Tax Recipients Demand Higher Taxes

Yesterday, tax recipients demonstrated along the Strip demanding more from taxpayers. There were marching and signs and speeches, all part of the hyperbole attempting to convince Nevadans the sky is falling in education.

It was also part of the attempt to advance the fallacious ideas that there is some connection between spending and educational quality and that those who believe government must live within its means are opposed to quality education.

Taxpayers have not received adequate value for the dollars they have already spent on education. Now, at a time when most of them are being forced to cut back, when they are suffering pay cuts and job losses and their businesses are failing, those whom their tax dollars have been supporting are demanding they throw even more money into the failed system.

For instance, there was a university professor declaring, “We need more taxes.” This is the very same professor who penned a column last week lamenting impending budget cuts but whose own research and scholarship, as well as that of virtually her entire department, are ill-suited to preparing students for available employment opportunities or for life outside the academy or left-wing activist groups. Apparently, additional taxes are necessary so that the taxpayers of Nevada can continue to fund costly programs that provide their students with few skills of value to employers.

What we need is to reform education, not continue to pour more money into it. Inflation-adjusted per pupil spending by Nevada’s taxpayers has increased by 280% in the last fifty years for K-12 and nearly 30% in the last dozen years for higher ed.

All this additional spending has resulted in larger and better-compensated administration but has not resulted in better student performance. Still, the members of the education establishment continue to demand more money.

The taxpayers of this state, the businesspeople and entrepreneurs and employees who have been struggling for years, demand reform and they demand results from education. They cannot afford to keep dumping more money into a system that does not perform yet continues to demand more money.

Cross-posted at NBC

Do Democrats Hate Poor People?

All too often, the issues facing our country are discussed in purely political terms with partisan ideology at the center. This guarantees that opinions will be formed purely on emotion, and not the facts. If the issue is illegal immigration, Republicans hate Mexicans. If it’s education, Republicans hate children. If it’s welfare reform, Republicans hate poor people.

So on that note, let’s examine how Democrats fare under the same level of scrutiny, shall we?

Hating Mexicans

In America, we have immigration laws – like them or not. They are in place for a reason, mainly to ensure that we know who is coming here, and that we can accommodate the increase in local, state, and federal services their presence requires. Currently, we let roughly 1 million immigrants into America legally, almost 2,800 per day. Think about it: 2,800 people per day that need jobs, housing, food, education for themselves or their children, drivers licenses, social security cards, and many other necessities. Now add to that another 1 million who come in illegally, or overstay their visas. These are people we don’t know. They could be anyone from a hard-working farmer to an Al Qaeda terrorist – and anyone who tells you differently is wrong. If we don’t know who they are, then we don’t know how they aren’t. Now, while some people will say it’s racist to single out Mexicans in the illegal immigration discussion, let me explain why that is by showing you the country of origin of those living in the U.S. illegally, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

#1 – Mexico: 62%

#2 – El Salvador: 5%

#3 – Guatemala: 4%

#4 – Honduras: 3%

That’s quite a drop-off from #1 to #2, isn’t it? Also bear in mind that these 4 countries equate to 74% of our illegal immigration problem, and they all enter the U.S. through our border with Mexico. So it’s not racist to talk about our southern border, it’s REALITY.

So, don’t like the laws? Change them. But until then, the government’s job is to enforce them. And that’s what Republicans want. They want a secure border. They want legal immigration. They want those here illegally to be deported when caught, according to the law.

Now we can argue immigration reform all day, and I’m one Republican who thinks it is impossible to deport the 15-20 million people here illegally. However, until we actually pass immigration reform and discover a way to handle all of these issues, we have no choice but to enforce the laws.

But what about Democrats? Do they hate Mexicans too?

Many liberal Democrats argue against raiding businesses that hire illegals. Why? Because they will be deported, and working for $3 per hour in unsafe conditions is still better than Mexico.

Really?

If that’s the case, isn’t the problem Mexico? And if everyone with the motivation to work hard leaves Mexico, who will be left to fix it, other than the drug cartels?

