Schools can’t afford extremist ideology

In Clark County, we are facing a severe teacher shortage. Hundreds of openings for teachers remain unfilled by qualified, licensed professionals and are instead being covered by inexperienced long-term substitutes. Despite the best efforts of Clark County School District human resources, including offering $100 finder fees for referring new teachers to our district, we remain unable to attract the best talent, or, in some cases, any talent at all.

We cannot simply cross our fingers and hope for the best; wagging our fingers at those teachers currently willing to work here only will exacerbate the problem.

Unfortunately, Nevada has a reputation for trying to go it on the cheap with education. For years, we’ve consistently come in ranked near the bottom of states willing to spend on the quality of our children’s education. As we struggle to attract the best talent to our state, it’s no wonder the best and the brightest are taking a pass on us.

In the face of our problems, some, amazingly, have suggested measures to weaken collective bargaining and to subject our students and teachers to more testing and evaluations for a chance to scramble for meager funding increases.

As if low pay, crumbling schools and bulging class sizes weren’t enough, myopic obsession with extremist political crusading has taken the place of pragmatic solutions to the problems facing our kids and their families.

Combining the lowest pay possible with the most insecure, combative working conditions we can imagine will result in nothing more than the fewest, worst-qualified applicants. We cannot simultaneously attack the teaching profession and continue to starve our schools while crying out for better teachers.

Meanwhile, our kids are still being herded into portable classroom labyrinths that cover what used to be playgrounds. Seeking to squeeze what little they can from available resources, district personnel are forced to rezone our schools and reintroduce year-round scheduling.

They even have passed new rules that fundamentally alter the nature of our magnet schools, replacing their mission to attract the best and brightest students with a mission to simply alleviate overcrowding.

The same clueless folks who seek measures that will scare away the teachers we need are responding to our building and infrastructure needs by insisting that we go it on the cheap in the school construction market. Our schools literally are falling apart. Buildings and classrooms built for our kids’ grandparents need air conditioning that works, plumbing that doesn’t flood and gas lines that don’t force school evacuations. To compete in the job market, our kids need schools equipped with the best and the fastest technology infrastructure. Instead, we’re still scratching our heads wondering how to administer computer-based SBAC exams this spring when, in many schools, the student-to-computer ratio is almost as high as our student-to-teacher ratio.

Attacking those who build and upgrade our schools, like attacking those who teach our children, will result in shoddy workmanship that will cost us more over the long run and deprive our kids of the very best we can offer.

What we desperately need are leaders courageous enough to invest in our schools and in our kids. Gov. Brian Sandoval’s calls for increased school funding are a great first step.

Those who want the best teachers and the best classrooms for our kids should support these measures while vigorously opposing alternatives that seek instead to force their extremist anti-teacher, anti-schools ideologies on our kids and families. Nevada can’t keep going it on the cheap if we want the best and the brightest for our kids.

Steve Gaskill is a Clark County School District sixth-grade science teacher.