Fighting school reform

Special interests seemingly indifferent to local schools that churn out graduates unable to comprehend basic texts or solve rudimentary calculations have in recent months sought to protect themselves by stoking fears among parents about potential reforms.

State lawmakers in 2015 created the “achievement school district,” which essentially sanctions a state takeover of up to six struggling Clark County campuses. The schools — to be selected next February by the state Board of Education — will be paired with a charter operator for up to six years in hopes of boosting student achievement.

The schools will be freed from the Clark County School District’s collective bargaining agreement, offering administrators more flexibility in staffing and instruction. Current staff must reapply for their jobs.

During the process of identifying potential candidates for inclusion in the overhaul, district officials have been lukewarm, to say the least. It’s still not clear whether the Clark County School Board will even cooperate with a request from state education officials to help select the achievement district campuses.

The district’s reluctance comes as no surprise. The exercise threatens to expose the depth of failure in many schools that for too long has been tacitly accepted as inevitable. Proficiency rates as low as 4 percent in math and 18 percent in reading? That’s a travesty.

Some parents have shown up at informational meetings to protest the plan. But the more data state officials can offer to the families of children attending underperforming schools, the easier it will be to assuage their concerns. No mother or father with even modest aspirations for their kids would accept a neighborhood campus that fails to teach children the basic skills they need to better themselves.

The more cogent critics of the achievement district argue that creating additional charters schools is a mistake because a handful of existing charters in Las Vegas have failed to produce the promised results.

But success hinges on ensuring that those selected to run the campuses have a track record of boosting test scores. There are indeed many charter schools across the country that have failed to deliver — and such schools, including those in Clark County, should be candidates for closure.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the state or district should just abandon modest reform efforts in favor of an unacceptable status quo that dooms thousands of kids each year. There are many, many fine charter schools that have made remarkable progress in the face of significant challenges. Finding out what has worked and encouraging successful operators to come to Nevada will be the key to any turnaround — and to comforting anxious parents.