So these liberals would rather have illegal immigrants working in unsafe conditions, unable to report accidents, earning slave wages – simply so they don’t have to return to their home country?

Appalling.

Slavery was wrong in the 19^th century, and it’s wrong today. But you don’t hear anyone saying that liberals hate Mexicans, do you?

Hating Children

Education is a hot button issue that is frequently distorted into an ideological war of emotions, when in fact there is nothing emotional about it. Schools exist to educate. Period. And on that measure, they are failing.

Since 1970, our education system has flat-lined on achievement in reading and math. Despite that, we’ve increased funding exponentially with zero results. Zero. Absolutely no movement of the needle. So the answer is more money?

“Since 1971, educational spending in the United states has more than doubled, from $4,300 per student to more than $9,000 per student, adjusted for inflation.” – “Waiting for ‘Superman’”

So if money is the answer, why has money not been the answer? And does wanting the correct answer constitute hating children? Of course not. Does putting your own selfish agenda ahead of the success of our children, and our nation, constitute hating children? Judge for yourself.

Many of the obstacles to fixing our education system reside with those controlling it: Teachers’ unions.

Do not confuse teachers’ unions with other unions, or you will fall into the same trap of thinking with emotions. Unions were created to help workers negotiate for better pay and working conditions, against giants of industry who were profit-driven. Education is a non-profit endeavor, paid for by tax payers, and therefore there is no evil CEO to demonize.

There are many things that will help toward improving our education system, including the use of technology to lower the cost of educating our children as a whole, rewarding the best teachers while coaching or removing the underperformers, adequately preparing middle school children for high school, and high school children for college, and making school districts accountable to parents and tax payers.

Unfortunately, teachers’ unions do not want technology to lower the cost of education our children, because it will result in a need for less teachers – even though our school districts are wildly under-staffed as it is.

Teachers’ unions also do not want teachers to be treated differently, in any way. So rewarding great teachers, and firing bad ones, is completely off the table.

Furthermore, these unions resent standardized tests, as they do not believe the performance of students has any bearing on how qualified a teacher is. After all, they can’t make the kids learn.

In fact, according to “Waiting for ‘Superman’,” the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers (the two most organized unions) spent $55 million on federal campaigns over the past 20 years, and 90% of it went to Democrats. So, if teachers’ unions are in the way of improving education, and they donate almost entirely to Democrats, do Democrats hate children?

Let’s pretend you own your own business. Would you want to keep your good employees, and get rid of the bad ones? Would you want to reward your best people with incentives to perform well? Would you expect a return on your investment? Well none of that applies to education, mainly because of teachers’ unions.

Apparently, if you support school choice, merit pay for teachers, and accountability to parents and taxpayers, you hate children. But if you want to give those controlling our education system more money, after a 40-year track record of failure, well… you’re a kid’s best friend. (Read: nightmare)

Hating Poor People

Almost a full 50% of Americans pay no income tax. Now just to clarify, most do pay it in their paychecks, but they get it all back on their tax returns. And while they do contribute to Medicare and Social Security like all Americans do, this 50% of Americans are far more likely to need Medicare and Social Security than those who do pay income tax.

With that said, the answer to everything these days seems to be: “Tax the rich – or you hate poor people.” I guess it is perfectly okay to hate rich people. After all, rich people are the ones hiring the rest of us. But it’s not all rich people that are evil blood-sucking greed-mongers. What about actors? Hollywood is gluttonously wealthy, yet you don’t hear liberals screaming for them to hang, do you? Nobody blames the ills of society on Johnny Depp and Ben Stiller, do they? Yet from June 2009 – June 2010, they were the two highest paid actors in Hollywood, earning $75 million and $53 million respectively.

“But it’s different,” they’ll say, because people pay to go see Johnny Depp and Ben Stiller, which justifies their huge salaries. Of course that argument doesn’t seem to work for the rich guy who created Wal-Mart, an outlet in which millions of Americans pay to buy things – justifying his huge salary.

