Political Nevada

The State of Nevada Education

Everytime the results come back in a comparison study concerning the quality of education in Nevada, someone will defend the poor quality of education by saying that the lack of money for reducing the amount of students by hiring more teachers is the reason. That is not the reason, that is an excuse.
There is only one reason for our poor quality schools, that is the poor quality teachers. Paying more to a poor or mediocre teacher will not improve their teaching skills, only more education and the true desire to teach is what will improve our schools.
When the teaching profession feels an attack on their profession, they immediately respond by displaying a teacher who is known for sacrificing their time and their money to help their students. The trouble with that defense is that those that are serious, hard working, who care for their students, are a minute percentage of the total teaching-staff of this state.
If the powers in this state want to have true top quality education they have to start with the current teaching staff and weed out any and all who are not quality teachers. Having a teacher who is teaching because they need to make a living is not the type of teacher who will agressively propel their students toward the future, they are the type of teacher that we have now, the teacher who accepts what the minimum requirements are for their students and is happy when the week is over so they can get away from the classroom and away from their students.
Will paying more money to teachers improve those that are already teaching? Definetly not; because if they have been allowed to teach during these past years at one salary, why would increasing that salary cause them to improve their teaching when they’re getting paid no matter how poorly their students perform! If teachers were paid according to the quality of their teaching, many would loose their jobs, many would be paid a living salary and only a few would be paid a good wage. However, in that scenario, if the incentive to improve is available in the form of increased pay, the smart ones who are basically good teachers might increase their knowledge and might improve their concern for the students. The operative word is might. But to get to that point in time it would be necessary to place all teachers in the state of Nevada in a holding pattern where they would be judged by an annual proficency exam and then by actual results. If they can’t pass a proficiency exam, why would you or I want them teaching our children or grandchildren? If they can’t get their students to succeed, why would you or I want them to teach our children or grandchildren?

Whenever school adminiatrators speak or write about the need for more funding the first items they list are for more schools and more school buildings. These schools cost in the millions of dollars, from 8 million to 18 million dollars. Money that could be spent for text books, for library books, for standard school supplies. Items that are usually third or fourth on their list after teacher’s salaries increases.

Since when is true education about the beauty of a school building? If more money for salaries is the answer, then less money for new schools should be the response. Why less money for new schools, because education is about the quality of the teacher and the teaching, not about the astetic beauty of a building. It should never matter where a teacher teaches, if they are incompetant, their teachings will be incompetantly taught and the student will remain under-educated.

The teacher’s union protects the teachers no matter what quality of teacher they might be. The union fights for their members and that is what they are supposed to do. so how can we improve the quality of those who was teaching our children. Stop listening to teh excuses and demand that a poor wuality be removed from their position. With enough aggitation the union will advise that teacher to improve or leave the profession that they obviously don’t enjoy.

There is a downside to what we might have to do, we might have to get involved, so maybe having poor quality teachers is better than making an effort to change the situation; after all it’s only the children that are being abused! Abused ? Any time our children are not getting the best possible treatment (education) that is a form of abuse!

Want better education for your children and your grandchildren? Get up, get involved and get rid of the poor quality teachers and replace them with teachers that care to be teaching.

Our Leaders in Nevada failed us.

Where were Nevada’s State politicians before this state’s financial collapse? The majority of Nevada’s State Senators and State Assembly politicians, both Republican and Democratic, who have been supposedly representing our interests for years were sleeping on the job. The majority of our Nevada Legislators have been in Carson City long enough that they are the people who can be blamed for having steered the State of Nevada into our current financial mess. They could have guided our State away for any financial mishaps, but they failed us.

The main reason for any politicians to be elected is to protect us, the electorate, from social or financial bad times; this is what they failed to do, they failed in their main job.

If there were always good times ahead we wouldn’t need political leaders, we would simply set up a society with general rules and live the same lives that our grandparents and their grandparents lived; but that isn’t the real world.

In the real world events fluctuate up and down, from good to bad, from high to low. Our elected officials failed to protect us because they didn’t have the foresight to plan for the future of Nevada. Instead of creating a financial savings fund to protect this state from any financial downfalls they continually created budgets to spend as much as was brought into this state while times were running high. It isn’t a matter of what was budgetted, everything and anything can be acceptable as long as there is money to support it, but to spend as fast as it is earned is not in the best interest of anyone, whether government or family.

Everyone with any financial sense knew that the rapid growth, the insessant building, the high prices of homes and the “flipping of the properties” (especially in the southern part of our state), would end in a nose-dive. Everyone but these people who were elected to protect our state and the citizens of this state.

Why didn’t they set the budgets for the enevidable! They didn’t prepare for the future because they are incapable of preparing for anything. Now these same people who couldn’t see past their morning-breakfast claim that they are ready to fix our finances. Instead of admitting that they erred in their fiscal responsibility, they are all pointing fingers at the “other guy”. Guess what, they are the “other guy”, and they failed!

