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School empowerment
March
23, 2007
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(word)
“Empowerment” will be the key word this coming week in our state
capital. My school empowerment proposal, in the form of Senate Bill 238
(http://leg.state.nv.us/74th/Bills/SB/SB238.pdf),
comes up for review by the Senate Human Resources and Education
Committee on Monday. My staff will testify for the bill, and I thought
you should know how important this legislation is to our children and
our state as a whole.
In its
simplest form, empowerment is an innovative way to decentralize school
administration and customize education to the students of an individual
school. It allows the principal, teachers and parents of each school to
tailor their students’ education process to their specific needs by
giving them control over their own curriculum, their own budget, and
even their own class schedules. The results will be evaluated through
the same standardized tests administered to all public school students,
and all state and federal requirements will remain in effect. The
educational goals will be the same. The best means to achieve those
goals, however, will be up to each school district and each empowerment
school within that district. This is innovation through common
sense—allowing educators to do what works best for an individual student
population.
This
concept has proven itself through successful implementation in school
systems in New York City, Houston and San Francisco. The basic
principles are also already in use in four schools in the Clark County
School District, half of which I have toured in the past month. In all
of these school systems, including our own in Las Vegas, these
empowerment programs have increased student achievement, which is our
goal for all Nevada children.
My
budget includes the funding for a pilot program to empower one hundred
schools across Nevada for the next two years.
School
empowerment enjoys the backing of key education professionals from
Nevada’s largest district, Clark County, to one of the smallest, White
Pine County. This investment in our children and in the future of our
state reaches beyond traditional boundaries. It deserves bipartisan
support.
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