You see, it’s all about emotion. The guy who runs the business must be exploiting workers, while Johnny Depp makes people smile. Of course if Wal-Mart went out of business tomorrow, we’d see how many people would be smiling when all of their employees were out of a job, and the public could no longer buy a pair of jeans for $8 or an entertainment center for $69.

If you wanted to raise taxes on soda and bottled water, would that be good for poor people whose grocery bills would go up? Well, that’s what Democrats in New York and Nevada want to do.

Does it help or hurt poor people when gas is $4/gallon? Wouldn’t drilling for oil inside the U.S. help bring those prices down? Many Democrats are against drilling in America, even though they love beating up Republicans for going to war for oil in the Middle East. If we had more drilling here, Democrats would have one less thing to blame on Republicans – so obviously that’s out of the question.

Conclusion

There are many things to dislike in our country, and even some things to hate. There are a lot of things to love about American too, but most people take those for granted.

To think that Republicans hate Mexicans, children, and poor people, simply because of their political views is just plain ignorant.

I don’t think Democrats hate Mexicans, children, and poor people either. But they do hate Republicans – and that’s really what all their bitching is about.

The Bursting of the Lower Education Bubble

One of the recurring topics discussed by blogger and University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds has been the Higher Education Bubble. He contends that, just like the housing bubble of the mid-2000's, the prices for higher education have been increasing rapidly with no corresponding increase in intrinsic value. This is a classic bubble situation that invariably bursts as consumers become increasingly unable and unwilling to pay the spiraling prices.

Today, Reynolds writes of a similar situation in "lower education" (K-12). Be sure to read the whole thing but there are a few lines that I believe are absolute gems.

So at the K-12 level, we've got an educational system that in many fundamental ways hasn't changed in 100 years - except, of course, by becoming much less rigorous - but that nonetheless has become vastly more expensive without producing significantly better results.

Steady increases in per-pupil spending without any commensurate increase in learning can't go on forever. So they won't.

When our public education system was created in the 19th century, its goal, quite explicitly, was to produce obedient and orderly factory workers to fill the new jobs being created by the industrial revolution. Those jobs are mostly gone, now, and the needs of the 21st century are not the needs of the 19th.

Like striking steelworkers in the 1970s, today's teachers' immediate unhappiness may come from reductions in benefits. But their bigger problem is an industry that hasn't kept up with the times, and isn't producing the value it once did. Until that changes, we're likely to see deflation of the lower education bubble as well as the higher.

We are having much the same battle in Nevada. Per pupil spending, adjusted for inflation, has nearly tripled in the last 50 years. Student performance, which is after all what education is supposed to be about, has not improved significantly in that time. But the entrenched interests in the education establishment continue to demand more money even as the Silver State's tax revenues and private sector employment have plummeted.

Rory Reid Allegedly Circumvented Campaign Finance Laws

While Nevada's Democrat Secretary of State is introducing two bills in the Nevada Legislature to "update" the State's campaign finance laws today comes the revelation that the 2010 Democrat candidate for Governor, Harry Reid's son Rory Reid, may have attempted to circumvent existing laws to allow a single organization contribute 75 times the legal limit to his campaign. Jon Ralston has the story.

In one of the most brazen schemes in Nevada history, gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid’s campaign formed 91 shell political action committees that were used to funnel three quarters of a million dollars into his campaign, circumventing contribution limits and violating at least the spirit – and maybe the letter – of the laws governing elections.

Reid, who was fully aware of what was done, essentially received more than $750,000 from one PAC – 75 times the legal limit -- after his team created dozens of smaller PACS that had no other purpose other than to serve as conduits from a larger entity that the candidate funded by asking large donors for money. Indeed, the shell PACs were formed in the fall and dissolved on Dec. 31, after they had served their short-term function, which was to help the candidate evade campaign contribution laws.

I guess laws are for the little people.

