Bob Conrad / This Is Reno via AP
Nevada teachers and the Nevada State Education Association hold a rally demanding more funding outside of the state Legislature in Carson City, Monday, Feb. 15, 2021. As the state struggles to balance its budget amid the pandemic, teachers and their unions want lawmakers to find new revenue streams to fund education and are backing a proposal to raise taxes on the mining industry.
Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021 | 2 a.m.
CARSON CITY — Community and education leaders from across Nevada kicked off a campaign Tuesday to pressure lawmakers to increase funding for the state’s K-12 public schools.
The Empower Nevada’s Future campaign calls on Nevada residents to pledge their support for “quality education for our students.”
Foremost among that support is to call on lawmakers to increase per-pupil funding in the state to the national average by 2030. The campaign said that as of 2018, the national average for per-pupil spending in public schools across the United States was $12,612; in Nevada, the average “basic” support approved by the Legislature for 2018 was $5,967.
Amanda Morgan, executive director of Educate Nevada Now, a nonpartisan education policy organization affiliated with the Rogers Foundation, said during a news conference that the per-pupil funding goal was not overly aggressive, noting Nevada had simply “deteriorated” over time.
“We used to be the national average, just 50 years ago,” Morgan said. “We’ve really taken a nosedive over the years.”
In the 2019 legislative session, lawmakers overhauled Nevada’s school funding plan in favor of the new Pupil-Centered Funding Formula, which allocates funding to schools based on individual student needs.
In a presentation Tuesday, Morgan said the revamped plan raised a key concern: namely, that some schools will take serious hits to their funding.
The campaign’s report cited information from anonymous school administrators who said insufficient weighted funding — supplemental money for at-risk students and English language learner students — could mean budget cuts that could place teachers, reading specialists and support professionals, among others, at risk of losing their jobs.
More revenue, the campaign’s report stressed, is necessary.
“Reslicing the pie, without growing the pie, will continue to leave our students hungry,” the group’s report read.
Calen Evans, a teacher in the Washoe County School District and president of the Empower Nevada Teachers coalition, said that not only did the state need to raise more revenue, but it must be earmarked for education.
The status of revenue enhancements in the 2021 session is unclear as the Legislature approaches its fourth week of work this year in Carson City. Three proposed measures to increase the mining tax by constitutional amendment have yet to have a hearing scheduled, and measures that would hike the sales and gaming taxes backed by the Clark County Education Association seem dead in the water.
“We need to start right by putting specific funding measures in place and making sure that not only are those measures there but they’re earmarked for education,” Evans said.
Joining the speakers from Empower Nevada Teachers and Educate Nevada Now at Tuesday’s news conference were representatives from the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada and the Nevada Parent Teacher Association.
In addition to support for the increase in per-pupil state funding, signatories also are asked to pledge to support efforts to:
• Identify revenue resources beginning with the 2021 session “that will result in a plan to fairly and adequately fund all our public schools.
• Make Nevada’s K-12 education system and children’s well-being the top funding priority in the state.
• “Stay informed about the work of political candidates and elected officials who support increased revenue for K-12 public schools and support this pledge.”
• Encourage family, friends, businesses and others to sign the pledge and proactively support the campaign.
As of Tuesday afternoon, 450 people had signed the pledge, which can be viewed at the campaign’s website. Evans said that the campaign has an ambitious goal of obtaining 500,000 signatures, but if it ends up being less, it will still make a difference.
