vegas. “We just need to go from pockets of excellence to a system of excellence. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

A case in point is CCSD’s gifted and talented program. Late last year, a 13-member committee examining equity and access in the district reported major inequities between central valley schools and wealthier schools in the suburbs, in terms of participation in the program. The upshot is that a disproportionate number of students receiving gifted and talented education services are white and live in affluent suburban areas.

That’s also the case for advance-level classes and pre-kindergarten programs, Jara said, adding that the committee discovered that one school in an affluent area offered 44 upper-level courses while one in a poorer area offered only 16.

“How is that equitable?” he said.

Jara said the district was working to level the playing field. One step it has already taken was to adopt universal evaluation of second-graders to determine whether they qualify for the gifted and talented program.

“If you’re lucky to live in a certain ZIP code, you’re given different opportunities,” he said, not identifying any specific areas but implying they were in suburban areas. “It has to change.”

Other areas highlighted by Jara included:

• CCSD established a districtwide disciplinary code of conduct to ensure that students were being treated uniformly. “We can’t just arrest kids,” he said. “We’re not saying we’re not going to, but that is our last resort. It’s about changing behavior so our students are held accountable, but they’re not being thrown out onto the streets at their first suspension.”

• The district created a universal assessment tool to evaluate every elementary and middle school.

• The graduation rate increased to a record 85.8% in 2019, up half of a percentage point from the previous year. However, the district’s goal is to increase graduation to 90% and for products of the system to be college-ready, meaning they would not need remedial courses when beginning their postsecondary education.

While “state of” speeches can come off as self-congratulatory pats on the back by the leaders making them, Jara made it clear that far more work remains. And while he didn’t specifically ask for it, he implied that the district could use more funding to address its needs.

For instance, he pointed out that Nevada differs from other states — Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana and Maine — in not providing state funding specifically for career and technical education, Advanced Placement classes and dual-credit courses.

He also noted that CCSD’s per-pupil state funding of $6,067 hadn’t risen much since ’94, when it was in the low-$5,000 range. And even when local revenue sources are added into the per-pupil total, making the total $9,594, that still lags behind the funding level in other large urban school districts such as Denver, Los Angeles, Alburquerque, Houston and Miami-Dade.

Here’s hoping that the smattering of elected officials who attended Jara’s speech were listening. Investing in our schools will help everyone, not just by providing our children a higher-quality education and helping them get ahead in life but by making our community more attractive for residents and businesses looking for a new home. That being the case, reasonable tax increases for education are a good investment.

Let’s not look back decades from now and say we should have done more.