LV Mayoral Candidate Forum

The Citizen Outreach Las Vegas mayoral candidate forum is Friday, March 4, 2011 at Stoney's on Las Vegas Blvd. South. It will feature Larry Brown, Victor Chaltiel, Carolyn Goodman, Chris Giunchigliani, George Harris and Steve Ross. Doors open at 3 pm.

If you can make it, it will be well worth it.

"Tax My Meat" Pete Surrenders, Bring the Boys Home

Guest column by Chuck Muth

If you act stupidly...and you can't fix stupid...then by definition you are stuck on stupid. Which brings us to another depressing Republican episode of "The Price is Right."

The tax-hike war in the Assembly is over without a shot being fired. Republicans, under the (mis)direction of Commanding General Pete "Tax My Meat" Goicoechea, have pre-emptively raised the white flag, dropped their weapons, and are dutifully marching in a straight line, sheep-like, off the cliff.

Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval has said no new taxes. The ten Senate Republicans have seconded that emotion, informing the governor in a recent letter that they are committed to standing by their man as long as he stands by his no-new-taxes campaign pledge.

Assembly Republicans, on the other hand - irrelevant enough already, and led by a man who unbelievably proposed taxing groceries last summer - announced this week that they're willing to stab the governor in the back and cut the legs out from under their GOP senate colleagues by issuing a set of five conditions under which they said they would vote with Democrats to raise taxes.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

First, Goicoechea's conditions are nebulous, at best. For example, he calls for "adjusting" the prevailing wage levels rather than repealing this cost-inflating sop to organized labor completely. And he doesn't call for repeal of collective bargaining for local government employees; instead he wants to "strengthen management's position" in negotiations.

Lame-o!

But even these milquetoast conditions will never be met by Democrat leaders. Which means it's not even a serious offer. So if Goicoechea thought he was buying some good-will at the bargaining table with Democrats - even if he says, "pretty please, with sugar on top" - he's seriously delusional.

In the meantime, while Gov. Sandoval, senate Republicans, conservatives, and rank-and-file GOP grassroots activists are united in opposing tax hikes, Goicoechea's Republicans pull a Benedict Arnold, thus weakening the GOP's position in budget negotiations.

The operative term here: "Useful idiots."

In their defense, one caucus member explained to me that the list of conditions was substantive; that this meant Republicans will no longer be a "cheap date." Which, of course, brings to mind the old story of the guy who offers a woman a million dollars to have carnal knowledge with him. She says yes. He then asks if she'd do it for fifty. "Fifty?" she responds indignantly. "What do you think I am, a hooker?"

"We've already determined what you are," the guy replies. "Now we're just negotiating price."

Why Assembly Republicans, who apparently enjoy being in the minority, continue to elect...session after session...mamby-pamby, go-along-to-get-along, yes-sir-may-I-have-another caucus leaders who are devoid of conservative principles and clueless in the art of political "strategery" is beyond comprehension.

Then again, at least they're consistent.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a non-profit public policy grassroots advocacy organization. He may be reached at chuck@citizenoutreach.com.

Nanny Rides To the Rescue

New York legislator wants to crack down on scofflaw bicyclists.

Meet Michael DenDekker, Democrat from Queens, who recently revealed two measures that would require all bicycles in the state to be registered, inspected, and carry a license plate costing a minimum of $25.

But is it really about safety or just another way to wring some more money out of the citizenry?

Does Higher Spending Mean Greater Student Achievement Or Not

Patrick Gibbons, at The Western Wrangler, has two posts to counter the claim that more money equals better student performance.

A group calling itself Save Our Schools (SOS) pointed to a study that allegedly proves that "funding equals success in education".

Patrick discovers that their claim is not even supported by their own data. Rather than using the Pass/Fail-type evaluation of students he uses the test scores. A regression analysis reveals,

Basically, current spending only explains 3.4 percent of the difference in 8th grade reading scores between states. This is a VERY WEAK relationship Not that it matters - the P-value and t-stat suggest the relationship is probably random anyway. A p-value of 0.19 means we're only 81 percent certain that the relationship did not occur at random. For scientific analysis we generally require at least a 95 percent certainty to claim a relationship exists.

