If only the Clark County School District were as good at educating students as it is at spinning bad results.
On Tuesday, Nevada released student achievement data from the past school year. The district’s results were downright depressing. Just 43 percent of district third graders were proficient in reading. That was a slight drop from the previous year’s 43.6 percent proficiency rate. Both numbers are below the 46.7 percent proficiency rate that Nevada third graders had before COVID.
Eighth grade math proficiency did increase, going from 24.5 percent in the 2024-25 school year to 25.4 percent last year. Both results are below the 29.8 percent proficiency rate district eighth graders had in the 2018-19 school year.
This is what systemic failure looks like. No wonder families are fleeing the district. But you wouldn’t know it from how the district talked about these results.
“73 percent of CCSD schools maintain or improve NSPF ratings,” its news release stated. That refers to the Nevada School Performance Framework, which determines star rankings.
District eighth graders may not understand what that implies, but most adults do. Around 27 percent of district schools saw their star rankings drop. That was 95 out of 353 qualifying schools. Just 49 schools saw their star rating increase. What a disaster.
Last year, the district had 73 one-star schools. This year, it has 90. It wasn’t just struggling schools that took a hit. The number of five-star schools dropped from 48 to 32.
Dig in deeper and you’ll find more reasons to be depressed. At the one-star Orr Middle School, only 16.4 percent of students are proficient in reading, and just 6.8 percent of students are proficient in math.
Even the proficiency rates at five-star schools can be shockingly low. At the five-star Green Valley High School, its reading proficiency rate is under 70 percent. Less than 25 percent of students are proficient in math. East Career and Technical Academy is a five-star magnet school. One might think its achievement levels would top 80 percent or even 90 percent. Nope. Last year, 59 percent were proficient in English and 22.2 percent of its students were proficient in math.
These results should prompt some serious soul searching within the district. Superintendent Jhone Ebert started her tenure in Spring 2025, which means these results reflect her time in office. They suggest she has stalled out the progress the district was seeing under former superintendent Jesus Jara.
Ms. Ebert and the Board of Trustees do have options. A top priority should be ensuring schools are safe. The district should enforce a firm and consistent standard. The priority should be responding justly to the actions of individual students, not obsessing over any racial disparities that may result from doing so.
The district should also roll back the dumbed down grading standards Mr. Jara and a previous school board put in place. Jesse Welsh, deputy superintendent of teaching and learning for the district, said teachers need to help students engage in “productive struggle.” That’d be easier for teachers to do if they could reduce student grades for late homework or missing assignments.
Ms. Ebert should also give parents more freedom to hold their children back a grade, even if she thinks that gives students from wealthier families an advantage in athletics.
Clark County Education Association executive director John Vellardita owes the public some answers too. Nevada’s collective bargaining laws give the union outsized influence on how district funds are spent. In 2023, Nevada increased per-pupil funding by more than 25 percent. At the time, the union called it “historic” and said “we’ve never seen funding like this before in the history of our state.”
Over the objections of Mr. Jara, the union turned that record influx of funds into massive pay hikes for teachers. Now, the district faces a budget crunch that is directly connected to those union-demanded raises, while student achievement remains low. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Vellardita has changed his tune.
“You have not given a lot of money, and that’s why we have the same results,” he told KNPR recently.
If the district and union want to improve student achievement, they should learn from past mistakes, not demand the public repeat them.