Their idea of fixing our state’s financial troubles is to find enough money, from cutbacks, taxes, the Federal Government, etc. to pay all the existing debts until the economy recovers. That means that when the economy is back the same mentality that brought Nevada to this nine hundred million dollar debt will be back; and the cycle will be ready to repeat.

They recently announced that the almost nine hundred million short fall has been solved, until 2011. In other words, they put a bandage on the wound instead of healing it. These politicians will attack each other, blame someone else and continue making the same lack of judgement calls that got us in this financial hole in the first place.

Budgets, whether household or government, should be created with a built-in savings plan. For our state government the savings should not be placed in the Stock Market, where everyday is a gamble, and not in a vault, where the money would loose value, but in a fund that can withstand the fluxuating cycles of the everyday world. Should the state’s legislators be cautious on where the savings account is placed, definitely; it’s our finances with which they are playing. Are there experts that could guide the politicians toward proper planning ? The answer is that there are experts, but that the legislators are too worried about their own egos to listen to anyone who might be smarter than them or who might have different political ideals.

Is the Two-Party System relevant today?

The United States is proud to tell the world that we have a two-party system. The two-party system has worked in this country since the founding in 1776, but it may be time to “tweek” the system for our future welfare.

There are so many members in both parties that have political philosophies which are indistinguisable from their political opponents that it has become impossible to tell which political party they represent; those are times that our two-party system acts more like a one-party system. Then there are times when a small faction within a party pushes the party into a direction which goes counter to that party’s true phiosophy. Because of the conflicting directions which our two-party system seems to be going it may be time to change into something more obvious.

Currently, this country is seeing splinter groups that have formed within the structures of our two-partys where these groups are causing identity crises for both political parties. The Republican party seems to be undergoing the worst splintering of either party due to some very small, but very vocal elements more interested in pushing their personal agenda than in pushing an agenda for the benefit of the entire political party. The Democrates have their own splinter groups, which are almost as pushy, for their own agendas, as are their counter-parts.

Since there seems to be so many small groups fighting to be noticed within a party, it might benefit all of us if we put aside our two-party system and promote the formations of multiple parties; therefore, by expanding our two-party system into a multiparty system, people with the same beliefs would be able to unite under their true colors.

In many other countries, there are multiple political parties, each with their own agenda, making it more obvious to the voter what that particular party’s total agenda will be if they get into power. These agendas might differ only in one or two issues, but those issues may be more important to their members than the rest of the party’s issues; other groups find other issues more important, so other parties form to push their own, more important issues. As this process grows and grows more groups are formed into political parties.To create a government, coalitions have to be formed by these many diverse groups, but since many of these groups have very similiar agendas (with one or two differences) that can be worked out as needed they are able to create a coalition of parties to work coopertively to accomplish their goals with the creation of a government of multiple parties.

Having multiple parties within a government means that if the politicians want to be re-elected and stay in power, they will have to work with other politicians to create a coalition of those various parties. The only way that anything will be accomplished will be if those elected try and work together as a team.
The fact that many European governments have fallen because of a lack of coopration between the many political parties is not something that should be overlooked, but maybe that is what true Democracy is; that the more political parties involved in a government the more chance that the common citizen will be heard, which is as it should be in the real world of politics.

Currently our simple two-party government is stagnating because there is absolutly no cooperation between them. Those in power seem to feel that they can delay votes and laws until the next election when they might have a larger percentage of the total membership(house or senate) to force their will.

If they had to deal with multiple political groups, maybe they wouldn’t waste so much time, maybe they would get more work done; maybe it’s about time that we have more than our sacred two-party system?

Budgets and the Mistakes Governments Make When Creating Them!

The average budget, whether created by the individual for their own use, by a business for the purposes of survival and/or increased profits, or by a local government, state government, or by the Federal Government, is usually created with one major element missing; a section for “savings-for-future-down-turns”.

There are many examples of this fatal flaw that can be seen throughout today’s world. The biggest group of examples includes our City and County governments; our own State of Nevada and of course our very own Federal Government. In defense of our Federal Government’s past which even the most Right-Wing side of this country has to admit to, is that slightly over eight years ago our Federal Government had a surplus of funds for the first time in decades. Then, for whatever reason, the powers that came into being decided that it wasn’t a good idea to run an economy that was “in the Black” so they repaired that problem with a deficit higher than this country has ever seen. When this current administration took office, last year, they were given the task of repairing those eight years of spending. The trouble is that people want immediate repair, which isn’t possible in anyone’s world. But it can’t be repaired immediately and any educated person, no matter what their political disposition knows that nothing is immediate. Since the discussion here is about budgeting, or in this case, not budgeting properly I will leave the last several sentences to be discussed at another time.

So I will write about budgeting, whether for businesses, governments , or personal.