After adjusting for other factors, such as poverty, which actually may have a significant impact on student achievement, any relationship virtually disappears.

There is NOTHING going on here. This is a very simple analysis and it took me just thirty minutes to collect the data, run the numbers and write this up. I wonder why they didn't bother running the numbers? It is not that hard to do.

In his second post, Patrick performs another analysis and again discovers an insignificant correlation between spending and test scores.

Any hope you may have had for finding a relationship between spending and student proficiency on the 8th grade NAEP reading exam should be tossed out the window. Once you control for the differences in student poverty, the number of English language learners and students with disabilities the relationship disappears into random nothingness.

Education has been at the forefront of the battle over the budget in Nevada. Members of the education establishment continue to clamor for more money, blaming underfunding for the lackluster performance of Nevada's students and urging the Legislature to impose higher taxes to provide those funds.

Thus far their strategy, with the help of the majority Democrat legislature, has been to alternately tug at the heartstrings of Nevadans and attack the motives of their opponents. They've paraded a seemingly endless supply of teachers and support union members and students in front of cameras and "town halls" to tell their stories of impending catastrophe if the Silver State's taxpayers are not forced to pony up more dough.

They are committed, they are determined and there seems to be little they won't do to advance their cause. The defenders of the taxpayers need to prepared for a long and tough battle.

An Event Not To Be Missed

TEA PARTY WEST WORKSHOP

March 12 – 10 AM – Italian American Club, 2333 E. Sahara, Las Vegas, NV

Opening Remarks: Mr. Chuck Muth

Blogging 101 and Digital Media by Elizabeth Crum

How do you market your blog, and what’s the point? Should you buy your own domain name or use an existing blogging platform? All the basics followed by some “intermediate training” on writing headlines and story ledes, How to Get Your Blog Noticed, search engine optimization, improving your blog’s Google rankings, etc.

Using digital media to amplify your work

Learn to create and embed basic multimedia and interactive widgets into your site. Learn to use Google Docs, Dipity timelines, YouTube videos and the like. Also learn to draw your own diagrams of power and privilege in your government and community.

Citizen Lobbyist by Michael Chamberlain

Introduction to Citizen Lobbying – How do you find out your Congressional representatives’ voting records on key issues? How do you let your Senators and Representatives know how you feel about proposed legislation? How do you find out the content of bills that have been proposed?

Monitor congressional voting records on key issues and hold representatives accountable for their votes. Learn about the content of bills and how to follow a bill through committees, subcommittees, hearings, and through both houses of Congress. Find out about different types of proposals (bills, treaties, nominations, amendments) and how you can make your voice heard and influence your elected representatives.

Quick Overview of the Constitution
by Bill Parson

Evolution of our government from the Continental Congress to the Articles of Confederation
by Gene Ford

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Funding "Sexuality Studies" And Research On Sex Toys May Help Boost Something But It's Not the Economy

When it comes to higher education, do we really know what we’re paying for? Beyond the tales of woe and the “sky is falling” rhetoric, there is much hidden in plain sight.

The Las Vegas Sun today features a commentary by a UNLV professor, Lynn Comella, lamenting the loss of morale associated with the possibility of budget cuts.

I love my job and the life I’ve built for myself in Las Vegas, but it’s hard to remain optimistic when all I’ve known in my four years at UNLV is an academic institution under siege in a state where political leaders place no value on an educated citizenry. Every budget plan offers the same solutions: cuts targeted at the very institutions that should be shaping Nevada’s future.

So what is the cutting-edge study Prof. Comella engages in that is shaping our young adults’ futures and preparing them for the high-tech jobs of the 21st century?

Her research and teaching interests include media and popular culture, gender and consumer culture, sexuality studies, and ethnographic research… She is presently completing a book on the history and retail culture of feminist sex toy stores and the growth of the women’s sex toy market in the United States.

