Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Ms. Tiffany tries again

Taxpayers deserve chance to pass judgment on school district's size

An idea that refuses to die -- breaking up the Clark County School District -- resurfaced in the state capital last week as longtime Henderson assemblywoman (now freshman state Sen.) Sandra Tiffany asked for a bill draft that could lead to a separate, breakaway Henderson school district.

During Ms. Tiffany's decade in the Democratic-controlled lower house, her repeated efforts to deconsolidate the Clark County School District -- sixth largest in the nation -- always died before reaching the Senate. Even should her latest effort now move ahead, a blue-ribbon panel would take nearly two years to study complex issues of cost, bonding capabilities, and assuming bonded indebtedness for schools already built.

Those are complex issues, though Ms. Tiffany is of the opinion that breaking off a new district along existing municipal boundaries would solve the problem of bonding capability.

No, the biggest potential problem with such a plan is the tendency of any bureaucracy to engage in empire building.

On the other hand, for a valley this size to have only a single district makes the sheer logistics of handling 254,000 kids -- more each year -- an almost insurmountable problem. The notion that the parents of a single child can expect to make a problem heard to a school board or administration operating on that scale is absurd -- as is the notion that in an area this huge, one size can fit all.

"We want community-based school districts to reflect the community and be responsive to parents' and pupils' needs," Ms. Tiffany points out. "The needs in North Las Vegas are not the same as in Henderson."

"Our children are getting lost in the maze," agrees Lois Tarkanian, a 12-year School Board member who did not seek re-election in 2000, and who agrees a valley of 1.5 million souls has now outgrown a single district. "That's why children and teachers don't have the connections they used to have. The same goes for the district."

Beyond that, a huge potential advantage would be the opportunity for two or more separate districts to compete for the best teachers by offering higher pay for in-demand specialties -- while simultaneously trying different strategies to lower overhead and trim bureaucratic lard.

It's far too early to endorse a plan that has yet to be presented with any specificity -- and School Board Trustee Mary Beth Scow's warning that "the cost would be enormous" should not go unheeded.

But it's hard to defend the efficacy of county taxpayers' current schooling expenditures, based on academic results. The answer, clearly, is competition. And while tax credits or vouchers must be part of that mix, voters and taxpayers also deserve a chance to look at one or more specific proposals for multiple, smaller, competing school districts.