Thread by @superdaly

For decades, Nevada severely underfunded education, while educators in districts struggled to hold it together. #nvleg

https://twitter.com/NSEAOnline/status/1639318659976839168

Then the pandemic hit and exposed and worsened the crisis in Nevada schools. Low pay and morale resulted in record numbers of educator departures. Already overcrowded classrooms were doubled and tripled up. Bus routes were canceled, stranding students for hours.

Educators across the state called out for help. A year ago, @NSEAOnline launched #TimeFor20 for a 20% raise, at least $20/hr for those who make schools run, and average class sizes of 20 students— what educators believe is needed to give schools a chance to succeed.

We brought this campaign to state political leaders who responded saying they supported raises for educators but didn’t know how Nevada would pay for it. At the same time, Nevada was already amassing record, 9-digit reserves. (We even pointed that out then.)

So, while school operations were imploding and with educators calling for help, elected leaders responded by saying Nevada couldn’t afford it, even though they were already sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in reserves!

Skip ahead to the start of #nvleg this year. The new Governor introduces his budget proposal increasing education funding by $1B per year. Great, except this is only one side of the coin.

Since FY20, per-pupil Funding has remained relatively flat and inflation has skyrocketed, increasing more than 16%! What we spend on gas or eggs doesn’t just impact the family pocketbook, it also hits school districts.

So most of that billion dollar increase for schools will simply go to covering increased costs, not to supplement or improve education. Let’s look at it another way…

In 2019, the Legislature passed the new school funding formula and created the Commission on School Funding. They tasked the Commission with studying what it would take to reach optimal funding and to make recommendations to get there in 10 years.

The Commission released their report in November finding the state had to increase funding by about $3.4B per year to reach optimal in FY33. You can find the Commission’s report here. doe.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/…

Those numbers are a snapshot in time and need to be adjusted to account for factors like continued inflation and to see how far the Governor’s budget proposal goes in closing Nevada’s funding gap. Commission Chair Guy Hobbs came to the legislature last month to do just that.

His most interesting slide was this one comparing per-pupil funding levels in FY20 with the Governor’s budget proposal for next fiscal year. If you compare the top and 4th bar, you can see per-pupil funding going up by $2237. Most of that comes from the $1B increase next year.

But when you compare the difference between those per-pupil amounts and optimal (APA) you can see the gap goes from $4789 to $4693, closing just $96 even with the additional $1B!

If we can only close the gap by $96 in the best economic times, #NowWhat? What happens when things cool off? Well, when the legislature created the Funding Commission, they charged it with making recommendations to raise the revenue necessary for Nevada to reach optimal funding.

And the Funding Commission did just that— recommending the State raise revenue by expanding the base on the sales tax and closing property tax loopholes. But state leadership hasn’t said a word about these proposals.

Democratic leaders started the session off with some promise announcing an additional $250M for educator raises. thenevadaindependent.com/article/democr…

Unfortunately, when the bill language was released in SB231, it fell woefully short. The bill literally leaves out thousands of workers who make our schools run. Folks like bus drivers, food service workers, custodians, and school secretaries.

Due to a budget freeze impacting most school districts, the matching mechanism in the bill means raises wouldn’t reach all parts of the state. And even for districts able to match, SB231 would only deliver a 10% raise, not the gold standard set in #TimeFor20.

Even before bill language was drafted for the $250M raise, Democratic leaders switched their messaging to “accountability”, saying they would be calling all district superintendents in for a hearing. thenevadaindependent.com/article/democr…

This came just days after the announcement of an online ad campaign launched by this guy from a room in Las Vegas. thenevadaindependent.com/article/in-hea…

Then this bombshell dropped in the RJ, hinting at the kind of pay to play politics I used to see from my old sparring partner, Willie Brown. reviewjournal.com/local/educatio…

It all appears orchestrated. $150K in PAC contributions. Bills cutting out members of rival unions. Hearings called days after press splashes. Questions forwarded, unedited, to school district officials. And the truth is likely even worse than it looks.

The stated purpose of the hearings is to demand accountability from districts to ensure additional dollars lead to improved student achievement. But we’ve already seen how most new dollars are offset by increasing costs, and 3 districts won’t be seeing any increase at all.

Superintendents are being brought back to Carson City to outline how they’ll spend new dollars. As pointed out by my colleague, they already did this in that November Commission report.

https://twitter.com/alexmarksnv/status/1628959502904205312

As we head into these hearings, @NSEAOnline has launched the #AccountabilityMeans campaign. This one is my favorite, but I’ve been working on some others.

#AccountabilityMeans doing what is in the best interest of the people, not the bidding of your largest campaign contributors.

#AccountabilityMeans including a broad group of stakeholders when you draft important legislation, so you don’t cut out large groups of people.

#AccountabilityMeans acting when you have the power to help fix a crisis and taking responsibility when you fall short.

#AccountabilityMeans implementing recommendations you requested with fidelity or at least having an honest conversation why you can’t.

#AccountabilityMeans not blaming the victim and not being petty and defensive when you know you are in the wrong.

#AccountabilityMeans doing the right thing, being generous, and leading by example. I really hope some of this starts to shine through at #nvleg.