How ironic that they chose this particular professor to write about the perils of cutting education. This is precisely the type of frivolous education spending that should be first on the chopping block - in fact, should never have been funded in the first place. With nearly 200,000 Nevadans out of work and businesses closing their doors every day it is absolutely insane that the taxpayers of this state should be forced to dig deeper into their pockets to subsidize the study of sex toys.

In fact, terminating the entire Women’s Studies Department would actually improve the university’s ability to serve as an economic driver. To save some cuts to engineering and science and business programs, UNLV could benefit by eliminating the Women’s Studies Department. A look at the research and teaching foci of its faculty reveals that, far from grooming the innovation leaders of tomorrow, it is busy preparing little more than the next generation of Women’s Studies professors and Code Pink protesters.

feminist political economy, economic methodology (ontology), postcolonial thought and economics...simultaneity of gender, race, and class in women’s lives...the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the experiences of Chicanas/Latinas and other women of color, especially as it relates to feminist and Queer activism, social movements, and social justice education...the activism of women in environmental justice movements around the world...using quilting to understand the changes in women’s lives after World War II...writing anti-hegemonic standpoints...perceptions of academic ability based on racial hierarchies, forms of capital in American education, the dynamics of power in socially constructed meritocracies

Most of these descriptions are fairly fancy ways of blaming Western Civilization and American society for past and current ills through their exploitation and oppression. Except for the quilting (quilting?). The very same taxpayers who fund these programs are quite often held up as examples of the unfairness of our society, of our economic and political systems.

If we truly want our universities to be economic drivers, they need to shed programs that do not provide students with the skills necessary to create the compete in the 21st century. The Women’s Studies department is one example.

I sincerely wish all of the faculty luck in finding philanthropists and well-endowed (no pun intended) private universities to fund their study. But the taxpayers of the state of Nevada should not be forced to subsidize them.

Cross-posted at NBC

Democrats Desperately Seek New Ways to Tax Nevada Families

The bad ideas just keep coming. Nevada's elected Democrats continue to turn over the cushions of your couch to extract even more money from you to fund their big government wish-lists. RightPride, a gay conservative group in Nevada, comments on the latest in a press release.

(Las Vegas) – Yesterday Democrats in the Nevada Assembly, namely Tick Segerblom, Paul Aizley, Steven Brooks and Peggy Pierce, introduced a bill they have co-sponsored which would exclude bottled water from the tax-exempt category of food. If passed, AB218 would add a tax to all sales of bottled water from the ones you find in the supermarket, to the ones you have delivered at your office. According to Nevada Appeal, the water “may include carbonation, fruit or spice flavoring, vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes.”

“These Democrats just don’t get it,” said Mark Ciavola, President of Right Pride – Nevada’s only organization representing gay conservatives and their straight allies. “The challenges facing Nevada will not be solved by increasing the cost of grocery bills for hard-working families – both gay and straight.”

Nevada continues to be one of the hardest-hit states in foreclosures, per capita bankruptcies, and unemployment. Republicans and Democrats are battling it out in the legislature as to which is the proper method to solve the issues facing the Silver State. Republicans are standing firm on their promises not to increase taxes.

“Tax-addict Peggy Pierce and her friends in Carson City must understand that the solution to our economic crisis does not lie in another punishing tax increase for Nevada families, but rather in how the state government spends the money it already has,” concluded Ciavola.

To Improve Ed, Changing Our Name May Help More Than Higher Spending

Big government advocates continue to tug at our heartstrings to convince us to pour even larger amounts of money into pubic education. Those who see a government solution for every problem, self-interested parties and some well-meaning souls implore our Legislature to simply commit more cash to the cause. Others are demanding real reform rather than simply spending more money in the hope it will pay off for our students.

It’s not as though the state has not increased funding for education in the past. According to the Department of Education’s own data, from the 1959-1960 school year to 2006-2007, per pupil funding in the Silver State increased 280%, after adjusting for inflation. Yet student performance has not significantly improved.

