Letters to the editor for Thursday, April 19, 2018

Nevada’s education system deserves transparency

This month, gubernatorial candidate Adam Laxalt introduced his platform for Nevada education, and one part especially caught my eye. Laxalt calls for creating a new “online education checkbook” to track how education money is being spent all across Nevada. As a veteran educator with 12 years of experience in the classroom and two as an administrator — and as a parent as well — I’ve had the opportunity to see Nevada education from nearly every angle. And I must say this commitment to greater transparency is exactly what our system needs.

First, the obvious reason: Our school system is funded by Nevada’s hard-working taxpayers, and those who foot the bill deserve to know where their money is going — as do the parents and students who have so much riding on whether our education system succeeds. Which brings me to the second reason transparency is important. We can’t have a quality education system if we don’t know whether we’re spending our money wisely, or whether enough is getting to the classroom, where it will have the greatest impact.

Nevada’s education system has suffered from a lack of transparency for too long. I applaud Adam Laxalt for his commitment to doing something about it.

Bret Scoggin

Reno