MYTHS ABOUT PUBLIC education in Nevada and especially in Clark County abound. There are so many misperceptions I really don't know where to begin. So let's proceed.

MYTH: The Clark County School District is top-heavy and has way too many administrators.
FACT: With over 35-thousand employees, including teachers and support staff, the district's 1,100 administrators are well within reasonable limits. As the nation's fifth largest K–12 school district, it's more of a wonder that the huge school system is able to function as smoothly as it does with a fairly modest school level and central office administrative staff.

MYTH: The Clark County School District gets way too much money for operational costs.
FACT: The District receives about 6-thousand dollars per student which is way below the national average for school systems. In fact, the district's per student expenditure is the lowest allocation among all 17 school districts in Nevada.

MYTH: Students don't learn anything in the Clark County School District.
FACT: Clark County School District graduates are on par with students across the nation. Many district graduates attend colleges and universities throughout the nation including Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, among others. District student's score pretty good on the SAT and ACT test. CCSD has even had at least two students in recent years to post a perfect score on college-bound tests.

MYTH: The school system is growing so rapidly because of all the people moving here each year who have school-aged children.
FACT: Not quite so. In reality, the birth rate right here in Clark County is what drives growth in the school population. Five years after being born, students enter kindergarten. And each subsequent year a larger numbers of students are rolled up into the district's annual growth. Students transferring into the system from elsewhere account for a much smaller portion of the district's annual growth.

MYTH: The Clark County School District is all urban and suburban.
FACT: Most of the district's students reside in the Metropolitan Las Vegas area. But there are substantial numbers of students who reside in rural areas and smaller towns and communities like Boulder City, Searchlight, Laughlin, Sandy Valley, Blue Diamond, Goodsprings, Virgin Valley, Moapa Valley, Mt. Charleston and Indian Springs, among others. The district even has a virtual one-room schoolhouse at Goodsprings with less than 10 students.

MYTH: I am a homeowner without school-aged children, therefore I get nothing back in return for what I am taxed to pay for public school education.
FACT: Did you ever stop to consider that someone like you who didn't have children helped finance your education if you once attended public schools. Paying your fair share today to assist public education is your duty as a citizen. Ensuring the education of students who will become taxpayers themselves one day and take their rightful place in society as paycheck earners and homeowners improves the quality of life for us all.

MYTH: Education is going down the tubes these days.
FACT: Nonsense! More people are better educated today than ever before. It used to be that an eighth grade education or a high school diploma was a ticket to success. Today that standard has been raised considerably. Nowadays, it takes a postsecondary degree, a college degree, a Masters or above to ensure success.

MYTH: With a budget of around 2-billion dollars, the Clark County School District should have adequate funds to pay for children's education.
FACT: Staffing costs, mostly teachers and support staff, consume the greater share of the district's annual budget. The budget is computed on a formula based on the ratio of staff to students. With over 300-thousand students and 40-thousand full and part-time employees, the annual percentage of the budget required to pay salaries and fringe benefits exceeds 85 percent, which is typical for school districts. After textbooks, utility costs and other normal expenses, it leaves little flexibility for anything else, including better pay for teachers. To accomplish that, would require additional funding from the state.

MYTH: Students today are lazy and don't learn very much in school.
FACT: Yes, there are still a few "sweat hogs" in school that lack motivation to learn. But by and large, students come to school prepared to learn, as evidenced by the high percentage that passes the required Nevada High School Proficiency Test, which wasn't a requirement when you and I were in school. If you think the proficiency test is easy, go to this link and try the practice questions: survive.org/nppe/Math_Complete.pdf.

Public Education is not perfect, but it's a good system working hard to be better. With your help and your support, improvements can be made that will be beneficial to all of us who have chosen to make Nevada our home.