Nor have federal dollars helped. The Department of Education has spent more than $1.5 trillion in the last 30 years and still our young people, both across the county and in Nevada, are no better prepared when they leave school than they were before the DofEd existed.

Still, with all this, there are some who claim the way to improve education is to increase funding. They point to other states that spend more than Nevada and get better results. However, they ignore those states that spend much more and whose achievement is worse as well as those that spend less but whose students perform better.

For decades the taxpayers of Nevada and across the United States have dumped increasing amounts of money into public education. As the financial commitment has grown, more and more of the money and the decisions have been removed from those closest to the students to big buildings in far away places. The education system has done a better job of providing jobs for adults than it has of providing education for children, even though educating children is supposed to be its primary mission.

To demonstrate how little the amount of money has to do with educational achievement, we performed an analytical exercise using data from the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

Using the average scale scores for 2007 for 4th and 8th Grade Reading, 4th and 8th Grade Math and comparing with current expenditures per pupil for 2005-2006 for each state, it turns out that the length of a state’s name may have a stronger relationship to student achievement than the amount of money spent. (See image.) Furthermore, at least in this example, as students get older the correlation between the length of the state’s name and its student performance gets stronger while the correlation between spending and achievement gets weaker.

In other words, if the purpose is to help our children learn, we might be better off changing our name to “Nev” rather than spending more money on public education.

Certainly, some might consider this calculation frivolous and it probably appeals to only a few math geeks. But it helps to illustrate that school reform is about much more than money, despite what big government advocates and members of the education establishment would like us to believe.

When it comes to education, Nevadans need to demand real reform and real results. Pouring more and more money into education has not helped our children. Now, with one of the worst budget crises in our history, we can no longer afford it.

2005-2006 Spending Compared to 2007 Scores

Cross-posted at NBC

Another Gloom-And-Doom Show Takes the Stage

A joint Senate-Assembly committee held another meeting Monday night, at Green Valley High School, to convince the press and the public of the imminent catastrophe that befalls us if the reductions in education spending contained in the governor’s budget are allowed to pass.

Although opposing views were presented, including by the author of this post, Assembly Speaker John Oceguera made it clear in this interview these hearings are not intended to provide a forum for those of us who support the budget.

At about 0:30 Oceguera says,

So we want real people with real problems to be able to come out and talk about how the governor’s budget cuts are going to affect them.

No word on wanting to know how tax increases are going to affect people or how the ever-increasing financial commitments of the taxpayers in this state have not resulted in improvements in student performance.

There were few of us there to provide a little balance. The Review-Journal reported on some of that testimony, including mine.

Some in the crowd called for more accountability from public education, meeting complaints from teachers and members of district employee unions about Nevada's low funding for education with calls for better results.

More money doesn't necessarily guarantee improvement, some speakers said, and Nevada faces a financial crisis.

"Don't spend what you don't have," said speaker Dan Hickey. "That's what my daddy always told me."

Michael Chamberlain, executive director of the Nevada Business Coalition, said teachers are not the only people suffering in this economy.

"As many as 25 percent of people in Nevada may be unemployed right now," Chamberlain said. "Business owners have had to dip into their savings to keep their doors open. Thousand of businesses have already closed their doors. We can't afford to burden those families and those business more than they already have been with increased taxes."

There was a smattering of applause after my testimony and after that of others who expressed support for the budget cuts. With teachers union members using their taxpayer-provided email accounts to inform and rally their members and students, along with assistance from the various progressive activist groups in town, it’s no wonder that the crowd was overwhelmingly opposed to the cuts.

The reality is there is little correlation between spending for education and student performance, which is, after all, the goal of education. Decades of rapid increases in education funding have not corresponded to increases in student performance. More money has not produced better results.

We need real reform to education that produces real results. Simply pouring more money into a failing system is not the solution.

However, if the Legislature decides that providing additional funding for education is more important than paying for other items in the budget then, by all means, shift money from those other programs into education. But what we cannot afford is to impose an even greater burden on the struggling families and businesses in this state that have been suffering for years now by increasing taxes.

Cross-posted at NBC