Most Americans follow the same spending and savings course that their governments have followed; spend as fast as it can be made! The truth is that many families were barely making it on a day-to-day basis, but there were many more that were making excess that could have been “banked” as a cushion in case of bad times, they were making much more money than their normal expenses and could have put money aside. Most didn’t and when the collapse came, they lost everything that they had worked so hard to have. There were many who thought that placing their extra funds in the Stock Market was their road to salvation. Those people, as well as many corporations and government entities, didn’t realize that the Stock Market was a gamble, and when you gamble there are winners and there are losers. When the collapse came we had many more losers than winners and many people whose savings went away permanently.

Businesses that followed the same example as the average person went through the same downturn, with many loosing everything and having to close their doors forever. Even many businesses that did try to protect themselves through reserve savings and cost cutting were drawn into the vortex of the majority that didn’t and so all were swept away.

Many states are in financial troubles because their budgets didn’t take into account that the incomes that they have been depending on to run their state might decrease. The State of Nevada is our personal example. For many years the State of Nevada has been extremely prosperous, but our legislators, Republican as well as Democrat saw no need to add a reserve account to their budgeting requirements. They knew that the money would always overflow the State’s coffers, so felt that it was useless and maybe wasteful to save for that rare and impossible event when the entire Country could suffer a major downturn.
Our geniuses recently discovered that they were wrong; but as we listen to them ranting and raving about this problem, it is obvious that not one has any idea as to why we are in the trouble that we are in currently. So it is obvious that when this State recovers financially, these legislators and those that will follow them will continue to use the same budgeting techniques; forgetting to add a “reserve fund” into the budgeting process and setting this state toward another financial collapse in the future.

This lack of planning for the future is as old as mankind. Aesop, in his fables written over 2000 years ago, wrote a story of the Grass Hopper and the Ants. In that story, the Ants prepared for the future while the Grass Hopper played and lived only for that day and never thought about the future. That story is as true today as it ever was, and as it was in Aesop’s time, most people, most businesses and most governments don’t plan for the future.

We have seen a lot of comments from people complaining that our governments’, City, State, and Federal, can’t balance their budgets, but most of these same critics don’t, or even can’t balance their own personal budget’s either.

Either the average person is following the way their government runs its budget, or the governments, who are run by people, are following the same mentality as the average person, not planning for the future.

When a budget is being prepared, whether by a private person, or by a government entity, one of the priorities should be to include a saving’s plan for any unforeseeable future event.

Let us hope that when we pull out of this disaster that our various levels of government will realize what they need to add to their budgets and maybe this problem will not come back to haunt us again.

Why is Harry Reid being attacked by people in his own home state?
Not because he is doing anything against the state, but because the Republicans nationwide want to eliminate him for their own purposes.
People in this state need to ask themselves, what advantage will Republicans from other states have if Senator Reid is defeated by a Republican?
There are two advantages for those Republicans;
one that the numbers in the Senate will change toward the Republicans,
two is that the power that Nevada currently has in the Senate will fade into oblivion allowing other states to usurp whatever power Nevada has Federally for their own states benefit.

Included in that changeover will be the possibility that the Test Site will once again become the repository for more government waste (literally tossing money into a massive hole), that the radioactive waste that other states are trying to eliminate will be dumped in Nevada creating a possible toxic waste area for miles around potentially making Southern Nevada a no man’s land.
Another issue that Nevadans are seemingly unaware of is that if Senator Reid is removed from his position, the next Senator to take over as Majority Leader is most likely that Senator Schumer from New York, who has no love for business and who feels that the Federal Government should regulate each and every state. Currently Senator Reid is using his influence to keep the more liberal senators under control; Without Senator Reid there is no control.
Senator Reid is business-oriented and understands the needs of Nevada, which even his detractors have to admit.
He is now the most powerful politician that this state has ever produced.
One of the Republican front-runners has stated that we need new blood because Senator Reid hasn’t done enough for the State. The trouble with her argument is that if she or her primary opponent were to be elected in place of Senator Reid there would be absolutely no strong representation for Nevadans and for Nevada. It could be argued for an indefinite amount of time as to whether Senator Reid has done a good job or a bad job. The discussion of how good a job he has done is irrelevant to the argument that Senator Reid should be re-elected. If Senator Reid is deposed from office Nevada will slide back into last place of all the states when trying to get Federal assistance for roads, schools, and jobs. We will become beggars, asking our richer, more powerful cousins, like California and Arizona to share some of their power and some of their wealth.
Those that claim Harry Reid needs to be defeated because he hasn’t done enough for Nevada are forgetting to tell the public that if he is defeated, the winner will be able to do absolutely nothing for Nevada for many years to come. At this time we have the most powerful Senator in the Senate and a second Senator who was on his way to accumulating great power after 12 years in office until his recent downfall. The trouble with Senator Ensign is that his personal misconduct has become a national issue and a national disgrace which has reduced his political power considerably to the detriment of Nevada.
The trouble with politics is the politics. Those politicians who complain about our Senators are more worried about their party’s favoritism and about their own political future than about this state and the future of those that live here.
If you are a true Nevadan then there is no choice but to support the existing political powers. After 5 terms, Senator Reid is the power and brings to Nevada more Federal power than out state has ever had.