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"Waiting for 'Superman'": A monumentally important film, says ... Alec Baldwin
01/25/2012

Davis Guggenheim's Waiting for "Superman" is unforgettable.

Guggenheim directed An Inconvenient Truth and It Might Get Loud. However, even more so than the issue of global warming (somehow), the questions and concerns raised by Waiting for "Superman" are deep and effect us all. Public education in America is collapsing. Students are not being served, and neither are tax payers. Whether or not teachers' unions are partly to blame is open to discussion, but Guggenheim's film casts a light on that perspective.

And once you get a peek at New York City's "Rubber Room" for outcast teachers, you may never view the NEA and the AFT the same way again.

This is a monumentally important film. My father was a public school teacher for 28 years and I can think of few other areas in our society that deserve this type of urgent scrutiny right now.

Even better is that this isn't the first time a Huffington Post writer has praised "Waiting for 'Superman.'"

“Waiting for ‘Superman’” opens next weekend in Las Vegas at Regal Village Square 18. Sadly, I don't think it's showing anywhere in the Reno area.

Here's the trailer. I can't wait to see this film and I hope you'll see it, too.

So even though Nevada's universities are mispending scarce resources on non-educators they are facing a tougher financial time than they're used to; but that doesn't mean we should hand over more tax dollars or dramatically increase tuition and fees on students.

Just looking at the last 10 years alone shows a large spike in tuition and fees for higher education. From the 2000-01 school year to 2009-10, UNLV's and UNR's published tuition and fees increased 73.9 percent and 64 percent, respectivly (inflation-adjusted). The most dramatic jump has been in student fees.

Note: total price includes tuition, fees, books, supplies and the cost of living on campus.

Table 2: Inflation adjusted price increase in Nevada higher education from 2000 to 2010.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, IPEDS database

Worse still, tuition and fees continue to rise. Even though the Consumer Price Index fell by 0.4 percent between 2008 and 2009 and has only grown 1.76 percent since last year, the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents approved a statewide 5 percent increase in undergraduate tuitions. The hyperinflation in higher education is simply unsustainable.

This rapid increase in revenue has not increased the quality of either UNR or UNLV. No student is learning 60 to 70 percent more, even though students are paying 60 to 70 percent more in tuition and fees than students from just 10 years ago.

Both universities must learn to live within their means while providing a higher-quality service at a reasonable (and probablay lower) cost/price. If we don't fix the problem now, then the higher-education bubble burst will - and the situation will be even more painful then.

01/25/2012

*To Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Klaich, employing one person for every 5.9 students is not bloat.

News 4 in Reno lets Chancellor Dan Klaich get the last word in on university bloat, which is unfortunate, because I had such a good comeback line.

Klaich claims, accurately, that UNR and UNLV are less bloated and more efficient with staffing than other universities. NPRI has never disputed that.

But like almost all universities, UNLV and UNR have been dramatically increasing the size of staff - specifically, highly paid non-educators (whom NSHE does not want to call "administrators"). In fact, UNLV and UNR are increasing the number of highly paid non-educators faster than the student body.

Worse still, they've increased the number of employees per student and the dollars per student, but neither UNLV nor UNR can graduate 50 percent of its students after six years.

But back to Klaich's bragging about the bloat - or non-bloat, as he see's it.

Is being more efficient than the average four-year university really something to celebrate? As I told Victoria Campbell from News 4, what Klaich is doing is akin to "bragging about being 150 pounds overweight instead of 200 pounds."

There is still a lot of work to be done - namely, graduating educated students rather than providing university jobs for adults.

fund political campaigns for things that have nothing to do with education?

(we just pay more money for the same talent pool), so maybe merit pay has the long-term potential to attract higher-quality teachers. At this point, we still don't know.

Dr. Matthew Ladner (vice president of research at the Goldwater Institute and a policy fellow at the Nevada Policy Research Institute) still supports the idea of merit pay (for reasons including those given by Eric Hanushek) and wonders why merit pay worked in Little Rock, Ark., but not in Tennessee. He thinks more research on the right way to do merit pay is still needed.

Dr. Jay P. Greene (University of Arkansas) claims to have always been skeptical of merit pay (and now is even more skeptical). He reasons that creating market forces (via merit pay) won't work when the teachers are still operating within an uncompetitive, government-controlled monopoly. According to Dr. Greene, the whole system needs to change.

