In March of this year, Jhone Ebert was unanimously elected to be the first female superintendent of Clark County School District, the fifth largest school district in the United States. As the state is in the search for the next state superintendent to fill her previous position, Ebert has embarked on realizing her vision for better public education in Nevada.
With years of experience and extensive knowledge of educational policy Ebert has acknowledged that “we have a lot of work to do” in Southern Nevada to improve public education. While she won the superintendent seat of CCSD, the real challenge will be winning all the problems that have consistently placed Nevada at the bottom of educational rankings year after year. Here are some of the key issues that should be a priority on the newly elected superintendent’s agenda.
Chronic Absenteeism: A Crisis for Both Teachers and Students
CCSD has a long history of struggling with teacher and student chronic absenteeism. In fact, Nevada suffers from one of the highest chronic teacher absenteeism rates in the nation. In 2016, the Silver State ranked second-highest, with 49 percent of teachers being chronically absent. Chronic absenteeism of teachers has especially grown after the pandemic for the past three academic years.
Chronic teacher absence imposes steep costs in both financial terms and on student achievement. The financial costs associated with teacher absences primarily include substitute teacher salaries and additional administrative costs. These are not insignificant, as some studies indicate that these costs may reach $4 billion annually nationwide. This problem can be easily fixed by incentivizing perfect attendance through monetary reward, instead of the additional paid leave as CCSD currently does.
On the other hand, chronic student absenteeism is also on the rise, with 31.3% of Clark County students missing 10% or more of school days. The most intuitive cost of this is the learning loss that students across different age groups experience. By now, we know that the learning loss can cause lags in English, Reading, and Math proficiency, especially before third grade. Student absenteeism causing disengagement and declining achievement should be an exception and not a norm.
Teacher Shortage and Union Power
It is no secret that teacher shortage is one of the greatest weaknesses of CCSD’s status quo, with the teacher union holding collective bargaining powers and entry barriers being extremely high. Ebert has emphasized the need for more teacher and principal accountability, but will she target the union’s resistance to educational reforms? Higher salaries that the union advocates for are in place, but if bureaucracy continues to stifle reform, teachers will keep walking away.
It is important to simplify the educator’s entry into the classroom and instead of just throwing money at the problem. However, it is even more important to put the money in the right place. Nevada Policy has long advocated for merit pay for teachers who demonstrate highest student achievement, as rewarding the best-performing teachers instead of the longest employed ones will have exponential outcomes on educator performance.
Student Achievement as the Ultimate Measure of Success
CCSD’s academic performance lags behind the national standards, with only 19% of high schoolers demonstrating proficiency in Math, and 46% in English. Ebert has offered several ideas for improving student achievement, including delaying start times and emphasizing competency-based learning. While the ideas are fresh and somewhat new to the district, the forefront of the issue should be elevating Clark County students to the national average and not lowering the bar.
Before focusing attention on new programs, it is essential to reevaluate the purpose of the existing ones and divert spending from those that offer little to no impact on academic outcomes. Programs such as class-size reduction, full-day kindergartens, and premium pays for advanced degrees keep draining CCSD funds, despite the evidence of their lack of impact on student achievement. Targeting the inefficiencies is the forefront of achieving better results, and Ebert has the chance to reevaluate the CCSD spending.
Bottom Line: It’s about Results and Not about the Rhetoric
Clark County teachers, students, and parents have heard promises before. But what matters is whether Ebert will manage to turn her words into tangible outcomes – increased attendance, higher teacher quality, and above all, better student outcomes. These are issues that cannot be addressed or solved by the superintendent alone.
As the legislators progress through the 83rd legislative session, it is imperative to implement measures that enable school districts to make change. Jhone Ebert is in the spotlight now, but our focus must remain on the issues that matter because a new superintendent is only as good as the results she delivers.
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