Education standards at issue

      Five Nevada Board of Education members fired back at Assembly Education Committee chairman Wendell Williams on Thursday after he accused the board of lying to the committee.
      At issue is whether the 11-person state board or a proposed panel of governor appointees should design the standards for educating schoolchildren. Gov. Bob Miller and state legislators are frustrated with the state board because it has struggled for four years to find an agreement on changing those standards without acting on the issue.
      Williams has accused state board members and other state education officials of misleading his committee by claiming the state has any standards at all and that teachers across the state know what they are.
      If this is true, Williams said, it would prove the ineffectiveness of the state board and give the Legislature cause to assign the standards-writing duties to the proposed governor's panel.
      Williams was so certain that no such standards exist that he and three fellow committee members paid a surprise visit Tuesday to Hill Elementary School in Las Vegas.
      Yet the appearance at Hill School appeared to backfire when the school's teachers and principal insisted they have a "course of study" book that includes standards dictated by the state.
      Despite that, Williams insisted he was speaking of something different.
      Thursday State Board member Gary Waters disagreed.
      Waters, appearing at the Sawyer Building with four other Las Vegas-area board members, denounced Williams' claims of lies.
      "Although Mr. Williams has been fully and adequately informed regarding the finished and work currently in progress regarding higher educational standards, he continues to make false, unfounded and inflammatory statements regarding the educational system's commitment to higher standards," Waters said.