Patrick R. Gibbons
Opportunity missed
Steven Horsford cannot stand up to the NSEA alone
Three months ago, the new majority leader of the Nevada Senate, Steven Horsford, seriously displeased the president of the Nevada State Education Association teacher union. Horsford did so by admitting, indirectly, the long and lethal hostility of that union to virtually each and every effort to reform Nevada public education. "It is about the future and the children who depend upon us in the classroom," said the young majority leader in a debate over the hotel-room-tax increase. "The children are more important to me than any teachers group, than any company who thinks they can decide tax policy."
Power for Nevada education
Empowerment schools offer beacon of hope for serious education reform
By 1989 the Soviet Union's iron curtain had all but collapsed. Though the transition from communism to capitalism was tough, the people were reclaiming freedom in politics and in their private lives. Gone were the days of central planning, where soviet commissars sat on high, issuing production quotas for factories and determining how goods would be rationed among the people. Unfortunately, American public education today is largely run in much the same way that the Soviet Union ran its economy.
Education and migration
People choose lower taxes over higher ed
We are told that without an excellent system of taxpayer-financed higher education, we cannot attract people or jobs to our state. Without growth in the population of the well-educated, or so goes the story, we simply won't be able to grow our economy. It may be true that some people won't move to our state because the public system of higher education is bottom-tier. But when you examine the reality in this area, the claims of the big spenders fall completely flat.
