Week in Review: This will make you laugh

Andy Matthews

Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.


This will make you laugh

I received an email the other day from a friend and long-time NPRI supporter. Attached to the email was this image:

Come on, admit it — that one made you laugh. But it’s true, isn’t it? You can have an endless supply of something, but it won’t do you much good if you’re utterly clueless as to how to use it.

The world of public policy is certainly full of examples. And my friend was apparently reminded of one when he looked at that image. With his email, he included a simple sentence: “The only thing missing is the CCSD logo.”

He seems to have noticed the pattern.

For years, Nevada’s education establishment and its defenders have been clamoring for increased funding. The margin tax initiative, brought to you by the teacher unions and set to go before voters this November, is but the latest attempt to get their hands on the one thing they always want: more money. But what these folks don’t want is accountability for how they’re using the money they already receive. And their ongoing success in avoiding such accountability is a large and growing problem for Nevada’s taxpayers and students.

It needs to stop.

This week, we at NPRI released a new report that gets at the heart of the Silver State’s education challenges. Authored by Geoff Lawrence, the report documents how decades of shoveling more money into our public education system has failed to deliver the promised gains in student achievement. The problem, Geoff explains, isn’t a lack of resources. It’s the inability of our school systems to use current resources properly.

To address that problem, the report explores a number of policy reforms — 33, in fact — that have a proven track record of success in other states, and can be implemented here in Nevada without any increase in spending. These reforms would improve educational achievement not by blindly adding to the pile of resources, but by ensuring that existing resources are utilized more efficiently — something that, sadly, we rarely see in the public-education realm.

The report is a great read and a welcome addition to the education-policy debate. I strongly urge you to check it out (you can do so here). There’s a lot of material in there, but I hope the main thing you take away from it is this: We can throw all the money in the world at our education problems, but we’re not going to get anywhere until we start demanding that the recipients of that money use it wisely.

***

Speaking of accountability, we’re still within the window when dissatisfied teacher-union members can hold union bosses accountable for their performance. Teachers who want to leave their union can do so, but they must act by July 15. If that’s you — or if it’s someone you know — the place to get more information is www.nevadateacherfreedom.com.

In the past two years, more than 1,400 teachers statewide have decided to opt out of union membership, and for a variety of reasons. Many cite poor customer service. Others like the idea of saving hundreds of dollars a year in union dues, believing they can spend that money better than union officials can. And some don’t like the idea of belonging to an organization that uses their money to push job-killing proposals like the margin tax.

Whatever the reason, we at NPRI believe that teachers who want to leave the union should be able to. Unfortunately, the union makes it difficult to do so (witness the narrow, two-week opt-out window), but we’ll be working hard over the next few days to reach as many teachers as possible with this important information.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.

Andy Matthews
NPRI President


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