The Clark County School District and lowering standards

In response to your Tuesday editorial “Still more dumbing down”: I was glad to see the paper addressing the issues that the state and the Clark County School District face in terms of lowering standards. The guilt, however, lies with the Legislature and its outdated funding system.

In 2016, I relocated to Las Vegas to accept one of the state’s numerous teaching openings at a Title I school. On my first day, I learned that the Clark County School District has a huge experience issue. We attract many first-year teachers; research shows that teachers are generally ineffective for their first three years of teaching. On top of that, the district has high turnover. So we lose a lot of teachers as soon as they start to get good.

So why aren’t more experienced teachers moving to and staying in Nevada? Part of it is pay. Nevada has a relatively high starting salary, $40,900. But the difficulty of advancing in the district’s column system is next to impossible, meaning that folks who relocate here have little hope of making more than $40,900 for the foreseeable future. Conditions are another problem. Class sizes are enormous. I personally had a class of 50-plus students with only 38 desks this last school year. I’m all for higher standards, but let’s get the students a place to sit first.

Both of these issues can be fixed with better funding. So remember that you are asking for a lot for a little money. As I like to say, you can get a steak dinner in Vegas for $4.99, but don’t expect it to be good.