News 88.9 KNPR's State of Nevada -- Clark County School Rankings and What That Means for Your Child

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Clark County School Rankings and What That Means for Your Child

AIR DATE: March 1, 2012

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Clark County Elementary and Middle Schools are now being ranked by stars. Five stars means your school is top tier which of course means one star places your school at the bottom in performance. We're going to talk with one of the architects of the new school rating system as well as a principal from a five star school and one from a two star school. We also want to hear from you. What did your child's school rank? How does that make you feel?

GUEST

Ken Turner, PhD, Special advisor to the Superintendent, CCSD

Christy Beaird, PhD, Principal, Ferron Elementary School

Paul Catania, Principal, Bonner Elementary School

LINKS

Clark County School Rankings and What That Means for Your Child

LATEST COMMENTS

Judging from most of the students that I get ...
-John Doe

When we talk about teacher evaluations you ...
-Stan Taylor

When I reported on this for City Life last ...
-Heidi Kyser

Join the Conversation


	COMMENTS:
	Judging from most of the students that I get in my classes at UNLV, I'd guess that all Clark County schools must be rated zero-stars. In the 1950's, schools in this country produced the students who put man on the moon. Now they mostly produce students whose only "skill" is being stupid and uneducated. For the record, I blame it all on the education colleges. John Doe –Mar 2, 2012 17:01:31 PM Respond to this comment

	When we talk about teacher evaluations you must keep in mind certain things when judging their performance on student improvement. Many teachers have children come and go from their classes throughout the year. An excellent teacher may see no growth in her students overall due to the transient nature of the student population. On the other hand a school with excellent scores, good staff and motivated involved parents may find it hard to get all of the kids to improve significantly because they are already achieving at a high rate. Stan Taylor –Mar 1, 2012 10:04:45 AM Respond to this comment

	When I reported on this for City Life last fall, administrators and teachers seemed supportive of the performance zones concept, but said it would be hard to give it their full attention, because of all the other changes being implemented at the same time. http://tinyurl.com/7c8blhm Heidi Kyser –Mar 1, 2012 10:04:19 AM Respond to this comment

	I think what people need to keep in mind is what the purpose of these rankings are(whether here in Nevada or the controversial NY release of teacher testing ratings). It can be a good idea to have these ratings to assess where to improve--the problem is that the public release of these isolated numbers are misinterpreted and creates a scare and unfair judgment because of a lack of context. This is unproductive. Particularly when teachers are already pushed to their limits and are getting less support and time to reach goals. Sandra M. –Mar 1, 2012 09:50:46 AM Respond to this comment

	As a former school psychologist and a small business owner, I think the comment of the administrator who stated that this was this ranking was a way of looking at "return on investment" was way off base and idiotic. This comment feeds into the conservative agenda that school is a business. Education, especially elementary and secondary, is not a business. It is a profession to be honored and for educators to be paid accordingly. There is NO way that one can calculate a return investment like I can in my business. We are falling far behind other countries because we do not honor education. Secondly, I believe this ranking is somewhat old and not based on current data. Will Schroeder –Mar 1, 2012 09:39:34 AM Respond to this comment

	Clark County School Rankings -- Sadly, ranking schools does not provide the required details of teacher performance. This country needs to start ranking parental performance as a demographic at each school, and then rankings might actually make sense. Marv Engels –Mar 1, 2012 09:23:43 AM Respond to this comment

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