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Abolish high school?

Recently, author Rebecca Solnit (Men Explain Things To Me) proposed in a Harper’s article that high school be abolished. Solnit herself went through junior high school, took a general equivalency diploma (GED) at 15, and then went to college, skipping high school. She wrote:

“What was it, I sometimes wonder, that I was supposed to have learned in the years of high school that I avoided? High school is often considered a definitive American experience, in two senses: an experience that nearly everyone shares, and one that can define who you are, for better or worse, for the rest of your life. I’m grateful I escaped the particular definition that high school would have imposed on me, and I wish everyone else who suffered could have escaped it, too.

“For a long time, I’ve thought that high school should be abolished. I don’t mean that people in their teens should not be educated at public expense. The question is what they are educated in. An abolitionist proposal should begin by acknowledging all the excellent schools and teachers and educations out there; the people who have a pleasant, useful time in high school; and the changes being wrought in the nature of secondary education today. It should also recognize the tremendous variety of schools, including charter and magnet schools in the public system and the private schools—religious, single-sex, military and prep—that about 10 percent of American students attend, in which the values and pedagogical systems may be radically different. But despite the caveats and anomalies, the good schools and the students who thrive (or at least survive), high school is hell for too many Americans. If this is so, I wonder why people should be automatically consigned to it.”

Washoe School Superintendent Traci Davis responded, “I think that high schools are an opportunity to really learn more [of] the social aspects of it. I loved my high school years. I have a brother who probably did not love his high school years. The question probably isn’t if high school should be abolished. The question is, does it meet the needs of the learner or are there alternative high schools? And I believe that every child does not fit in a box, and so every child might not be successful in a comprehensive high school. … And that’s why we provide a variety of options for kids.”

She pointed to Washoe High School, now called Innovations, and RISE Academy for Adult Achievement.

Another local source said, “I know we have students at Truckee Meadows High School who are taking high school diplomas and associate degrees at more or less the same times.”

Reid’s having fun

As Donald Trump racked up victories—including Nevada—and alarmed Republican leaders tried to figure out how to rescue their party from him, Nevada’s Harry Reid has been doing all he can to nail the GOP to a Trump cross, often using the Republican refusal to approve an Obama supreme court nominee to make the point. As late as Feb. 15, in an essay he wrote for the Washington Post, Reid linked the Republican Party to both Ted Cruz and Donald Trump: “Are the cheering of Trump’s crowds or the adulation of Sen. Cruz’s acolytes worth sacrificing your basic constitutional duty?”

But as Trump has appeared more unstoppable, Reid has narrowed his focus to Trump. Samples: • “As each day passes, the Republican leader [Mitch McConnell] continues to transform his caucus into the party of Donald

Trump” (March 9). • “Republicans have spent the last eight years stoking the fires of resentment and hatred, building Trump piece by piece. …

The reality is that Republican leaders are reaping what they’ve sown” (March 2). • “They think that they’re going to wait and see what President

Trump will do, I guess, as far as a [Supreme Court] nomination. ... They’re all agreeing with Trump in one way or another” (March 1). Republican leaders are in the delicate position of trying to dump Trump while at the same time preserving enough elbow room to turn around and support him if he becomes the party’s nominee. At a March 10 Washoe Republican debate presidential party, a platter full of referendum petitions awaited arrivals on the sign-in table. The petitions seek to repeal the state commerce tax created last year to fund schools.

Taxing issue

School funding seems likely to shape campaign year

Education funding is shaping up as an important issue in this election year, by though often in indirect ways. Dennis Myers Democratic Clark County Sen. Aaron Ford—who voted for a major tax increase to raise money for schools last year, and would normally not want to raise the issue—visited Reno to ask if Washoe Republican state senate candidate Heidi Gansert would have voted for the hike. The hike is not popular in Gansert’s GOP so she

“Early voters tend to be very conservative, very old, and very white.”

Fred Lokken Political analyst

declined to answer. The Democrats are raising the issue against her because she’s expected to be a strong general election candidate, so they are hoping that little known Republican Eugene Hoover will take her out in the GOP primary. That would improve the prospects of Democrat Devon Reese.

A similar strategy was used by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid in 2010, who was able to focus negative attention on Republican Sue Lowden, throwing the primary to sometime Republican Sharron Angle, who Reid then easily beat by six percentage points.

Republican Sen. Ben Kieckhefer then came to Gansert’s defense, though he, too, would probably rather not talk about the tax hike. He voted for it and the Washoe County Republican Central Committee has, as a result, called for his recall (“Mixed message,” RN&R, Sept. 10, 2015). But it’s easier for him to address it. She’s up for election. He’s not up for reelection.

