DUMBED DOWN
College remediation rates reveal Nevada’s K-12 faux accountability
BY JOE ENGE

Joe Enge is a member of the Carson City School Board, author of two world history textbooks, a former high school teacher in Nevada from 1988 to 2006 and a Fulbright teacher to the former Soviet Union.

The game of “passing the buck” by Nevada’s K-12 public schools stops cold when its graduates plan on attending college. Government control of education to the 12th grade has created a complex pretend accountability system of credit requirements, grades and proficiency tests to hide the lack of preparation students have for the workforce or post-secondary studies, which doesn’t come to light until they are passed out of it and are no longer a source of revenue.

The Nevada State Higher Education (NSHE) 2007 Remediation Report released in January of this year is the educational equivalent of Truman’s “The Buck Stops Here” sign. NSHE remediation reports do not spin the situation because they are not under the control of the school districts or the Nevada State Department of Education.

NSHE revealed the cost to remediate Nevada’s 2007 high school graduates the English and mathematics skills they should have already learned is $2,117,905 (after subtracting the small figure for private and federal high schools). Thirty-six percent of Nevada’s students needed remediation in the NSHE system, 20 percent for the university level and 49 percent for the college level.

Overall remediation rates from 2003 to 2007 have declined slightly, reflecting Nevada’s university system trying to get out of the high school remediation business. State funding for remediation courses ended in the fall of 2006 and UNLV greatly curtailed its remediation programs at the same time. The NSHE college programs have had a steady increase of academically deficient students, effectively becoming high school remediation centers.

The report does not reflect the number of students needing remediation who attended an institution outside of the state, the heartache of students and parents who thought they were well prepared for college, or the number of students who hit the “reality” versus “self-esteem” brick wall built by the feel-good, student-centered instead of content-centered public K-12 system.

In direct contrast to the clarity found in the NSHE reports, school districts and the Nevada Department of Education know how to present “data” while creatively hiding its full impact by diffusion and obfuscation. The “Nevada Annual Report of Accountability” at www.nevadareportcard.com divides test results into innocuous category levels numbered 1 to 4. The Clark County 2006-2007 CRT reading and mathematics results for the 8th grade are a good example.

Intentional obstacles are created by presenting the results in an incomprehensible manner; the reader must scroll to the bottom of the page to determine that 1 is Emergent/Developing, 2 is Approaches Standard, 3 is Meets Standard, and 4 is Exceeds Standard. 

Obviously a great deal of thought went into avoiding the “F” word to describe levels 1 and 2. Their creative semantics make it possible to interchange the failure labels without meaningful difference.

Levels 1-2 and 3-4 have to be added separately get the real picture, something most people viewing the information are not likely to do and fewer Nevada high school graduates are capable of doing. 

A clearer presentation of the same information would conclude 46 percent failed reading and 50 percent failed math.

K-12 public education in Nevada puts a great deal of energy into its pretentions of accountability. There’s no profit for them to actually raise standards or clearly report student achievement. They are paid to pass the buck and will continue to do so as long as they maintain a monopoly of involuntary interactions. 

The NSHE 2007 Remediation Report shows we have a serious problem, the cost of which goes far beyond the monetary figure cited. Voluntary interactions in education are the only effective solutions. We can choose to trust and empower parents with school choice and the options to decide best for their children, or we can continue trusting an emergent/developing public school system more interested in looking good than in doing good.