EDITORIAL: Democrats are quickly back for more
As predictably as night follows day, majority Democrats in Carson City now agitate for another education spending blowout. Just 18 months after legislators passed, and Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo signed, the largest budget increase for the public schools in state history — nearly $2 billion — a top lawmaker has called for another $500 million pot sweetener, this time to establish universal pre-K in Nevada.
The move is an effort by Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D-Teachers Unions, to pressure the governor as he prepares his budget proposals for the 2025 session, which begins in February.
The proposal — which also includes continued raises for teachers and potential makeovers for the Clark County School Board and district administration — is “the result of a commitment I made a year ago to bring forward a package of education reforms that would improve outcomes for students, help us hire and retain great teachers and staff and give parents more confidence in our educational system,” Ms. Cannizzaro offered in a statement.
This is the very definition of gaslighting. In fact, Ms. Cannizzaro — who for six years cavalierly violated the state constitution’s separation of powers clause by working as both a Clark County prosecutor and a lawmaker — is in favor of accountability just like national teacher union chief Randi Weingarten was in favor of reopening schools during the pandemic. She’s not.
During her tenure in the Legislature, Ms. Cannizzaro and her fellow Democrats have erected roadblock after roadblock to derail virtually every proposal — other than more money — to improve academic outcomes in Nevada’s public schools. That includes watering down an overhaul of the teacher evaluation sham, undercutting a plan to ensure kids can read at grade level by the fourth grade, allowing the elimination of high school exit exams, tolerating dumbed-down grading standards, fighting efforts to subject the public schools to competitive pressures and more.
In the meantime, Nevada’s student test scores continue to stagnate and the state’s high school juniors put up the worst ACT scores in the country.
Ms. Cannizzaro assures the taxpayers that, by paying for universal pre-K, “we’re going to see that benefit for years to come.” This is wishful thinking. No doubt the proposal will be popular with many parents who struggle with child-care costs. But expect long-term positive results to remain elusive.
A 2022 Cato Institute review of spending at both the federal and state level found that “promises of large returns on investment for universal preschool programs are grossly overstated.” While such endeavors may offer short-term benefits, “high-quality research on large-scale preschool programs fails to find lasting positive effects on participating students.”
A case in point is the federal Head Start program, which as been a money pit for decades. The Department of Health and Human Services in 2012 conducted a comprehensive analysis of the preschool program only to find that it “had little or no effect on student outcomes that persisted through third grade, despite costing more than $7 billion per year at the time.” Today, it soaks up $10 billion a year.
There is scant evidence that massively higher spending has improved academic performance in Nevada’s schools. May taxpayers at least see what they bought before they’re forced to once again reach for their wallets?
Gov. Lombardo has insisted that increased education funding must deliver results. Democrats are virtually defenseless against his veto pen. If they refuse to compromise on reforms designed to bring real accountability to Nevada’s public schools — higher standards for schools, administrators, teachers and students; choice programs to give parents more options; increased transparency; consequences for repeated failures — Gov. Lombardo should make liberal use of it.
