Objective:
Introduction:
During his inaugural speech last January, Gibbons touted his panacea for Nevada's educational struggles—an empowerment plan—but did not divulge the details of the proposal until March 7, when it passed through the Senate's Committee on Human Resources and Education in the form of Bill 238. It is based on the concept of decentralizing power; that is, of giving teachers and principals autonomy over their own schools.
Procedures:
A. Explain the means by which the empowerment plan is employed:
1. When a school converts into an empowerment school, it grants power to its principal to establish an empowerment team. That team will consist of teachers, school employees, parents, community representatives and other people associated with the school whom the principal deems necessary.
i. The principal and empowerment team are given the authority to set the school budget and to determine the school's calendar and day-to-day schedule. They are put in charge of hiring teachers, of developing them and of establishing an incentive pay scale. And they have the high responsibility of prescribing an academic plan, special programs, intended ratio of pupils to teachers and a system of assessing students on a yearly basis. This all is included in the empowerment plan.
2. Empowerment schools send their plans to their district's superintendent for feedback. If they pass muster, the superintendent forwards the plans to the board of trustees of the school district for final approval.
3. The Department of Education develops a uniform rubric to assess empowerment schools yearly (to see if they're working) and to ensure that schools comply with the No Child Left Behind Act.
B. Analyze the costs of the empowerment plan:
1. It will cost $1,695,100 to fund Clark County's four precedent empowerment schools for the next year, or about $424,000 per empowerment school.
2. With start-up costs included, it will cost the state $60 million to convert the first 100 schools to empowerment schools.
3. The money would be taken from a teacher-retirement credit program that hasn't been successful in what it was intended to do—attract teachers to at-risk schools.
C. Study the potential benefits of the empowerment plan:
1. Besides mitigating bureaucracy in Clark County's monolithic school district, it would provide $550 extra per student, which could be used toward higher teacher salaries, smaller class sizes or longer school days.
2. Parents and donors would have the option of donating money straight to the teacher incentive-pay general fund and thus take a more proactive approach in their children's school.
3. Students can attend a school of their choice, granted there is room.
Assessment:
Citizens' ability to thoroughly grasp the educational empowerment plan will be evaluated by their performance on the homework assignment.
Homework:
To write a letter to the editor that expresses an opinion on the education empowerment plan and demonstrates an acute understanding of the proposal.
Or contact your lawmaker.