LETTERS: School district spending in right spot

To the editor:

Thanks to Glenn Cook for his recent column (“On margins tax, numbers don’t lie,” Sunday Review-Journal). Mr. Cook provides a good picture of resource allocation within the Clark County School District, and I hope he will continue through the coming years.

Contrary to his conclusion, though, the data clearly show that the school district in fact now uses its money to best advantage. Mr. Cook’s way of thinking would be appropriate if his data pertained to a set of, say, 100 schools all in neighborhoods with exactly the same demographics but funded at different levels for several years. Then it would make sense to ask if an extra $3,000 per student really helps.

Comparing apples to apples, higher spending schools should be better performers. But Mr. Cook’s data actually apply to a collection of schools in neighborhoods with vastly different demographics and therefore vastly different needs. The Nevada School Performance Framework shows that five-star elementary schools are nearly all in well-off neighborhoods, with high education levels and stable families, while one-star schools are all in less-advantaged neighborhoods.

To then improve a one-star school, the district must not only provide excellent teaching, but also special classes such as English as a Second Language. The district also has to put forth extra effort to engage parents and even enrichment programs and special services to lift the entire community. All of this costs a lot. At the other end of the scale, four- and five-star schools do fine at significantly lower cost because their neighborhoods (including the schoolchildren’s families, of course) provide solid foundations for educational success.

So if the goal is to move schools up the star ladder, then it makes sense to spend the most money on the worst schools, not on the best, exactly as the Clark County School District does.

STANLEY CLOUD

HENDERSON

Get out the vote

To the editor:

Are you tired of the status quo? Then now is your opportunity to do something about it. If you don’t like the way our idiotic, brain-dead politicians are handling our tax dollars — for example, by throwing money at overly rich billion-dollar development companies for a soccer stadium nobody wants or needs — then now is the time to do something about it. Get up off your collective backsides and get yourselves to the voting polls.

If you don’t like an incumbent politician, then vote that person out of office. This is the only way to get the message through to these morons that we the people have had enough of their garbage. It is time to take back control of how our tax dollars are spent. If incumbents want to continue to act overly stupid with money, then let them do so with their own checking or savings accounts.

The time is now, Southern Nevadans. Go vote.

JIM JACKSON

LAS VEGAS

Ebola another scare tactic

To the editor:

The Republican rants, raves and lies about President Barack Obama and Obamacare have just about run their course. The Grand Old Party has squeezed about every drop it can out of these fears for political purposes. So, what’s the Republicans’ next move? Why of course, let’s panic the nation over Ebola.

Surely, ask any Republican, and he will tell you that it’s all the president’s fault and we should all run for the hills. Ebola is coming your way. Washington Post columnist George Will should be prosecuted for going on public TV and telling the populace that he knows that the Ebola virus is transmitted through the air. He will argue his freedom of speech, but what is the difference between this kind of lie and that of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater?

My mother, bless her soul, taught me that a lie will always catch up with you. I believe this. Eventually, this practice of lying to get to get yourself or someone else elected will catch up with you.

RICHARD L. STRICKLAND

NORTH LAS VEGAS

Incompetent president

To the editor:

The editorial cartoon on the Obama administration (Oct. 22 Review-Journal) provides many examples of how President Barack Obama does not have a clue as to the responsibility that goes with the highest office in America. And as such, he is totally over his head, with no solution, time after time, in all the areas noted in the cartoon.

Yes, he has done a few good things, but they pale in comparison to those areas he alleges are “under control.” He also continues to embarrass the U.S. with little or no action in major international conflicts.

I think the results of the upcoming election will make the president’s last two years in office very difficult. In all of my eight decades, I cannot remember a president who even comes close to this level of incompetence. What a shame that he did not realize his background and knowledge were insufficient to be president of the most powerful nation in the world.

CHARLES COOPER

LAS VEGAS