A Reno teacher wrote a letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Sun about the budget cuts in Nevada’s education system. She makes valid points which should be in the minds of all Nevadans. Here is what she wrote:

Education in Nevada is a sad state of affairs

Megan Gonzalez, Reno

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 | 2:02 a.m.

As a Nevada teacher, I’m appalled by the recent multimillion-dollar cuts in education. Nevada ranks at the bottom in education funding, and now schools have taken a massive hit to their undersized budgets as the school districts must stretch to accommodate the vast student population.

Additionally, extreme focus on test scores has only intensified. Rather than educate, teachers are commanded by No Child Left Behind to get students to pass a state exam.

As the economy declines, parents lose their jobs, cars and homes, and students are distracted by their lives outside of school. Student achievement in socioeconomically depressed areas is often disproportionate to student achievement in more affluent areas.

Despite those circumstances, teachers are still compelled to move students toward passing a test, a test that is a minuscule, vague snapshot of a student’s capabilities. Teaching to a test leaves little room for creativity, imagination or “real world” application of skills.

The decreased funding directly contradicts the increased demands on Nevada teachers and students. If teachers are truly expected to educate instead of prepare for testing, funding for Nevada’s students must be increased, and demands for hitting an abstract bench mark must be reexamined.

[Source: Las Vegas Sun]

If everyone in Nevada gets “counted” in the 2010 Census it is almost certain that the state of Nevada will gain a new Congressional District. That will increase Nevada’s representation in the House of Representatives in Congress.

Nevada currently is represented by three representatives. Shelley Berkley (Democrat)—District 1; Dean Heller (Republican)—District 2; and Dina Titus (Democrat)—District 3.

A new District 4 will be formed at some point for Nevada. How will that be done? My prediction is that it will be formed in the rurals of Nevada. District 2, Heller’s District, is comprised primarily of Nevada’s rural counties. Clark County Nevada contains Districts 1 and 3. The remainder of the state is District 2. District 2 is huge.

District 2 has a heavy Republican lean and has been held by the Republican Party since its creation and votes Republican. John McCain, in the Presidential election of 2008, won District 2 by 88 votes out of 335,720 votes cast.

As of December 2009 the Nevada Secretary of State figures shows the entire state of Nevada has 1,140,068 “active” voters. (“Active” voters means those that actually vote rather than being simply registered.) Congressional District 1 has 293,074 active voters. District 2 has 424,675; and District 3 has 422,221.

The 2010 Census will count the population of people in the United States. Remember back in the formative years of the United States? Article I, Section 2 of the new Constitution required the people of the original 13 states be counted. The reason was to secure a count of the number of people living throughout the new country and where they lived. That needed to be determined so that the new republic of, for, and by the people could all be equitably represented in the new union. The count occurs every 10 years.

The idea behind our democracy is that people receive equal representation in our federal government. It is a Republic. So if, as I predict, Nevada’s population has grown enough the 2010 count will require a 4th Congressional District be formed. Adding a new District will mean redrawing of the Districts in Nevada so that the populations of each of the four Districts will have equal representation.

Rest assured that both political parties, Republican and Democrat, will be busily scurrying to see that the Districts will be populated by registered members of their respective parties. Why? Because the boundaries of the new districts will determine which party has the better chance of getting a member of their party elected in future elections.

How is that done? It is done by a political process called gerrymandering. What is gerrymandering, you ask?

Gerrymandering is a form of boundary delimitation (redistricting) in which electoral district or constituency boundaries are deliberately modified for electoral purposes, thereby producing a contorted or unusual shape.

Incumbents want any changes in their District to be sure to have a disproportionate number of voters in their political party. For example, Dean Heller, a Republican, will want his District to have a lot more registered Republicans than Democrats because it will tend to insure his re-election in the next voting cycle. Shelley Berkley and Dina Titus will want the same advantage on the Democrat side in their respective Districts for the same reason. Gerrymandering is a way to retain power for incumbents.

Gerrymandering has occurred in the United States since its beginning. In 1788, Patrick Henry and his Anti-Federalist allies were in control of the Virginia House of Delegates. They drew the boundaries of Virginia’s 5th congressional district in an attempt to keep James Madison out of the US House of Representatives. In 2003, the majority of Republicans in the Texas legislature redistricted the state, diluting the voting power of the heavily Democratic Travis County by parceling its residents out to more Republican districts.

In a decision (League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry) in 2006, the US Supreme Court upheld most of a Texas congressional map engineered in 2003 by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The 7–2 decision allows state legislatures to redraw and gerrymander districts as often as they like (not just after the decennial census). Thus they may work to protect their political parties’ standing and number of seats, so long as they do not harm racial and ethnic minority groups. A 5–4 majority declared one Congressional district unconstitutional in the case because of harm to an ethnic minority. Some states’ citizens are considering shifting redistricting authority from politicians and giving it to non-partisan commissions.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that the president did not believe the public option had the votes to pass the Senate even through reconciliation. It was, not surprisingly, not included in the president’s final bill.

Though the White House and Democratic leadership in the House have pronounced the death of the public option, advocates for the provision are not giving up efforts to get it passed via reconciliation in the Senate.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is targeting seven Democratic senators who have yet to sign a letter urging Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to go down this route.

The target list includes Sens. Chris Dodd (Conn.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Mark Warner (Va.) and Jim Webb (Va.), Russ Feingold (Wisc.), Herb Kohl (Wisc.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo).

The Wellpoint news may prove to be an effective catalyst to getting recalcitrant senators on board.

