The Nevada Voice Podcast

John Vellardita on His Plan to Raise a Billion Dollars for Education

John Vellardita is being generous. Magnanimous even. The new tax proposals he and his organization - the Clark County Education Association (CCEA) - are touting is for all issues in the state. Not just education. “We have a contraction of dollars from the feds on Medicaid money, we have issues around mental health. I mean there’s other needs the states has… so raising additional revenue that’s outside of education… relieves an effort to try to draw from education.” Vellardita and CCEA are collecting signatures for a ballot measure that would force the legislature to consider new revenue streams in 2021, or leave it to voters in 2022. The first ballot measure is the Local School Support Tax, which is currently the largest tax going to education. It’s a statewide sales tax, currently at 2.6 percent. CCEA wants it to go to 4.1 percent. Check out the graphs at the Guinn Center [https://guinncenter.org/photo-essay/nevada-budget-overview/]. The Local School Support Tax funds almost 29 percent of the state budget. Along with the support tax, Vellardita is also collecting signatures so voters can weigh in on raising teh gaming tax, from 6.75% to 9.75%. That initiative is the source of his magnanimity. Gaming doesn’t go to schools. It goes to the General Fund. But Vellardita is calculating that if more money goes to other importing issues, then there will be more left over for schools. Both taxes will, Vellardita says, raise $1.4 billion annually. That kind of money would transform school funding in Nevada. CCEA has until November 18 to collect enough signatures to send a bill to the legislature. They have to collect nearly 98,000 signatures - at least 24,000 in each Congressional district in the state. After that, the legislature can vote up or down. If they vote up, then those taxes go into effect. If they vote down, then the initiative goes on the ballot in 2022. Just to make things more interesting, there’s another race in 2022. For Governor. Steve Sisolak will be trying to keep his job just when voters might be coming to the ballot to vote for two new taxes. Oh, also, Vellardita hinted there may be a third ballot initiative directed at another state industry. We’ll keep you posted.

"People Don't Care: An exit interview with Amelia Pak-Harvey

As Amelia Pak-Harvey was on the road to Indianapolis, to start work covering City Hall for the Star-Tribune, we caught up by phone and had a wide ranging conversation about her view of education in Southern Nevada. Pak-Harvey has some really great memories of her three years here. But she also left Vegas struck by how many people here just don't care. That includes parents, non-parent citizens and government officials - especially in the legislature.

Teachers and Secondary Trauma: A discussion

Imagine, as a teacher, finding one of your students has died. Imagine it happens often. In a single year. Imagine knowing that a student of yours is being trafficked. By her family? Imagine teaching English to kids who don't feel safe, who don't have food, who don't see a future for themselves. Who could care less about a southern lawyer fighting for justice in the 1950s segregated south. Teachers in America deal with this reality every day. They are burnt out. They bounce between caring so much it hurts, to numbness. They are experiencing secondary trauma. Many leave. But many stay. For their students. Carrie Kaufman has a riveting discussion with two veteran teachers - Tonya Scroggin and Alexis Salt - about what they've seen, what they do for their students, and why they stay. These teachers want to change America's view of what students need to succeed. "It's not just about test scores," said Salt, adding that before she can focus on Bloom's Taxonomy [https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/], she has to deal with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs [https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html]. Many of the students Salt deals with are still on steps one or two of Maslow's. "You're teaching kids who have been raised by kids," said Salt. "I  know very few children whose parents don't have any substance abuse issues." Salt and Scroggin see a marked change in students since the recession in 2008. There's as whole generation that is growing up without hope. "There's just a nihilism in kids, Salt said. The things they joke about, the things they kid about... You have this horrible mix of hedonism and nihilism and they had a baby. "No Child Left Behind told us we were accountable for students, but we've been way more than that. In fact, just saying we're accountable reduces what we do," said Scroggin, who noted that she sees the same issues at Coronado - where a few kids have committed suicide in the last few years. "They're sad, and they don't know why they're sad. They're lonely. They're reaching out, and no one is there," said Salt. This is a must-listen for any teacher, any education leader, or any parent Join Us! Nevada Voice is doing is holding regular, off the record, group meetings around topics of social issues in schools. That includes teacher issues and burnout. The rules are that you walk into the room and put your cell phone in a box. And just talk. The number of participants will be limited each time, but we’re trying to get a sense of what people are dealing with, and how it can be solved. If you are interested, connect with me through the Nevada Voice Facebook page, or stories@nevadavoice.org [stories@nevadavoice.org]or join in the conversation at Nevada Voice's Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/nevadavoice].

Teaching Black Kids to Advocate for Themselves

Michelle Gillie Amor is a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Her son earned an A in his AP World History class, but the teacher gave him a B. Michelle told her son to challenge the grade. When that got nowhere, she and her husband stepped in - exposing a teacher who changed her mind because, as she told Michelle, "he was having too much fun." Akiko Cooks and Carrie Kaufman talk with Michelle about "black boy joy" and how they are teaching their sons and daughters to advocate against systems.

Why is the Nevada State teachers union mad at the Legislature?

SB543. Nevada's new funding formula. It is supposed to solve the issue of money being supplanted from the state education budget. (See the video explaining supplanting here.) But not everybody is happy with the new law, and they're putting a lot of pressure on a funding commission that is tasked with working out the law's details. Chief among the concerns is that the new funding formula doesn't provide any funding. It's a hangar waiting for clothes. But groups such as the Nevada State Education Association are also concerned about the idea that funding must follow the student. That means that students who need extra help - as ELL students, as underprivileged students, as GATE students, as disabled students - would get funding for that extra help no matter what school they went to. Even if they were the only ones who needed that extra help in those schools. That is not what we do now. What we do now is to give extra funding to schools that have large populations of students who fall into those categories. This is called "weighted funding." Carrie Kaufman sat down with two critics of the bill who are hoping the funding commission will fix the issues they say might be harmful.