Last month, hundreds of educators in red scarves and face coverings were back in Carson City, lining both sides of the street from the Legislative building to the Capitol to bring attention to education funding. After sustaining difficult cuts last summer, K12 public education is threatened with more devastating hits. Early literacy supports are proposed for a $33 million cut in the next biennium, and $156 million in cuts to class size reduction means more overcrowded classrooms even with the largest class sizes in the nation now. The success you heard about at January’s Board meeting from Data Insight Partners related to Nevada’s investment in public education is real, but sadly our gains could be lost.
Additionally, a proposed reduction in per-pupil funding would move education in Nevada the wrong way. Federal emergency relief funds, included an infusion of dollars from the American Rescue Plan, will address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to safely open and operate school buildings and help address learning loss from the pandemic. However, we know these funds will only serve as a temporary patch. Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds have restricted uses, so they cannot easily be used to backfill proposed cuts.
Even before the pandemic, Nevada ranked near the bottom of states in most education metrics. Federal emergency relief is desperately need but does nothing to address this structural deficit.
Since the introduction of SB543, NSEA has expressed policy concerns about the new school funding plan—the lack of educator voice; no new revenue for our chronically underfunded schools; watering down of Zoom and Victory schools; freezing and squeezing most school district budgets for a period of years; a giveaway to charter schools without increased accountability; and rewriting the rules of collective bargaining to make it nearly impossible for education unions to win a raise at the bargaining table.
For the last year and a half, NSEA has dutifully engaged at every meeting of the Funding Commission and several times here at the Board of Education to point out that no new funding formula will work without new revenue.
While there are significant issues with the Governor’s proposed phased implementation of SB543, it is clear his departure from the recommendations of the Funding Commission calls into question the work that has happened during the interim and the wisdom of moving forward with the new plan at all.
Backers of SB543 claim that the new funding formula is all about equity. If that were true, we wouldn’t already be hearing the cries of help from leaders in Zoom and Victory schools. Zoom and Victory schools are located in Nevada’s poorest communities, serve the highest percentage of at-risk students, and are proven models of education equity. Unfortunately, they are also the schools facing the largest budget cuts. This is called inequity.
NSEA maintains it is completely irresponsible to effectuate a radical shift in the state’s education funding formula amidst a global pandemic, especially as further general fund cuts are proposed for our schools. This is even more true with the late-hour changes proposed by the Governor. Given all these challenges, we believe the only responsible course of action is to delay SB543 until after the pandemic, while we are able to work together on optimal funding and the revenue plan to get us there.
