Nevada’s Plan for Education Reform

Nevada has passed education reform legislation that will make huge strides toward ensuring an effective teacher for every Nevada student. Below is a summary of the issues covered in the legislation.

Save Great Teachers

When teacher layoffs are necessary, the best teachers should stay in the classroom. Layoffs should be based on performance, not on seniority.

With the current fiscal crisis, Nevada districts have been forced to layoff thousands of teachers. Due to former policies, many of these were highly effective teachers. Until now, layoffs were based on seniority, an outdated and bureaucratic practice known as “Last in, First Out” (LIFO). LIFO means that the last teacher hired has to be the first teacher fired, regardless of effectiveness. This harms students and teachers in three ways:

1. Research indicates that when districts with LIFO conduct layoffs, they end up firing some of their most highly effective educators.

2. LIFO policies increase the number of teachers that districts have to lay off. Because junior teachers make less money, districts have to lay off more of them in order to fill their budget gaps.

3. LIFO disproportionately and negatively impacts the highest need schools. These schools have larger numbers of new teachers, who are the first to lose their jobs in a layoff.

The new education reform legislation mandates that in the face of layoffs, performance, not seniority, is the primary criteria for deciding who is let go. Next year and into the future, Nevada's effective teachers will stay in the classroom and Nevada students will have access to the best teachers possible.

Fair and Robust Evaluations

We should evaluate teachers in a fair and meaningful way so that we can reward excellence in the classroom and we can support teachers who need improvement.

We’re focusing on teacher quality because teachers are the most powerful way for schools to ensure a quality education for our kids. An effective teacher is the most important ingredient to a student's success. Because of this, fair and meaningful teacher evaluations are critical. We must be able to recognize and reward excellence in the classroom and identify and support teachers that need improvement.

The new education reform legislation establishes a new teacher and principal evaluation system that requires that at least 50% of the evaluation will be based on growth in student achievement.

Reform Tenure

Teacher tenure should be used to reward excellent teachers, not to protect ineffective ones.

We need to focus our policies first and foremost around the interests of our kids. With due process laws in place, tenure is no longer necessary to protect teachers from arbitrary dismissal. Yet teacher tenure, in its current form, essentially gives teachers a job for life, regardless of their performance, and prevents districts from being able to dismiss teachers who are consistently ineffective and unable to improve. This is harmful to students. No student should be assigned to a classroom with an ineffective teacher, and job security for adults shouldn't come before the interests of students.

Teacher tenure should instead be reserved for teachers demonstrate effectiveness in the classroom.

The new education reform legislation makes sure that teacher tenure is reserved for effective teachers only. Teachers must be evaluated as highly effective or effective for three years before receiving tenure and then must continue to receive those ratings to retain tenure.

Governance Structures that Put Students' Interests First

Where schools are failing, individual public officials at the state or city level should be ultimately accountable for school performance.

School governance structures traditionally involve a board of elected, but not well-known members. These structures often lead to policies that put adults’ interests first. StudentsFirst supports state or mayoral control where a failing district needs courageous leadership to execute reforms. One person should be held accountable for results and should be judged through the votes of significant numbers of citizens.

The new education reform legislation creates an appointed state superintendent who is ultimately responsible for school performance.