Statement of Principles


Nevada government keeps getting bigger and BIGGER. We deserve minimum, strictly limited, constitutional government in this State.

Forget all this blather about a $3B "shortfall". The budget for the '12/'13 biennium should be no more than $200M.



Thursday, March 25, 2010

National Education Testing

Originally posted in a LVRJ Forum

Although I believe it's a good idea to track how kids are doing, I oppose federal testing/standards. Washington has NO constitutional role in K-12. Besides, their own district consistently scores *poorly*. Why are they so concerned about *Nevada* schoolkids?

I've analyzed the 4th grade test and the results (nationsreportcard.gov). As expected, public education is *everywhere* a disaster.

Going back ~20 years US results are basically *flat* -- and skewed heavily to the low achieving side. The raw score for "advanced" (top 10%) is also flat (~264). You'd think it would be closer to 400 (out of a possible 500). Can anyone argue that per-pupil spending has gone *down* over that period?

Yes, Nevada does a little worse than the national average. But the issue is NOT that FL beats us. It's that EVERY state has a crappy public eduction system. We can talk about beating the US average til we're blue, but that's still a race to mediocrity -- MUCH lower than that on a global scale.

How many more *trillions* of dollars is this country going to spend on public education before we get the message that the system is a CATASTROPHE and CANNOT be reformed.

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