How do you get out of a crisis? One step at a time.

The following are posts that I published on my Facebook page yesterday afternoon after returning home from a meeting of concerned parents whose children attend Carson's school. Our kids took these CRT tests in February, so essentially Carson has already been tested for his 3rd grade level "proficiency" as they call it in Middle and High Schools. As his parent, I cannot request that he be given the opportunity to retake the test at a later date if he/I are not satisfied with his results. In Nevada you are only allowed to test once, and that score becomes part of your permanent record, following you the remainder of your schooling career. That said, I am disheartened that our Nevada state legislators would have "set Nevada up for failure" in regards to achieving AYP status in our schools, making us eligible for more federal monies for education. I have chosen to become an activist in this grass-roots campaign to change Nevada laws because Nevada has been my home for over half of my life, and I would love to continue to live here, but the enticement of better schools elsewhere has me anxious to move away. If people begin to move out of Nevada the tax base we currently have would be reduced, forcing us to make even deeper cuts to education, infrastructure, and other public services. A good school system attracts people who want to raise families (just look at Texas' growth), and as Nevada is already one of the friendliest states for corporate development, improving our national education ranking would make us the obvious choice when people are faced with the decision of where to move and base their companies/ families. I don't believe Nevada is 49th, but that we are victims (as are our children) of a state government that has made the wrong decision for us. I believe that if our children were given the opportunity to test later in the year (after more than 2/3 of the material has been taught), and if Nevada chose to score their subgroups the way other states do, we would rank WAY better in education- maybe even near the top! I have spent a lot of time in the classroom volunteering and interacting with the students over the past 2 1/2 years and am fully confident that our kids are bright, insightful, inventive, creative, problem solvers, and they only want the best opportunity for success. That said, please read my posts and leave a comment, or if you are a fellow Nevadan, contact one of our representatives immediately! Thanks, and love to you all!

My first post about when the CRT tests are administered:
Ever wonder why Nevada places 49th in education??? How is it possible that there's only one state that's dumber than us!? Well, I'd bet we're not... as you know there are 180 days in the school year. The CRT (Criterion-Referenced Test) assesses mastery of standards taught in that 180 days, yet current Nevada mandates require our district to complete the tests within 120 days of school. What exactly does this mean? Imagine being a college student who has to take your final exam prior to having been taught 1/3 of the material the test covers- stressful and unfair? Yes! Now imagine that injustice happening to your child or to your neice or nephew. It is, right now in CCSD. The only way to change this is to convince our legislators to remove the 120-day deadline, or extend it to 140 or 160 days. The legislature is currently in session and will not be again until 2013, so I urge you to contact either your school's legislative representative or one of my school's representatives.
Scott Hammond shammond@asm.state.nv.us
Elizabeth Halseth ehalseth@sen.state.nv.us
Be sure to remind them that reelections are just around the corner, and you feel that better quality schools would entice more people to want to move to and continue living in Nevada, therefore increasing our state's tax base, and helping with our current financial crisis.

My post about how Nevada scores it's results compared to other states:
Nevada schools are getting a bad rapp due to incomsistencies in the CRT/ Proficiency testing administration as well as scoring. Nevada law requires our schools to have subgroups (groupings of children based upon one of eight factors including race, special education needs, free/reduced lunch recipient, and socioeconomic status among other things) of 25 whereas other states operate with subgroups of 50-150 students. What this means is that when a particular school does not have enough students that fall within one particular subgroup, that subgroup's scores do not have to be counted toward the total scoring of that school. For example, if there are 68 free/reduced lunch students in a school here in Nevada, with our subgroup of 25, those scores would all be counted. However, if another state whose subgroup count is 100 also has 68 students receiving free/reduced lunches, they do not have to count their test scores, thereby making it easier for their school to meet AYP standards and receive federal grant money. Like most systems established by our government, this one, too, is broken. Operating under this understanding, you can begin to see why it is nearly impossible to accurately compare the educational systems of one state to another. It's apples to oranges. The state legislature is the one responsible for setting these guidelines (not the school district as most believe), so the only real way to ensure that Nevada gets it's greatest shot at qualifying for federal monies that are awarded based upon testing performance, is to ensure that our legislators understand that we want our states guidelines overhauled IMMEDIATELY!!! Stop complaining about the lack of quality education here in Clark County and do something about it! (Here's the part where you open another browser window, sign into your email and write a letter to your representative; if you don't know who yours is, write to mine!)