(Victor Joecks/NPRI) – I’m currently reading CCSD’s 2011 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and came across this gem.

In their transmittal letter, CCSD Superintendent Dwight Jones and CCSD School Board President Carolyn Edwards write (p. xviii):

During fiscal year 2010, the Nevada legislature was forced to respond to continued declines in revenues and cut state aid to the district from their original budgeted amounts. The result was that the District only received an additional $10 per pupil in fiscal year 2011 over fiscal year 2010. (Emphasis added.)

Two things are remarkable here. First, this is yet another example of how often government ‘cuts’ are actually spending increases. After assuming an increase in spending, government agencies turn around and label reductions in future spending as a “cut,” even if they receive more funding than they did the year before.

Second, this description, sadly, is actually better than most. At least it notes that the “cut” in state funding was from the “originally budgeted amount.”

Many times government officials, including Gov. Brian Sandoval, Sen. Michael Roberson, Assemblyman Pat Hickey, and Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, just assert that spending more on education is a “cut,” without any explanation that the state is, in fact, spending more.

It’s time to acknowledge that Nevada has nearly tripled inflation-adjusted, per-pupil spending in the last 50 years and that spending more and hiring more teachers hasn’t increased student achievement.

Yes, this is why I am running for Nevada Assembly in District 13. It's time we bring some common sense to the Nevada budget and stop the lies.

(Victor Joecks/NPRI) – One of the many, many terrible things to come out of yesterday’s news that Gov. Brian Sandoval and presumed Republican legislative leaders, Sen. Michael Roberson and Assemblyman Pat Hickey, are supporting tax increases is the way they inaccurately described state education funding.

Here’s a sampling.

Gov. Sandoval’s statement: In addition to avoiding further cuts to education, this decision means there will be no need for tax increases in the next session. Nevadans will pay no more than they are in the current biennium.

Sen. Roberson, from then AP story: “I will not support additional cuts to public education.”
Assemblyman Hickey, via the AP: Assemblyman Pat Hickey, R-Reno, the minority caucus leader in the lower house, also said he agreed with Sandoval’s position that the state cannot afford any more cuts to education. The state-funded portion of K-12 spending was cut about 9 percent during the last session, and state support for universities and community colleges was reduced 15 percent.

“Nevada’s recovery is still fragile and is certainly gradual,” Hickey said when reached for comment. “I agree with the governor that education, especially in lieu of reforms that were adopted and cuts that have been made in recent cycles, cannot warrant another hit.”

Washoe Superintendent Heath Morrison in a statement: “I appreciate Gov. Sandoval’s continuing commitment to education and improving results for all Nevada students. We are exceptionally grateful for his recommendation to extend the sunsetting taxes and to stabilize education funding without imposing further reductions.”

CCSD Superintendent Dwight Jones in a statement: “We have our share of financial uncertainty with teacher contract negotiations at a standstill, but it’s my hope that with Governor Sandoval’s leadership, we can avoid any further cuts in state funding and continue on the path to reform and increased academic achievement to prepare the next generation of Nevadans for college and the workforce.

Reading those quotes, especially the line in the AP story that says K-12 spending was cut about 9 percent, would lead one to believe that state education funding was cut — and dramatically at that. So let’s look at the numbers.
In 2011 (all years are fiscal years), Nevada spent $5,192 per student in Total Regular Basic Support. Under the budget passed in the last legislative session (p. that amount increased to $5,263 per student in 2012 and increased even more to $5,374 per student for 2013.

Wait a second. Going from $5,192 a year to $5,263 in 2012 to $5,374 in 2013 isn’t a decrease — it’s an increase of $182 per student! Apparently, a 3.5 percent increase in the midst of a recession is what these government officials call a “cut.”

Even if you consider total state education funding, which includes class-size reduction, special education and several other categories, total state education funding in 2012 is projected to be slightly more than what was actually spent in 2011 and increase further in 2013. In terms of both actual spending and per-pupil spending amounts, Nevada is spending more than before on K-12. (Actual per-pupil spending is over $10,000 per student. The $5,263 figure is just state funding. Overall, local funding has decreased, but that’s unrelated to state funding.)

Where are the “further” or “additional” cuts in state funding? What are they referring to?

I don’t know, because they are factually wrong — as one can plainly see by looking at the budget the Legislature and governor approved just a few months ago.

Elected officials, media members and citizens who are interested in a little thing called “The Truth” should point this out, and Sandoval, Roberson, Hickey, Morrison and Jones should all issue retractions of their inaccurate statements.
When an increase in education spending is derided as a spending decrease, you begin to understand how Nevada has tripled inflation-adjusted, per-pupil spending in the last 50 years while student achievement has stagnated and our graduation rate has fallen to 45 percent.

The focus must change from education funding to student achievement. Only then will we see the dramatic increases in student achievement that states like Florida have enjoyed.

(Ron Knecht) – A recent Brookings Institute study on economic growth in Nevada concluded that we must innovate and diversify – which we already knew.  I hope its proposals to “unleash” growth produce more than those from previous studies, but only time will tell.

However, the study was marred by a high-profile false claim it made that provided red meat for the statists who dominate academe and the mainstream media.  Smash-mouth left-wing pundit Jon Ralston trumpeted gleefully Brookings’ claim that Nevada not only underfunds higher education, but is last among comparable states by a significant margin.

The claim is a classic Big Lie.  Nevada’s higher education funding is in the mainstream and even high by some measures.

Brookings’ first major error is to assume that the fraction of its economy a state spends on college varies with its population.  So, Brookings compares five states with populations of 2- to 3-million to Nevada (2.7-million), even though that range yields four states slightly larger than Nevada and one state much smaller.

