The Nevada Voice Podcast

As Amelia Pak-Harvey was on the road to Indianapolis, to start work covering City Hall for the Star-Tribune, we caught up by phone and had a wide ranging conversation about her view of education in Southern Nevada. Pak-Harvey has some really great memories of her three years here. But she also left Vegas struck by how many people here just don't care. That includes parents, non-parent citizens and government officials - especia...

Imagine, as a teacher, finding one of your students has died. Imagine it happens often. In a single year. Imagine knowing that a student of yours is being trafficked. By her family? Imagine teaching English to kids who don't feel safe, who don't have food, who don't see a future for themselves. Who could care less about a southern lawyer fighting for justice in the 1950s segregated south.

Teachers in America deal with th...

Michelle Gillie Amor is a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Her son earned an A in his AP World History class, but the teacher gave him a B. Michelle told her son to challenge the grade. When that got nowhere, she and her husband stepped in - exposing a teacher who changed her mind because, as she told Michelle, "he was having too much fun."

Akiko Cooks and Carrie Kaufman talk with Michelle about "black boy joy" and how t...

SB543. Nevada's new funding formula. It is supposed to solve the issue of money being supplanted from the state education budget. (See the video explaining supplanting here.)

But not everybody is happy with the new law, and they're putting a lot of pressure on a funding commission that is tasked with working out the law's details.

Chief among the concerns is that the new funding formula doesn't provide any funding. It...

Communities in Schools is a non-profit that partners with schools to increase graduation rates. But that's not a simple fix. They deal with absenteeism. They are often the front line for kids with suicidal thoughts. They deal with bullying and other social issues. Their goal is to intervene before a kid veers onto a track that will end in dropping out.

As part of our ongoing look at social issues in schools, Carrie Kaufman sat d...

In 2018, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Janus vs AFSCME, effectively creating "right to work" rules for every public sector union in the country. Pundits called this the death knell of government unions. Workers now are not compelled to pay dues to the union that represents them in bargaining with states and municipalities. If you don't HAVE to pay, the thought was, why would you?

Brad Mariano thought otherwise. Th...

Every month, Carrie Kaufman sits down with Akiko Cooks, the proprietor of the Facebook group No Racism in Schools 1865, to talk about social issues within education - including implicit bias and racism.

In March 2019, Cooks was alerted by a relative to a social media account that targeted nine black boys at Arbor View High School, threatening a "Columbine 2" the next day. One of the boys was Cooks' son. She now speaks re...

Nevada Succeeds' Brent Husson says schools with lower income kids are paying more for their teachers than schools in wealthier areas. It's called Average Teacher Salary, and the new Nevada education funding formula may tie teacher pay to "actual" salary. That, says Husson, means a possible reshuffling of teachers.

He also says it's the way schools should be - with a mixture of experienced teachers mentoring newer...

Kids miss school for different reasons, but economics - especially poverty - is a major contributor. Once again, this isn't just a school issue. It's a community issue, say our guests. But Nevada is just starting to talk about solving the problem.

We talked to two principals - Jim Kuzma of Ranch High School and Kim Basham from Robert Taylor Elementary School - who have worked to lower their absenteeism rates. We also talked ...