EDITORIAL: Nevada public school advocates threatening lawsuit over education funding

Not three years removed from the largest tax hike in Nevada history, a $1.1 billion amalgamation of new and extended levies intended to fund education, self-styled public school advocates are now threatening a lawsuit designed to wring even more money out of state residents.

What a surprise.

The Review-Journal’s Meghin Delaney reported this week that “Nevada could soon join the ranks of states that have been sued over the way they fund public education.”

Caryne Shea of HOPE For Nevada, a nonprofit that advocates for more school spending, told Ms. Delaney, “Unfortunately, I don’t see enough action happening on behalf of our children without a lawsuit.” Sylvia Lazos of Educate Nevada Now, which lobbies for “fair and equitable education funding,” said such legal action is just a “matter of time.”

Ms. Delaney notes that Nevada is one of just six states that has yet to face a legal challenge to its education spending. Lawsuits in other states have had mixed results, but typically hinge on vague accusations that lawmakers have failed to “adequately” fund a “suitable” public education for all children.

Make no mistake, such lawsuits are a blatant attempt to do an end run around elected lawmakers and depend on judges willing to exceed their constitutional authority and legislate from the bench. In some states, such as Kansas and Connecticut, this has resulted in the judiciary ignoring separation of powers concerns and essentially imposing new taxes or ordering the increase of others.

Nevada’s constitution doesn’t offer much ammunition, which is perhaps why the state has so far been spared a lawsuit. The document demands only that the Legislature “shall provide for a uniform system of common schools, by which a school shall be established and maintained in each school district at least six months of every year.”

In reality, no amount of money will satisfy the folks at HOPE For Nevada or Educate Nevada Now, both of which continue to excuse a foundering monopoly that struggles to succeed at the most basic levels. Regardless, education spending policy should be determined in the legislative and political arenas, not imposed by fiat from the bench.

Rather than blame stingy lawmakers, Nevada parents who feel their children are victims of substandard public schooling would be better off questioning whether the entrenched education establishment — which reflexively opposes reform, passes along students who can’t adequately read, write or compute and churns out high school graduates who are wholly unprepared for college work — has perpetrated a tremendous and cynical fraud on parents and students alike.

Now that would be a lawsuit worth investigating.