In 11 states where WellPoint is “active,” individual premium are expected to rise by double digits. Those states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

[Source: Huffington Post]

These guys need to be jacked up!

ProgressNow Nevada Executive Director Erin Neff talks with Jon Ralston on Face to Face about Nevada’s state budget crisis on the eve of the special session.

A survey of more than 350,000 American adults about their happiness was taken. Hawaii is the happiest state with a score of 70.2 out of 100. Utah was second. Montana was third.

Nevada came in 46th in the nations 50 states. Ohio, Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia ranked below Nevada.

[Source: Las Vegas Sun]

The following is a letter to the editor that appeared in today’s Las Vegas Sun. It was written by a school teacher, Jeremy Christensen of Las Vegas. I’m running it here because I agree with what Mr. Christensen writes:

“It’s time to stop whining that education in Nevada doesn’t work because of a lack of funding,” Gov. Jim Gibbons said in his State of the State address last week. “We need to quit throwing money at programs that haven’t worked and don’t work for our children.”

What hasn’t worked and doesn’t work for our children is throwing clichés and ideology at problems.

This question is not as complicated as it seems. What is a reasonable cost to educate a child? Most of the other states in our nation believe that it costs more than what we spend in Nevada. How do these other states pay for the generous investments they make to educate their children?

Forty-five states in our country have an effective state-level corporate tax rate of at least 5 percent. How long have zealous ideologues proclaimed that businesses would flee if we even considered any taxes on corporations? These corporations pay taxes almost everywhere else in the United States. How long have our children suffered some of the largest class sizes in the nation and parades of long-term substitutes in vital courses such as mathematics because of this outrageous lie?

The state of Nevada is not making a good-faith effort to provide quality education for its children. Apparently our children have no voice or heroes to stand up for them and say enough is enough. The greatest sins in Sin City are committed against its children.

Governor “No New Taxes” Gibbons has a duty to those school children to see that their education proceeds with quality and unabated. It is his duty as elected governor whether he wants to raise taxes or not. I personally don’t care whether he gets re-elected or not. I didn’t vote for him to start with. I do care about the education of Nevada’s children.

All my kids are now grown with kids of their own. All still in California, which has its own financial problems. My grand daughter, Joan, will graduate from the University of California-Chico in June. She plans to then attend law school. She works and attends college now, has she has done since she started. One of my grand sons, Aaron, is attending college in California with the objective of obtaining a degree for his future as an accountant. He also works to pay for and attend school. But the financial burden of college tuition and expenses for law school are mammoth to a 22 year old.

Cutting the education budget, again, as proposed by Governor Gibbons, may be expedient to him, but not to those kids trying to get a college education.

Nevada maintains one of the lowest commitments in the nation for education. California is slipping fast, losing it’s once high education status.

I read that Nevada’s mining industry has enjoyed a low rate of taxation for 150 years. The implication being that that industry does not pay its fair share of taxes—a tax status that is unfair to ordinary taxpayers in Nevada.

I, frankly, think it is time that Governor Gibbons begin to realize that his obligation to Nevada taxpayers is higher than his adherence to his “no new taxes” creed. It is time to fairly and evenly raise taxes in Nevada, even if it requires applying a fair tax on the mining industry.

Las Vegas Review-Journal

I just came across the LVJournal Review today. It has always been apparent that the Las Vegas Review-Journal is a conservative newspaper. Viewed through a political lens the RJ would be Republican; the Las Vegas Sun would be Democratic. Sort of live comparing Fox News with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

LVJournal Review is taking the LV Review-Journal to task for its slanted news reporting.

Today’s LVJournal Review takes on today’s issue of the Review-Journal. I don’t know if the LVJR will cover every issue of the LVRJ or not, but it appears that may be the case.

In any event a daily check of LVJR will help put the LVRJ into perspective.

I recommend you take a look at the LVJR and bookmark it for daily perusal.

Of further note and interest is the fact you can also become a fan of LVJR on Facebook and follow it on Twitter.

I’ve signed up for both Facebook and Twitter and bookmarked the LVJR for my own daily consulting.

Nevada may give rise to a third political party, joining ranks with the Democratic and Republican Parties. Jon Ralston reports that the “Tea Party has qualified as a third party in Nevada and will have a candidate in the Senate race to battle for the seat held by Majority Leader Harry Reid.” [Las Vegas Sun]

The new Tea Party will need to get 1 percent of Nevada’s electorate to vote for its candidate in November to remain alive. The Tea Party has filed their Certificate of Existence.

So who is the Tea Party’s candidate to run against Harry Reid? Someone named Jon Ashjian says the Sun. Ashjian hasn’t yet declared he is a candidate.

What is the Tea Party’s aim:

“promote this nation’s founding principles of freedom, liberty and a small representative government. We believe that our government under both Democrat and Republican control has led to massive national debt, crushing deficits, increased taxes; while establishing a large and powerful federal government in a direct refutation of the founding ideals of America.”

You can read the Tea Party’s constitution, bylaws and officers here.

So now we can all watch a multitude of political partys compete for election to public office to run the country.

I predict there will be a number of Nye County residents flocking to the new Tea Party. Or maybe the Tea Party isn’t all that new, remembering the Tea Party in the Boston Harbor.

We’ll see how it goes.

Nevada leads the nation in so many ways. Here is another.

Out of 55 metro areas in the nation Las Vegas is one notch away from being the dumbest city in America. The only place dumber, The Daily Beast said, is Fresno, Calif. “We’re looking for the brainiest cities, not the biggest.”

Daily Beast used two sets of criteria: “education” and “intellectual environment.”