Special education enrollment declines
Nationwide, enrollment in special education declined from 6.7 million in 2004-05 to 6.6 million students in 2007-08 (latest data available). Specific learning disabilities (SLD) - which is the largest but mildest form of special education - fell from 2.9 million to 2.6 million over that same period. Even the number of students classified with mental retardation fell slightly.
It is interesting to see this evidence (again) just after the Clark County School district requested legislation to boost funding for their special education programs.
But why are special-ed enrollments dropping?
Some, like professor Torgesen at Florida State, claim early intervention and improved reading education (like Reading First) are a cause for the decline in special education enrollment (some SLD children are classified as special-ed because previous teachers were ineffective, not because the student was born with an impairment).
Torgesen also suggest it may budgetary - special education costs about 1.6 times more than regular education - and other education programs like class-size reduction are squeezing funds available for special education.
Yet others, like Dr. Jay P. Greene at the University of Arkansas, argue that declining enrollment may also be the result of districts identifying fewer students as learning disabled to avoid paying private school tuitions (as required by Federal law if the public school cannot provide appropriate services). According to Greene, districts appear to have been labeling students SLD to acquire additional resources attached to special education. Greene found evidence that special education vouchers are correlated with a decline in students being labled SLD.
Also, Greene notes that students in private special education look considerably different than in public schools. Public school special-ed is dominated by speech/language disabilities and specific learning disabilities, while private school special-ed is dominated by students with autism, multiple disabilities and emotional disturbances.
Read moreHarry Reid admits green energy needs subsidies to survive
Harry Reid's green energy summit has gotten lots of press, so here's one takeaway that needs to be highlighted.
Green energy requires government subsidies, says ... Harry Reid.
During a roundtable discussion with energy executives, Reid encouraged bipartisanship on energy issues and said the government needs to create more incentives for company's [sic] to become more sustainable.Translation: Without government subsidies, so-called "clean" energy companies would go bankrupt. The "green" in green energy is really the millions of dollars of government subsidies and tax breaks that those companies need to survive.
The good news is that, given Harry Reid's track record of failing to bring home the bacon for Nevada, green energy companies that depend on government handouts to survive probably won't be getting as much as Reid promised.
Just another reason why government shouldn't pick the winners and losers in the economy.
August unemployment rate continues to show that the stimulus is an epic failure
In what's become a monthly refrain here at Write on Nevada it's time for another reminder that the stimulus was and is an epic failure - by the standard Obama, Reid and Pelosi set for themselves: the unemployment rate.
The unemployment rate in August rose to 9.6 percent.
There's really nothing more to say except: One failed stimulus is enough.
NPRI's comments on the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group's report
As promised earlier, the Nevada Policy Research Institute has just published its comments on the rough draft version of the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group report.
Here's our press release:
NPRI analyst: 'Stakeholder' recommendations would lead to higher taxes, less freedom for Nevadans
LAS VEGAS - A fiscal policy analyst at the Nevada Policy Research Institute today criticized a newly released Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group draft report prepared by Moody's Analytics, saying that its recommendations would lead to a larger bureaucracy, higher taxes and more state control over the lives of Nevada citizens.
"Although the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group is trying to present itself as 'representing Nevada's diverse interests,' it is actually a group dominated by union officials, government bureaucrats and others who profit from government largesse," said Geoffrey Lawrence, the NPRI analyst. "Predictably, a group dominated by tax consumers and their facilitators produced a report based on the assumption that extensive government action is necessary to improve Nevadans' quality of life - and, of course, that government should determine what constitutes 'quality of life.'"
According to the timeline laid out by Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group legislative staffer Dave Ziegler, the stakeholders are supposed to review and vote on this draft's recommendations at the group's final meeting on Sept. 10, 2010. Moody's is then scheduled to produce a final report, based on feedback and votes, by Sept. 15, 2010.
"As I first said months ago, the only purpose of this report is to provide political cover for politicians, led by Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, to call for tax increases during the 2011 Nevada Legislative Session," said Lawrence. "While Nevada's politicians are no doubt salivating at the thought of a union- and bureaucrat-approved spending list, citizens should be holding onto their wallets. This report even goes so far as to suggest that some 'constitutional barriers' need removing - and previous Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group discussions suggest that those 'barriers' are the prohibition on a personal income tax and the two-thirds legislative requirement for tax increases."
While the report frequently refers to Nevada's 'favorable' tax burden, Lawrence noted that it fails to mention that Nevada's state and local tax collections actually rank above the median of the 50 states. Lawrence also critiqued the report for presuming that government officials are more capable of allocating economic resources than are individual entrepreneurs who risk their own capital. Specifically, he noted that a centerpiece of the report's economic-growth strategy involves subsidizing politically favored firms, as the report suggests the state should "[a]ttract growth industries by reviewing the state's incentive system and improving upon its alreadyaccommodative regulatory environment."
"It's not just our wallets that these busybodies have their eyes on," said Lawrence. "Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group members want to pressure citizens to use 35 percent less water and to drive less, and they want to 'educate' us about the right foods to eat. Shamelessly, these people believe they can run our lives better than we can."