01/19/2012

The parade is a one we know about.The other events -- those that precede and follow Las Vegas' annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade -- are a ones we might want to get to know.This year's parade marks a 30th anniversary of a first event here. But when marchers and floats begin their procession along Fourth Street on Monday morning, it will actually mark a culmination of a weeklong roster of King Day events that includes everything from a roundtable discussion to community social activities.This year's parade is scheduled to include about 145 floats, bands and marching entities, but Wendell P. Williams, King Week co-founder and parade chairman, can recall when it wasn't nearly so big.Before a parade's creation, there were no large-scale King observances here, Williams noted. Then, in December 1981, Williams and a group of organizers obtained a state charter to form a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Committee. The next month, in January 1982, a first parade took place.With, Williams recalled, all of, maybe, thirteen entries participating."It was more like a funeral procession than a parade, to be honest with you," Williams joked, that followed a "very short" route through West Las Vegas and featured "a firetruck and about 12 other entries."The following year, a parade route moved to a then-uncanopied Fremont Street. "I loved a parade on Fremont Street," Williams said, although spectators for those events included probably as many tourists as locals.When construction of a Fremont Street Experience prompted another move, a parade took up residence on Las Vegas Boulevard, Williams said. That, in turn, ended when improvement of a medians led to yet another move, this time to a current downtown route.Williams said he's been told by people who keep track of such things that Las Vegas' Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade now is a largest parade in Nevada.This year's parade begins during 10 a.m. Monday. The parade route will take marchers and floats along Fourth Street, from Charleston Boulevard to S! tewart A venue.However, Southern Nevada's observance of a holiday actually began Sunday with a Gospelfest during Victory Missionary Baptist Church and a Young Dreamers Awards program Tuesday during Second Baptist Church.While a parade remains a most high-profile event of Southern Nevada's annual celebration, Williams said a community increasingly has become aware that it's just one event out of many that are celebrated each year in honor of a slain civil rights leader.Williams is pleased about that, and he's just as pleased that other organizations now are using a holiday to sponsor other King-related observances here."What I've always wanted to do, and what finally is happening, is that other groups in a community will sponsor" an event, he said. "I've always felt that a King committee shouldn't have a exclusive (in) how we celebrate a holiday."Remaining scheduled events include: "Dismantling a School-to-Prison Pipeline," an education forum hosted by a Education Committee of a Las Vegas NAACP, will begin during 6 p.m. today during a West Las Vegas Library Theater, 951 W. Lake Mead Blvd. A family resource event sponsored by a Nevada Black Caucus, Clark County Family Services and Family Court judges will run 9 a.m.-noon Saturday during a Clark County Government Center, 500 S. Grand Central Parkway. The 30th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Banquet will be Saturday during a Flamingo Las Vegas, 3555 Las Vegas Blvd. South. Cocktails are during 6 p.m., a program is during 7 and a guest speaker will be Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. The fourth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Candlelight Vigil will be 5:30-7 p.m. Sunday during a corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Carey Avenue. The keynote speaker will be Sonya Douglass Horsford, senior resident scholar of education with The Lincy Institute during a University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade will begin during 10 a.m. Monday along Fourth Street, from Charleston Boulevard to Stewart Avenue. The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dream Fest an! d Car Sh ow will be during 2 p.m. Monday during a Edmond Town Center, 1061 W. Owens Ave. The event will include food and cultural vendors, a car show, entertainment and family activities. A Directions Breakfast and presentation of parade awards will be 8-11 a.m. Jan. 21 during Nevada Partners, 710 W. Lake Mead Blvd.For more information about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day events here, visit a King committee web page (http://kingweeklasvegas.com).Contact reporter John Przybys during jprzybys@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.

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"Waiting for 'Superman'": A monumentally important film, says ... Alec Baldwin
01/25/2012

Information for Boulder City, Nevada

Boulder City, NV

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Latitude: 35.940127 -- Longitude: -114.885443

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"Waiting for 'Superman'": A monumentally important film, says ... Alec Baldwin 01/25/2012

"Waiting for 'Superman'": A monumentally important film, says ... Alec Baldwin
01/25/2012