NPRI believes that the way to improve Nevada education is to empower parents and give them more control over the education their children receive. Nevada's monolithic educational apparatus has for too long been impervious to the free-market reforms that are a prerequisite to a quality education system. NPRI's mission on education policy is to inform Nevada's citizens, elected officials and educational leaders of the need to inject free-market principles into this area of public policy.

It was the same date, centuries ago, when a man popular to the people and dangerous to the elites walked through the Roman forum to the Senate. He would not be returning. It was the Ides of March and conspirators lay in wait.

On the Ides of March this year in Carson City, State Sens. Steven Horsford and Dina Titus unveiled their LEAPS, or Local Empowerment and Accountability for Public Schools, plan.

So whose interests, exactly, does the Clark County School District have in mind as it makes its push for full-day kindergarten?  Apparently, not the students.

One of the biggest issues set to come before the 2007 Nevada Legislature will be discrimination by the state education system against students who want to start work right after high school rather than college.

Right after his Jan. 2 public swearing-in ceremony, Gov. Jim Gibbons showed leadership in education by rejecting funding for the spurious all-day kindergarten program for all students.

Let’s say this ad appeared in the jobs section of your local newspaper:

“Have 30-year record of pronounced failure in field. Wasted billions of Silver State taxpayers’ dollars, while stunting the development of hundreds of thousands of Nevada school kids. Now seeking expanded career opportunities targeting your community’s four- and five-year-olds. Please reply to the address below….”

Many public schools pretend to be innovative while completely avoiding the substantive changes necessary for genuine innovation. Yet they always ask for more money.

Nevertheless, Nevada does have some solid examples of true educational innovation.

For years, Nevada's public education system has ignored the particular nature of its community job base.

A new study that recommends doubling public expenditure on Nevada's public schools is deeply flawed.

Senator Bill Raggio had his doubts. Minutes of the 2005 Legislature’s hearings make that clear.

But Gov. Kenny Guinn was eager to try something “new” with Nevada’s huge number of at-risk public schools, and he’d announced the idea in his State of the State message.

Has the Silver State’s public education system become an underperforming, expensive, and obsolete security blanket?

Is it really age-appropriate for a society facing global competition and technology advances in the 21st century?