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Is the Clark County Board of School Trustees hostile to everything military? Or is the board just averse to veterans? The board recently cold-shouldered an offer of the unique privilege of having the nation's second Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps academy in Clark County.

Residents of Clark County who want to invest in the future of their children should take away their schoolbooks and buy them a box of matches. Why? Because in Clark County, knowledge of fire and fire suppression is apparently of more value than is knowledge in specialized academic fields such as law.

After more than 200 years, Americans still believe in individual freedom, and so socialism has remained a dirty word. The political Left has worked diligently to rebrand socialism in America, and thus it has gone by many names. Today, opportunistic politicians, illiberal academics and economically illiterate journalists are once again trotting out old myths to breathe new life into an idea that should be long dead.

It's been clear for a long time that little love is lost between the state teacher union and Southern Nevada's Culinary local. The hostility spilled into public view earlier this year during the state's bitter presidential preference caucus. While Culinary backed Barack Obama, the Nevada State Education Association teacher union backed Hillary Clinton, even going to court in an attempt to block Culinary members from voting at sites set up on the Las Vegas Strip.

Why is the Clark County School District issuing checks for millions of dollars to Southern Nevada's powerful teacher union? According to purchase and change orders reviewed by the Nevada Policy Research Institute, within the last two years a total of $4.9 million has been approved by CCSD trustees for payment directly to the Clark County Education Association, or to a foundation controlled by the union.

Ropchai Premsrirut, former assistant professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, explained recently in the Las Vegas Sun how he believes he is doing his part to prevent unemployment – namely, by not quickly ending the hemorrhaging of a money-losing restaurant he recently took over.

Las Vegas Sun publisher Brian Greenspun this week turned his normal column space over to a former assistant professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Ropchai Premsrirut, who focused on creating jobs in a shrinking economy.

Local school board races often go unnoticed and under-researched by voters. Nevertheless, these campaigns have a truly critical impact on K-12 education. In many respects, this is education's true front line, the place where the very foundation of most students' education is laid down – or not.

Nevada faces a steadily worsening economy, thanks in no small part to poor federal regulatory policies that are driving up inflation and destroying the value of the American dollar. This problem exacerbates Nevada's already massive budgetary shortfall, which will continue to worsen as the dollar continues to weaken.

The need for reform of property rights in Nevada is clear.  Property rights that are defensible under the rule of law are the very foundation of a market economy.  However, property rights in Nevada have eroded due to a set of community redevelopment laws that confer dangerous amounts of power upon local politicians.