Gansert is Gov. Brian Sandoval’s oldest political ally, dating back to their days at Manogue High School when they served as student officers together. When he became governor, she resigned from the Nevada Assembly to become his chief of staff. It would be surprising if she did not support his position on the commerce tax, which he recommended and signed.

The Democrats didn’t let go of it. This week, on March 15, the Nevada Democratic Party sent out a news release headed, “Why Is Heidi Gansert Still Hiding Her Position on Education Funding?”

Hoover, Gansert’s Republican opponent, went to the legislature last year to speak against the commerce tax. He owns a courier service, said the tax would hurt small businesses like his, and said that he would support a ballot measure to repeal the tax.

The tax was subsequently amended to set a $4 million threshold before a business pays the tax.

Such a referendum petition is now circulating for signatures. It is a double-edged sword. Ballot measures appear on general election ballots, not primaries. If the referendum qualifies for the ballot, it will no doubt draw opponents of the tax to the polls where they can then vote on candidates. It will also draw supporters of education to the polls where they can do the same thing. Which side will benefit more? Will voters who go to the polls specifically to vote on the ballot measure be mostly trying to save schools or kill the tax?

“Well, that’s it,” said political analyst Fred Lokken of the portentous choice.

It’s an important question because the answer is also likely to determine whether they vote for Republicans or Democrats elsewhere on the ballot.

When the Nevada sales tax was created in 1955—an enormously unpopular decision—it was done specifically to aid schools that were feeling the impact of the baby boom, just as the commerce tax was created for schools. A referendum to repeal the sales tax qualified for the 1956 ballot and was marketed as a “Save our schools” proposition. The repeal of the sales tax was defeated by more than two to one—69 to 31 percent—and the Democrats won the state’s only seat in the U.S. House, a U.S. Senate seat, and the Nevada Assembly (holdovers saved the Nevada Senate for the GOP), even though Republican President Dwight Eisenhower won a landslide at the head of the ticket.

Language

Lokken said the wording of a ballot measure and the way it is marketed will likely affect which political party most gains from having the measure on the ballot. Republicans will treat the measure as a tax issue while Democrats treat it as a school issue, but otherwise no one knows the coming context of the referendum campaign.

Without knowing those factors yet, Lokken said he would expect Republicans to gain most from the commerce tax referendum qualifying for the ballot. He thinks so because of the popularity of early voting. Each election, early voters have become a larger percentage of overall turnout, and “for 10 days before Election Day, early voters tend to be very conservative, very old and very white.”

Another factor that cannot be predicted is Nevada’s growing reputation as a corporate welfare Mecca. If state officials had not spent years handing out huge subsidies to out of state corporations, Nevada might not be suffering from a lack of school funding in the first place. School districts have been hurt by STAR bonds (sales tax anticipated revenue). If large corporations get aid from government, will voters see schools as equally deserving? More to the point, will there be anyone to make that case? Democrats and Republicans have often voted in tandem to grant corporate welfare.

There are other factors that generally have not yet surfaced in most public debate. For instance, referendums deal with existing laws, and a law which is approved by voters in a referendum cannot then be changed by the legislature without another vote of the public. If the referendum seeking to repeal the commerce tax qualifies for the ballot and the petition is then defeated by voters—thus retaining the tax—all its provisions, including the $4 million threshold, would be protected from change by the legislature unless the voters approved. So sponsors of the measure will gain whether it wins or loses. If it wins, the tax will be dead. If it loses, the threshold will be enshrined in law that will be very difficult to change.

The Elko Daily Free Press, which recently covered State Treasurer Ron Knecht’s support for the referendum, editorialized, “We would like to see Knecht ‘win’ by getting his measure on the ballot. Then, if he ‘loses’ by voters ratifying the tax, it will mean the rate is set in stone—thereby protecting small businesses from being sucked into its web.” The headline on the editorial: “Anti-tax referendum could win by losing.”

Life for candidates and the referendum will be further complicated in Washoe County, where voters will face a second schools tax measure on their ballots—a sales tax hike.

Lokken said he has rarely seen a year’s politics so difficult to predict, given numerous factors that could affect the campaign. He pointed to the presidential race and the unexpected emergence of candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump as evidence.

“We don’t know how having recreational marijuana on the Nevada ballot will be a factor,” he said. “We have no idea how the U.S. Senate race is going to connect with voters.” Ω

Good cause

Debbie “Sam” Smith, left, and Rebecca Thomas arrange jewelry on a table at “Old Treasures/New Futures,” a jewelry sale and fundraiser last week for Women and Children’s Center of the Sierra, which helps women raising children break out of poverty into the job market.