Lawmakers dissect education reform plan

CARSON CITY -- Legislators picked apart Gov. Jim Gibbons' education reform plan Wednesday, inducing a key administration staffer to admit that the plan still must be fleshed out.

Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio repeatedly questioned Gibbons' Deputy Chief of Staff Stacy Woodbury about whether the governor's proposal would lead to funding inequities among school districts and result in federal lawsuits.

Such inequities would come when some school districts tapped state funds for class-size reduction and full-day kindergarten and others did not.

Raggio said federal courts have tossed out other states' funding formulas for schools, but the Nevada Plan has remained intact for 40 years. The state provides slightly more than $5,000 a year per student. Poorer districts receive slightly more than richer ones.

The issue addressed by the Legislature's Interim Committee on Education was seen as another stumbling block for Gibbons who hopes to persuade lawmakers to pass his cost-cutting education proposal at a special session to help him control state spending during tough economic times. He faces legislators who so far have seen no need to hold a special session to approve education cutbacks.

"You say you would take money for class-size reduction and full-day kindergarten and roll it back in basic support," Raggio, R-Reno, said to Woodbury. "How do you allocate that increase in basic support and meet the (federal) fairness requirement?"

"Do we have specific details on how we will do that?" Woodbury asked. "No."

But she said the governor and legislators could work out the details over the next few months and "come up with something that works."

When pressed by legislators, Woodbury said the "hole" in the state budget will not be $70 million as earlier projected but as much as $450 million.

To balance the state budget, she said the governor has no choice but to make cuts to education.

In response, Raggio said the law allows the governor to make cuts to education that are equivalent to cuts to other state agencies without convening a special session of the Legislature. He said that makes more sense than convening a special session with an education agenda that has no chance of passing.

Wednesday's meeting offered legislators and members of the public their first opportunity in an official setting to discuss the eight-point education reform plan announced by Gibbons last week.

Every speaker from members of the Parent Teacher Association to a group of Spanish-speaking parents expressed opposition to at least parts of his plan.

Gibbons wants to convene the Legislature in a special session to eliminate the requirement for mandatory funding of full-day kindergarten and class-size reduction programs, hand out vouchers to allow students to attend private schools, end collective bargaining, and replace the elected state Board of Education with a five-member board appointed by him and the Legislature.

In announcing the program, Gibbons said it would save between $30 million and $100 million a year.

But in a Tuesday interview, the governor said he was not eliminating full-day kindergarten or class-size reduction programs, but the requirement that the programs be funded. He said funds for these programs would be available to school districts that want them.

"Class-size reduction has had 20 years to work," Woodbury said. "We have yet to see definitive long-term improvements," Woodbury said, adding that Nevada students still received low scores on tests and 23 percent of the state's schools have been rated by the federal government as needing improvement.

Assemblywoman April Mastroluca, D-Henderson, questioned how Nevada's school funding formula would pass a federal court fairness test if one school district had class-size reduction programs and another did not.

"That would create an inequity."

"I guess that is possible," Woodbury replied.

But Woodbury said the governor's proposal would not lead to layoffs of 2,000 teachers as predicted by the Nevada State Education Association, although some teachers would lose their jobs.

Michael Rodriguez, a school district spokesman, said Tuesday that 1,649 teachers in Clark County would lose their jobs if class-size reduction programs ended.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.