Education
Ranking Nevada's Education
According to a recent study by the Tax Foundation, Nevada's resident tax burden ranks 49th in the country. According to Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, that low tax burden correlates to low government funding and, as a result, Nevada ranks 44th in education funding per student.
Read moreGreenspun's socialism
Brian Greenspun's Sunday opinion column in the Las Vegas Sun illustrated good intentions, but ultimately dangerous and misguided thinking. In calling for government to take the reins of Wall-Street investing – supposedly in the interest of the taxpayer – Greenspun calls for a new kind of socialism for America's future economy.
Too many facts, sorry we can't publish that
Mr. Greenspun's opinion column "Keep on fighting the good fight for education Chancellor Rogers" assumes that government spending and education are the engines of economic growth (they are not) and believes that Nevada needs to raise taxes to increase funds for education.
What if we increased education spending?
Increasing funds for public education won't result in drastic increases in student achievement. In fact, there is no significant relationship between spending and student achievement. Nevertheless, the advocates of education spending pray that Nevada will summon the "courage" to raise taxes.
Courage to reform
Spending more per student has not produced the results we've been promised for the last 50 years. To make matters worse, it seems there is a very small but negative relationship between spending more money on education and low-income student achievement. Spending more money on education is a policy that appears to leave the poor behind.
Does more spending increase student performance?
When one takes capital outlays, school debt and other payments into the equation, Nevada's K-12 per-pupil spending was $10,420 in 2006 (in 2008 dollar values), which moves Nevada's per-pupil spending ranking up to 31st in the nation from the 44th ranking often cited. As interesting as this is, the per-pupil ranking is still useless.
Nevada is No. 1 in the nation
Recently I reported that Nevada ranked No. 1 (excluding D.C) for under-reporting per-pupil spending in K-12 education. I recently discovered Nevada has another No. 1 education ranking in which it smashes the competition: debt-to-expenditure ratio.
Moving on up
Nevada's actual per-pupil spending in 2006 was $9,738 (total expenditures divided by student population). That figure is 32.5 percent higher than the state's reported official figure of $7,345.
My bad
Well, you can't be right all the time; I'm not omniscient, after all. Last week I reported Nevada's per-pupil spending to be $8,926. But I was wrong: It's higher.
Sunburned by the facts
The Las Vegas Sun continues its assault on education budget cuts, this time claiming that the cuts will destroy our economy. Not so fast, Las Vegas Sun editorial board. Let's inject some facts into this debate.