Lawrence also noted that the NVSG's proposed educational strategies amount simply to a rehash of union demands: more spending on programs, such as pre-kindergarten, that numerous studies have shown have no long-term positive impact on student performance.
"Over the past 50 years, Nevada has nearly tripled its inflation-adjusted, per-pupil spending, and it now has the lowest graduation rate in the country," said Lawrence. "Instead of embracing meaningful reforms that have worked elsewhere, this report includes recommendations that would cost a lot of money and empower the teacher unions, while doing nothing to provide a higher-quality education to Nevada's children."
The rough draft comes several months after Moody's submitted its first Preliminary Rough Draft report, which was roundly criticized by the public and the media for some of its proposals and was ridiculed by the stakeholders themselves for being poorly written and for failing to reflect their intentions.
The Nevada Legislature's Interim Finance Committee is paying Moody's Analytics $100,000 to produce this report. Moody's was also obligated, under a contract with the IFC, to produce a tax study, but the IFC cancelled the study in late July, claiming that Moody's had not fulfilled its contractual obligations. The IFC will therefore be left with only the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group's spending wish list, and no accompanying tax study on how to pay for it.
"It's ironic that the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group claims that diversifying the economy is important in order to stabilize the 'flow of state and local government revenue,'" said Lawrence. "By putting government in control of economic development, all its recommendations would do is ensure that Nevadans pay higher taxes for less economic growth."
Read more:
Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group draft report prepared by Moody's Analytics:
http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Interim/75th2009/Committee/Interim/NevadaVisionStakeholders/Other/EnvisioningNevadasFutureSept3.pdf
Just released: Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group preliminary report
As promised at the previous meeting of the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group, the preliminary report has arrived from Moody's Analytics.
It's 92 pages long, so dig in. We at NPRI will be doing the same and will give you our comments shortly.
In case you don't remember the NVSG, the whole process has been a charade to give politicians, led by Sen. Steven Horsford, political cover to call for tax increases in 2011.
Here's some helpful background reading:
Four problems with the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group
Visions of tax increases
The stakeholder two-step
Puppetmasters on the throne
Nevada's future is at stake
A 'vision' of extortion and control
IFC to hide behind unelected stakeholders
Nevadans deserve honesty from IFC
Also of note, as Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group Chairman Robert Lang emphasized at a previous meeting, he's from New York, not Virginia.
Yes Nevada, higher education is bloated
While the Las Vegas Sun reports on how
In case you forget the study, NPRI covered Nevada's higher education administrative bloat problems here.
A refresher:
Total spending grew by 140 percent at UNLV and by 69 percent at UNR. Adjusting for student population growth, UNLV had 59 percent more dollars per pupil in 2007 than in 1993, while UNR's budget grew 21 percent per pupil.
Despite more resources, the universities became less productive, hiring more employees to provide an education for each student enrolled. At UNR the number of administrators per 100 students grew by 18 percent between 1993 and 2007 - twice as much as the number of instructors. At UNLV the number of administrators per 100 students grew by a staggering 90 percent, even though instructor staff was cut by 6.6 percent.
NPRI on Face to Face tonight
Be sure to tune into Face to Face hosted by Jon Ralston tonight.
NPRI's Andy Matthews is scheduled to be a guest on the program, and he'll be talking about the results of TransparentNevada's new transparency survey of candidates for Nevada's legislative and constitutional offices.
Face to Face airs at 6:30 p.m. on KSNV Channel 3 in Las Vegas, KRNV Channel 4 in Reno and KENV Channel 10 in Elko.
To see how candidates in your district responded, check out the questionnaire results here.
Cross posted at the TransparentNevada blog.
Where Nevada candidates stand on transparency issues
Our sister site, TransparentNevada.com, has just released the results of a survey of candidates for Nevada's legislative and constitutional offices on the issue of government transparency.
The questionnaire contained six questions for candidates to answer, including "Do you support putting Nevada's checkbook online in a searchable format, as states such as Missouri and Texas have done?" and "Do you support applying Nevada's open-meeting law to the Legislature?"
More than 55 candidates responded to the survey, and you can view their responses right here.
TransparentNevada will continue to add responses to its website as they come in, so if a candidate in your district or that you know hasn't answered, ask him or her to answer these six questions. Citizens should know where candidates stand on transparency issues.
Also, here's NPRI's press release announcing the results.
Nevada ranked 18th for K-12 education
The ranking was based on reading and math scores for fourth- and eighth-grade low-income students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. By focusing on low-income student achievement the researchers create a better apples-to-apples comparison between states.
The good news is that Nevada beats all of its regional neighbors in educating low-income students. Nevada's ability to provide above-average education to low-income students is worthy of praise, but Nevada's middle- and high-income students don't perform much better, which drags Nevada's overall achievement levels down.
Policies like identifying effective teachers, rewarding good teachers, alternative teacher certification and expanded school choice can all help improve the quality of education for all children in the Silver State.
Video: Union hires non-union workers to protest a company hiring non-union labor
It's not the first time, and it certainly won't be the last, but I just can't resist posting this video of the Mid-Atlantic Region of Carpenters union hiring non-union workers to protest a construction site that doesn't use union employees.
I love the smell of union hypocrisy in the morning.
