Issue Position: Strengthening Education

Issue Position

I want Nevada schools to lead the country in providing quality education to all of our children. Strong schools not only give our children a better future, they also help create jobs in our local economy: businesses will start up, choose to expand, or move to places where they can hire well-educated workers. During the last legislative session my colleagues and I were focused on three main issues: properly funding education inNevada, continuing to implement common-sense reforms, and starting or expanding programs with a proven track record of success.

During this last Legislative Session I was glad to see broad, bi-partisan agreement on the direction we need to go with our education system inNevada. Because of that, the Legislature working with Governor Sandoval was able to add hundreds of millions of dollars to the education budget to fund things like continuing class size reduction, our commitment to all-day kindergarten, and programs to help disadvantaged students bridge the achievement gap.

However there is still much that needs to be done. I am committed to continuing every effort to improve the education outcomes inNevada. Our children deserve it, our economy needs it, and our citizens want it.

We are moving in a positive direction, though, and I am encouraged by the bi-partisan consensus we were able to forge and the work we were able accomplish this last session. For instance, Senate Bill 522, which I was proud to support, funded class size reduction, added an important English Language Learners program, and continued moving us in the direction of fully-funding all-day kindergarten.

Education Reform

In addition to our work on education funding priorities for our schools, we always need to be sure our dollars are being spent as efficiently as possible. I supported the common sense, bipartisan education reforms the legislature passed in the 2011 session. These reforms are designed to help us attract and retain the best teachers, make our schools run more efficiently, provide more training and support for our newer, less experienced teachers, and create a more comprehensive and fair evaluation system for teachers and their administrative counterparts. For the first time ever administrators have performance evaluations in the same way teachers do, a piece I think is particularly important. These reforms required making tough choices, and I believe the decisions we made are taking our schools in a positive direction. As these reforms start to take effect I am hopeful that they will continue to improve our education system.

Moving forward, my focus continues to be on making sure our schools have the human and capital resources needed to overcome any decencies in our educational outcomes and that the reforms to our system are working as they should. We need to invest wisely in our education system so that the Washoe County School District can build on the gains it has already made, and schools throughout the state continue to improve.

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