But there is no correlation of states’ economic fractions with their populations, which is why no one else uses this practice.  Standard practice compares state college funding regionally (such as western states) or on a national basis.  Brookings’ method cherry-picked states ranked 1, 2, 6, 16 and 19 out of 50 as its standard for Nevada.

Second, Brookings’ use of the economic fraction as a comparative-funding metric is also one that, for good reason, no one else uses.  This fraction is useful for comparing broader aggregates such as total public spending, and it can have limited use for education funding in a given state over time.

However, it is misleading in comparing states, due to large differences in the portions of states’ populations that attend college.  If one state’s college-going rate is twice that of another, it’s ridiculous to suggest that college spending should be the same fraction of their economies.

A well-known major Nevada problem is that too few of our people attend college (especially in high-value majors).  Brookings’ metric obscures that problem to reach the conclusion Brookings and Ralston always seek – namely, that more public spending, higher taxes and further government intervention are needed.  The proper education funding measure, used almost universally, is state spending per student.

Using the per-student measure, Nevada’s taxpayer support for higher education is 29th among the 50 states, merely two percent below the national average.  Using the western states, as most studies do, Nevada’s funding is almost nine percent above average.

How misleading are Brookings and Ralston?  Consider faculty pay.  Using their five states as the standard, Nevada faculty pay is 25 percent above market, even though it is 0.65 percent below the western average.  Nationally, Nevada faculty pay is 10th among the 50 states, seven percent above the national average.

In short, Nevada tax funding of education and faculty pay are mainstream to somewhat higher.  So, Brookings and Ralston’s biased and shoddy claim is completely misleading.

Nevada higher education regents, administrators and faculty are working to improve academic quality, do strategic planning and management in a new competitive environment, and meet numerous other challenges of a Great Recession caused mainly by public-sector excesses that Brookings, Ralston and other statists promote.  Our efforts are hindered, not helped, by the Chicken Little squawks of ideologues and special interests.

(Regent Ron Knecht of Carson City is an economist with background also in law, mathematics, science, engineering, liberal arts and public policy.  Additional information at www.RonKnecht.com.)

(Victor Joecks/NPRI) – Do facts matter? 

More specifically, do they matter to Ruben Murillo, president of the Clark County Education Association — at least when it comes to accurately noting how much the Clark County School District will spend per pupil this year?

We’ll find out for sure soon enough, but the answer seems to be “no.”

Here’s what happened.

Recently, Fox 5 interviewed Murillo and quoted him saying that CCSD only spends $5,000 per student.

Murillo said comparing the success of CCSD schools, where about $5,000 is spent on each student, to Andre Agassi is unfair.

“That is a unique charter and receives almost $13,000 per student.”

As both NPRI and Geoff Dornan of the Nevada Appeal have noted, that’s flat wrong.CCSD will spend more than $9,000 per student this year.

Wondering where Murillo had come up with the $5,000 figure, I called him up and asked. Murillo told me the reporter had cited him accurately, but then admitted his figure was just an “estimate” and that it could be higher.

Murillo gave me his e-mail address, and I sent him the research linked above, showing that CCSD will spend more than $9,000 per pupil this year. And that $9,000 includes only “current” education expenditures. If you include total expenditures, CCSD will spend over $12,300 per student this year.

Murillo e-mailed me back and said that the spending amounts to which he had been referring were as follows (these numbers are per student, per school year):

Statewide average:
11-12 $5,263
12-13 $5,374

CCSD
11-12—$5,136
12-13—$5249

He then wrote: “These are the figures I was referring to and will continue to use when addressing CCSD & Nevada per pupil expenditures.”

I recognized these numbers immediately. These numbers represent how much Nevada’s state government will spend on education through the Distributive School Account.

However, CCSD, like every school district in Nevada, also receives significant funding from the local and federal governments. This isn’t a secret. It’s spelled out clearly in the Nevada Plan, and for years, local funding for schools was actually greater than state spending. Here’s what the Legislature’s report on the Nevada Plan says (p 4):

The DSA is the budget through which the State distributes direct financial aid to local school districts. It does not include the entire funding for K-12 education but rather includes only the State’s portion of the guaranteed basic support.

After I e-mailed Murillo to explain the different sources of government funds (although I strongly suspect he knew this already) and encouraged him to be honest with the public, he wrote simply: “Thanks for your response.”

While it’d be nice to think that Murillo will start telling the truth about Nevada’s education spending, nothing in his e-mails suggests that such honesty is forthcoming. In fact, he explicitly committed to using inaccurate numbers to describe education spending in CCSD and in Nevada.

So much of today’s education debate isn’t about policy. It’s about cutting through union lies, like this one, and making the public aware of what’s actually happening.

It’s not a policy argument to say that, “In the last 50 years, Nevada has nearly tripled inflation-adjusted, per-pupil spending.” It’s a fact.

It’s not a policy argument to say that, “CCSD will spend more than $9,000 per pupil this year, excluding capital payments and debt outlays.” It’s a fact.

Whether or not Murillo knew the truth about education spending before our exchange, he most certainly does now. It will be shameful if Murillo and, by extension, the CCEA, choose to ignore this information and lie to the public about how much we spend on education in Nevada and in CCSD.

Teachers deserve to be represented by someone with enough integrity to tell the truth on a matter as simple as this.

We’ll see if Murillo and the CCEA start discussing education spending honestly. But if they don’t, the media, teachers and the public shouldn’t let them get away with it.